Sophia
4 stars
Nora is an attorney, a mother, and a wife, and struggling to excel at all three. She increasingly feels taken advantage of by her husband and her work, picking up the slack for the men in her life. When she falls in with a group of women who seem to have it all, she's intrigued. She wants what they have - luxury, free time, and husbands who actually help around the house. As she gets to know the neighbourhood more, she realises things aren't quite as perfect as they seem.
This book, like Baker's The Whisper Network is hard to review as while it's fun and gripping, it's also so real and frustrating. Baker's insightful commentary on the modern female experience really resonated with me and surely will with other women - we want more than the 1950s housewife narrative, but now we're expected to do that and still have a career. Things are better for women, but also worse.
A slowburn at first, the final third of the book is exhilarating and gripping. Domestic noir meets science fiction, The Husbands left me dying to read more of Baker's works.
Thank you to the author, Little Brown Book Group UK, and Netgalley for this ARC.
Happy Publication Day!
3.75 stars
Despite being on my to-read list for years, I'd never read any Megan Miranda before, but oh boy did I enjoy this one.
The Plot:
When Olivia Meyer was six years old she was swept away by a torrential storm while sleepwalking. Her eventual rescue after three days was branded a miracle, but the subsequent media circus and public attention led to Olivia changing her name and moving away. Twenty years later, she begins sleepwalking again and one day, wakes up to find herself next to a dead body, her hands covered in blood.
The Good:
∙ Red herrings galore! Plot twists I did NOT see coming!
∙ Interesting, complex characters.
∙ THAT ENDING. I thought I had the killer solved but Megan Miranda fully shocked me with that twist.
The Bad:
∙ A little too slow-paced at first, but it picks up in the second half.
∙ I wish we'd had more insight into Olivia's relationship with her mother.
The Ugly:
∙ Nothing! I loved this book and will be reading more of Megan Miranda in future.
Thank you to Atlantic Books and Netgalley for sending me this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
5 stars
Oh this book is BEAUTIFUL.
Disclaimer before going into it blind though -this is not psychological suspense, nor a thriller. It will leave more questions unanswered than it answers and it reads closer to literary fiction. It's sometimes confusing as it jumps between characters (there's a lot of them) and you'll get invested in one character only to never hear from them again. BUT if you can look past these flaws this is a beautiful, haunting book.
Nothing Can Hurt You is an exploration of how one tragic event (the murder of Sara by her boyfriend, Blake) affects a host of different people in different ways, even decades after the event.
I'd initially given this 4 or 4.5 stars, but after a few weeks of reflection I've jumped the gun and given it the coveted Sophia 5/5 stars because I cannot stop thinking about it. Nicola Maye Goldberg is an incredible, underrated writer and I look forward to reading everything she has ever written, ever.
Thank you to Netgalley and Bloomsbury Books for an ARC of this captivating novel
2/5
In 1995, a student is found dead in his university houseshare. 20 years later, the remaining housemates are invited to an isolated hotel under false premises, seemingly to force the killer to confess.
I was really intrigued by the premise of this book and its Agatha Christie/Clue vibes but I ended up disappointed as the story played out.
Things I liked:
- The plot! This is fundamentally a good story and I kept reading because I wanted to find out who killed Callum.
Things I disliked:
- The pacing was a bit ‘off' and the book felt like it oscillated between action and dull filler. When Callum's killer is finally revealed it was almost anti-climatic and glossed over.
- The characters, oh god the characters. There was potentially one likeable character in this entire book Spoilerand he dies within a few chapters. I'm sure the author didn't intend for her characters to be likeable, but they lacked depth and relatability and it made sticking with the book hard.
Overall: a promising thriller that fails to deliver.
Thanks to Netgalley and Skyhorse Publishing for providing this advance copy in exchange for an honest review.
Oh Kiera Cass, WHY?!
I loved The Selection and over the years have continually gone back to reread it. It's not a work of art, but it is fun, fluffy romance. When The Betrothed was announced it instantly became one of my 2020 most anticipated reads but now, regrettably, it's my 2020 biggest mistake.
Things I Liked:
◦ It was short. If this book was any longer, I would have just given up 20% of the way in.
◦ Valentina. Mrs Cass, please scrap everything you've written of the sequel and just focus on Valentina's character because she is the only redeemable feature of this book.
Things I Disliked:
◦ The ‘romances'. Y'know what was good about The Selection? The love stories were done well. There was no instalove, instead there was three books of long, slow, complicated romance that made my heart ache. The Betrothed took that concept and burned it alive. Hollis's romances were boring and unbelievable, and one of them only happened because, idk, she liked his blue eyes?
◦ The characters are SO DULL.
◦ The majority of the book is just boring filler of what Hollis does at court.
◦ The ending. Oh god. What a mess.
Overall: 1/5 stars. I wish I hadn't bothered to read this, but I know in a year's time I'll be back reviewing the sequel because I can't resist and love to hurt myself.
_____
May 15th 2020
Oh God. What did I just read.
Full review to come, if I can bring myself to do it.
4 stars
I was cautious going into Bitter Falls as I'd found the previous book in the series Wolfhunter River to be slightly disappointing. However, Bitter Falls completely restored my love of this series!
Gwen Proctor is now working as a Private Investigator, and her latest case finds her investigating the disappearance of Remy Landry, a college student who disappeared three years ago. Gwen is unfortunately a little too good at her job and the investigation drags her and her family into danger.
This book was an enjoyable addition to this series and Rachel Caine manages once again to keep the reader engaged and in suspense. It wasn't wholly believable Spoiler(Connor is a little bit too good at fighting for a 13 year old!), but it was fun enough that this wasn't a problem. My only gripe is with the pacing, as the climax happened during a very rushed few final chapters and there wasn't a real ‘winding down' after. I eagerly await the next installment in this series!
I read this as I was trying to find an accessible introduction to feminism to give to my sister. On that point, this succeeded, however I found myself annotating the margins furiously because a lot of what Valenti says is incredibly problematic. She mentions not judging other feminists for how they choose to act as feminists, yet she criticises women who take their husband's surname. She complains about ableism (very briefly in chapter 13) but the entire book is littered with ableist slurs. She also comes across as very partisan - ‘don't fuck Republicans', she says, and whilst I agree with the sentiment it's alienating to young women who are republicans, often those who we really want to identify as feminists.
My biggest concern was that somehow, Valenti manages to make feminism an individualistic ideology. ‘Become a feminist because your sex life will improve! Feminism is cool!', but feminism is so much more than just that and this is what concerns me.
As introductions to though, this is a good one - just give it to your future feminist with a pinch of salt.
I had really high hopes for this book and for the most part they were fulfilled. It was fun and moved quickly (although perhaps too quickly; I didn't feel we got much character development in the first half and they all seemed pretty bland but thankfully this changed in the latter half). I thought I knew what was going to happen and I was right by on large, but then woah plot twists were thrown! Excuse me while I go read the second book. 3.5 stars.
I haven't read the first in this series, having received this book through Goodreads first reads giveaway, but I plan to correct that soon.
I went into this book a bit apprehensive; horrors aren't really my thing. Yet to my surprise I adored American Savage. It's not such a horror as it is more a book about ordinary(!) family life, albeit one with a weird taste in food. Matt Whyman's writing is brilliantly dark yet funny, more people need to know about this book.
I received this book through a Goodreads giveaway and after binge reading it in a day, I have some pretty mixed feelings. I've never read any Tana French before, but I'm probably going to read her other books. Anyway, I'm going to go ahead and spoiler the rest of my review; I can't be trusted not to reveal any details.
Spoiler
Firstly, I guessed the killer within the first 200 pages, go me! Yet a huge part of me wishes I hadn't, I wished she'd gone a different way with the book and thrown a big twist at the end. I was expecting a twist of some sort, but instead the ending just felt anti-climatic.
The length and suspense of the book frustrated me as well; the story is set over the space of a day (albeit a very long day) and each conversation is meticulously recorded (as we see the day through the eyes of Detective Moran, interspersed with flashbacks of the girls). My English teacher would have said that this long, drawn out prose was a metaphor for how drawn out the investigation had been, the suspense that the detectives felt, but all it made me was tired. I found myself skimming the last couple hundred pages as I just wanted to get to the end and find out if my theories were right. Suspense is great, but not when there's 500 pages plus of it (alternatively, it's very likely I'm just incredibly impatient and have a small attention span and a penchant for short(ish) books).
I wasn't keen on the paranormal aspect of the book either; generally my feelings are that paranormal fiction should be kept far away from crime fiction. With all the ghosts and the magic, I was genuinely fearful at one point that Chris' killer would wind up being a ghost too. Paranormal activity detracts away from the reality of the book and makes it less scary, and whilst the ghost sightings were probably just teenage hysteria, the thing with the lights isn't so easy to explain. I'd like to presume the ‘magic' was merely teenage imagination and the strength of sisterhood - I hope this is this case - but I doubt this was what was intended.
However, bad bits aside, this book was incredibly enjoyable! The relationship between Detectives Moran and Conway was perfect and the way their characters and their relationship progressed was beautiful to watch. Both characters were deeply flawed, dissimilar and yet so alike and through the day and the book we get to see them bond.
Tana French captures all the angst and the drama of being a teenager brilliantly, 3.5 out of 5 stars. Now I'm off to read everything else she's written.
Absolutely beautiful, simultaneously heartbreaking yet hopeful. I think part of the reason I loved this book so much was because it reminded me of myself a few years ago and Ava Dellaira manages to convey all the emotions I felt but could never put into words.
Some complain about how irritating Laurel, the main character is. Yes, she's naive and lost and looks up to people too much, but it wouldn't make sense for her to be otherwise, nor would this book be so poignant. Love Letters to the Dead is a story about finding yourself and facing reality and I cannot wait to see what Ava Dellaira writes next.
I'm not going to give a review as such, just to say that MEG NEEDS TO SORT OUT HER PRIORITIES. People are dying and she's just fawning over the boy she has a crush on.
Warning: spoiler-ish
I really don't know how to feel about this one. I wanted to like it and the plot is really intriguing, but it was just not written particularly well.
Good bits:
- Exciting plot!
- Great plot twist at the end, I saw one coming but definitely not the other.
- Despite its flaws, it was gripping and I stuck around to see what happened.
Bad bits:
- Oh good god the CHARACTERS. I feel like none of them had any real personality, even Emma. They act ridiculously - there are moments where characters are in danger and the other characters just start talking about something else or MAKE OUT.
- More to the point, Emma is an IDIOT. She knows the clones are up to no good and potentially dangerous and yet she hangs out with them anyway.
- The main romance was contrived and unbelievable.
- The dialogue isn't well written. A lot of it reads like the characters are just there to dump information on the reader.
Despite this, this book was actually quite an enjoyable read. I don't know if I'll read the next book because I don't know if I'll care enough by its release, but I certainly don't regret reading this one.
