Teija
Aiden Graves takes a good 1/4 of this book to even start opening up, but when he finally does... hot damn. What a lead. I love the marriage of convenience setup here because there's no way these two characters would ever have spent the time together to actually seed true romance without it. But when it finally worked out, it was fantastic. I really liked Vanessa, but Aiden was the true star of the thing. His arc from surly scowling grunting man to an actual viable boyfriend/husband was really well done.
Julian Vos is more interesting in summary than in action — a history professor with Anxiety (capital A) whose family owns a vineyard and who has taken a sabbatical to write a book! But in action he's kinda hot and cold. There are some great moments but I found him aggravating as often as I found him charming.
But Hallie Welch? PROTECT THIS DELIGHTFUL CINNAMON ROLL DOG MOM WITH EVERYTHING YOU'VE GOT! I love her
This was a twisting, turning story with unreliable narrators all the way through. Just when you think you're truly getting to the truth of it, another thing pops up to make you doubt something. And the title of the book itself has you going in from the get-go in sleuth mode trying to figure out what's real and what isn't. That this is set against the backdrop of true crime podcasts and Netflix documentaries, both of which are genres known for their biased reporting and clever editing, only makes it more interesting. What's real? What isn't? Is Josie nuts, or is Alix? Is everyone nuts? What's up with their husbands?
Anyway, I finished it and I still have no idea what's the real, honest-to-god truth, and I'm both cranky and not that Lisa Jewell clearly meant it to do that to me. Hah. 3.5 stars, but you know how Goodreads is.
This one sucked me in! I know the general story of Boudica but reading a story based on it was great fun. All the druidic stuff in particular was really interesting. I love a story with strong fae vibes and this one didn't disappoint.
I do kinda wish I'd looked to see if it was a standalone first but I guess now I know what to buy next...
So this one's fine? Adrienne, the main character, is frustrating at times but her conflicts are rooted in the real, heart wrenching problem of her sick son and doing what is best for him despite her abusive husband.
The story contains a lot of frustrating “but maybe we can fix it” moments from Adrienne, multiple points of almost-leaving and then balking, but knowing that this is truly what happens to a lot of women trying to get out of abusive marriages, I think it's commendable the author tried to be realistic in her portrayal.
Logan is an absolute piece of shit, though. Jesus.
Fake dating!? Yes please! A favorite trope to read, when done well, and Mhairi McFarlane did it REALLY well. She actually takes the time and effort to dissect the effects of doing something like this. It's got a psychological toll, it's straight-up lying to people who truly care about you (what is worse than faking it for your parents? Or his? And do you tell your best friends? The more people you tell, the more you risk it all coming out...). The main character's biracial heritage is also tactfully handled, as is the unbearable grief of a breakup you never saw coming—and the rage-inducing revelations of what truly caused it, and what a shit her partner had truly been to her.
I actually liked the love interest, Jamie, from the get go, and enough that despite his comparatively small presence on the page, I found myself siding with him in some of his and Laurie's miscommunication spats. He's got a reputation that he earned, and the more the line between fake and real blurs, the more those preconceived notions become a problem. It's masterfully handled, and I thought truly well done.
However, nearly everything to do with their place of work and the people therein is horrible. I don't mean poorly written or badly done, but just... fucking ridiculous. Sadly I have seen workplaces that behave with similar misogyny and machismo, so I know they actually DO happen, but good lord. The Michaels and Kerrys of this book are the absolute worst, and I surely cannot be the only person who hoped that perhaps Laurie or Jamie would at some point accidently hip-check one of them a little violently by a tall hi-rise window that happened to be poorly affixed to the building. Whoopsiedoodle.
Overall a delightful read, and also, I'm a little salty about the mention of Gregg's there in the middle, because I'm about as far as you can get from a Gregg's geographically speaking, and I have wanted a bacon cheese pasty since I read that line. Damn it all.
So this one is tough because on the one hand, the characters were interesting and I liked the setting and the whole general atmosphere of the book. The fact that the characters are roughly my age made the flashbacks particularly enjoyable, in that “wow that's familiar” kind of a way. It's clear the author, too, is probably around my age, considering the little details in the eldest daughter's memories in particular were extremely close to my own teenage years. I think the handling of grief, substance abuse, and inequitable family dynamics was really well done here, and I really liked the parts of this story that dove into “how does a family with a bunch of secrets and seemingly unfair treatment of siblings deal with the death of a parent?”
However I'm not sure that's enough to make up for the lackluster thriller/mystery portion. There's a fine line between “this was a predictable ending” and “I figured it out because the author properly seeded the mystery and I followed her breadcrumb trail to its natural conclusion,” and I am not entirely sure this author pulled it off. There were some side plots that were mildly interesting, but the overall reveal of it left me in a kind of a “meh” place when it was all said and done.
twisty turny mystery!
This is a delightful, well paced mystery with a few solid twists to keep you guessing. The character work is really my favorite part, though. The friendships feel lived in, the villain feels realistically horrible, and the romance feels earned. Also, Alex is a joy and a half just in general. The world needs more Alexes.
Miles and Daphne are both absolute messes who find themselves living together when their significant others drop them for each other...
Overall, this is another Emily Henry emotional humdinger, but this one's not quite as big a whammy for me as some of her others have been. Both Miles and Daphne would do well to see a flotilla of therapists, probably. But their falling for each other is realistically written, and Miles reads like a stone-cold fox. If not a desperately fucked up stone cold fox.
I'm just going to go ahead and assume the two of them meet with some professionals together later.
A perfectly cromulent thriller. I never quite resonated with why the terrorists did what they did, but then again, are we supposed to understand? I think the book would have hit harder if we felt their plight viscerally from the get-go, but they start out claiming it's random chaos, which takes the legs out of under their ultimate, deeper reason. Which honestly could have been compelling entirely in its own right.
Other than that, I liked the plucky flight attendants and the resourceful FBI agent, Theo. I did not like the bizarre and sudden attempt at poignancy at the World Series, though. It felt wildly unrealistic.
Solid 3 star thriller. Sometimes that's just how it is.