Katharine Forsyth
3.5 stars. Loved the writing, but because the MCs got together quite early on it wasn't as gripping after that. But I'll definitely read the next book Claire writes!
I'd been meaning to read this for years. Decades, maybe? I was very engrossed at the beginning. I love stories where we just find ourselves in a world that functions differently from ours, but the author/narrator assumes that we already know as much as they do, so we have to figure things out from little clues and throwaway comments. So the first third of the book was really interesting in that respect. Around the middle, though, when the pacing never changed, and things just continued being unexplained, I got a bit weary of it. Then towards the end my interest returned a bit... but there is never any climax or change of pace or anything like that. It's a quiet book, just one person's reflections on her life, and there's no big reveal or plot twist or anything like that. I wish we had found out a bit more about certain things, especially how the donations worked. But Ishiguro was obviously going for more of a “slice of life” story (based on very unusual lives which were normal for the people living them).
3.5 stars
Fun and readable, if a little predictable, but there were a few too many typos/grammatical errors for my liking. One or two I can understand slipping through. More than five and it just niggles.
This started well and was very readable, but it fell a bit flat at the end and felt like fan fiction. The sex scenes were a bit cringey, too, but luckily there weren't many.
I'm DNF-ing this. Life's too short to read a depressing account of the breakdown of a long term relationship filled with gaslighting. This wasn't at all what I wanted from a Mhairi McFarlane novel. She's a great writer, which is why I won't be rating this, as I do when a book is too bad to finish. It just wasn't what I personally wanted. Hopefully her future novels are more like the other four I've read and loved!
I enjoy Catherine Walsh's writing and characters, but I just don't find friend-to-lovers an interesting enough premise for an entire book.
The writing style bothered me, so I stopped really early on. Not going to rate it because I read so little of it; this is more of a note for me to come back to so I remember what happened.
3.5 stars. It's not quite as good as the first four books, but it's still a really good read.
DNF at 23%. Badly-written, too many inconsistencies, and just nothing interesting in terms of plot or characters. It's a pity, because the premise was made for me! Ugh. And then all the reviews talk about how many misunderstandings and miscommunications there are in the latter part of the book, and those are my absolute WORST.
Novellas don't really work for me. They just feel too rushed. This one was cute, but I wasn't the fan of the way it began with the couple getting together, and then going back in time to show how they got to that point. Because even though it's a romance novel, and we KNOW the two leads are obviously going to get together, taking away the mystery of when and how it happens kind of made it fall flat.
DNF at around 60%. I tried so hard, I really did.
Reasons I'm DNF-ing this book:
1) It sounds cute and fluffy, but it has a general air of gloom about it. It's just a downer.
2) I didn't get any of the fun “normal person dating a celebrity” vibes/tropes that I wanted.
3) I realised I didn't really care what happened to these characters.
4) The MC (the narrator) is an English guy, but he uses American words and phrases. This drives me insane; how did literally no one (editors, proofreaders?) pick up on this? British people don't use the word “faucet”! They don't say things like, “I don't know where my phone is at”. That's fully American. Ugh. Don't write a book from a British person's POV if you don't know how they speak.
I should have given up after the extremely awkward BJ that happened very early on. So cringe. But I really wanted to give it a chance, because it was supposed to be a gay Notting Hill retelling, and what's not to love about that? Oh well.
This one didn't quite work for me. I didn't feel the magic I did with her early books, especially Anatomical Shape of a Heart (aka Night Owls) and the glorious Alex Approximately. A half star rating of 2.5 would probably be accurate, but I've rounded up because this is definitely not as bad as some of the books I've given 2 stars to! But it hovers somewhere between “it was okay” and “I liked it”.
Not quite as good as the first three in the series. It felt a bit rushed, and there were a number of minor typos which should have been picked up before the book went to print. Still an enjoyable read - I really do enjoy the authors' style and will definitely read the next one!
Eh. It was readable, but it all felt a bit rushed, and the detective work of the main character didn't really make sense. It felt like the author planned whodunnit, and then just had the MC take huge leaps to get there. Plus she kept trusting people she'd just met, who were supposed to be her suspects, which is pretty silly for someone supposedly so brilliant.
One of the best romantic comedy/chicklit novels I've read in ages! Couldn't put it down.
