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Felt drawn to this after We Spread (touched on themes of dementia/memory loss in a dark way, wanted to read something less eerie and more realistic in the realm of aging) and am very glad I was. Sad. Real. Having had a grandparent with memory loss for many years before his death, this hit a soft spot.
Realistically a 3.5 // Okay, this book was so sad. I have a soft spot for memoirs, especially tragic ones with no actual resolution. This fits the bill. I cried quite a bit, and I loved the idea of capitalism taking hold of self-help and rewriting self-improvement as a never-ending goal that you need to do X and buy Y in order to (never actually, because there's always something else) reach. The unattainable goal of improvement can be encouraging in the right context, but it can also be unhealthy.
Would rec. Good, quick read.
Wow. I felt a little bored by this book until i was about 60% done. I expected to give it 3 stars. There was nothing happening and i was unimpressed by the writing (which was sad because i LOVE Alice's other books). AND THEN the ending happened and i realized everything i missed in the first 60% and i went back reading as much as i could absolutely marveling at Alice's ability to make that first 69% work. WOW. Holy shit. I have been manipulated in the best way possible and i want to re read the entire book to feel in awe at everything that i couldn't have picked up on until i knew the ending. WOW.
Also an agatha stan and loved the nod to her. Knew the red herring was somewhere as it was in and then there were none.
Hard to pick a rating for this one.
Here's what i loved:
•The story kept me very, very interested.
•I never felt like i knew what the twist was going to be, and my theories were fun and changing throughout.
•Short chapters are my shit. Love.
Here's what i didn't like:
•The twist was... unexpected. But i almost wished it had been the revenge story it was set up to be. I wanted revenge FOR the person i suspected of the murder.
•I didn't really get the “whose story do you believe, his or hers?” thing because they literally lined up on most things and i feel like that was set up as the point of the book. Lost me on that one.
•Not to be that person but i had to take off a star just for the VERY incorrect and stigmatizing reference to OCD. Home girl, OCD and perfectionism aren't even close to the same thing!!! Get more educated editors plz.
•TW for rape and sexual assault to the max. Not for me. Had to skip those parts.
So very good. I feel like the bad reviews of this book being a sort of compilation of a lot of her other work missed the whole point that she pointed out in the beginning of the book, which is that this is an encyclopedia of sorts and not as much a self-help book that will guide you to a specific point. I've been reading this for a while and have absolutely been able to recognize more emotions that I feel and accurately define them–language is power for processing so I'm happy about that.
Laughing so hard at everyone in the reviews not understanding that Merricat has magical thinking OCD, while everyone who is familiar with OCD is clearly writing reviews of this book from that viewpoint. An unintentional OCD book for me, lol. Had no idea that was going to be part of the book.
Weird and spooky and eerie. Just my kind of quick book. Just watched the movie after finishing and while i did like it i did not like that they gave her a spell book in it lol, she was not a wannabe witch. Also they botched the ending. Book is better than movie.
Okay. Wow. So very impressed by this, was thinking the YA would be a turn-off for me but this was so much better than I ever could have imagined. And so much different than I imagined. So many different things happening and coming together and then when you think it all makes sense they throw something new in. On to book 2, I suppose.
I don't even know how to rate this book. I loved the beginning and loved the end. Both made me cry. The middle was much less moving, and it was so hard for me to feel invested in those alternate lives. I think that my issue was a lack of connection to Nora as a character, I didn't feel I knew enough about her base life to care about the alternate versions–even if the realizations were moving. I think I would have liked this more as a shorter story / novella with more detail about the base Nora and less detail in each individual book life.
Very good. I haven't read a normal fiction novel as an adult lol but i grabbed this one because i wanted to know how my experience with OCD would line up with a fictional portrayal. Turns out the focus of the book was a lot less how distressing OCD is and more on her friends, which was a lot lighter of a read and very nice. The story was sweet and engaging!
I'm not a SiFi reader, but Reddit got me again with this one. Been wanting a quick series to read and this was on Kindle Unlimited, so I read it. And I'm in love with MurderBot. The writing was really quick and kept me engaged, plus the short length of the book made it so there was no fluff-which was exactly what I was expecting based on the Reddit recommendation. I'm onto book 2!
I get a lot of book recs from r/suggestmeabook and this one came from there—I tend not to read up more on the book than what is stated there and because of that all i knew about this was that people were trapped in a zoo and had no idea this was an active shooter situation. Likely wouldn't have read if i had known that, but I enjoyed it regardless. Maybe it was a good way to get me out of normal thriller categories.
The baby situation was... a lot. I have too many feelings to swallow that and not get stuck, i found myself only thinking about the baby the entire rest of the book after the garbage can situation and was slightly upset to know know their fate.
I read the book over the span of less than 24 hours so i clearly enjoyed it and was hooked. My biggest complaint is that the didn't pull the zoo into the book more, it felt like the book could have taken place anywhere. I wish the setting was more intertwined in the chaos, especially considering the fact that it's not a normal location.
Good, quick read. Kept me hooked. Could have pulled the setting in a lot more. Rude that i don't know the fate of the baby.
A fine book, but TBH it was a ‘Skip The Line' book on Libby and I needed an audiobook to listen to when I pounded out some time-sensitive work, and I would not have read it had I known. I thought It was an average thriller and it was a world-ending type of situation, which was not what I was expecting and was very underwhelming. Heard they're making it into a movie and I think I would very much enjoy this in visual form.
Amazing and horrible. Graphic, and hard to read. Thought-provoking, and thrilling. I can't say more good and bad about this book. The last pages of letters rocked me to my core and somehow pulled everything together in the most simple, yet revelatory way. I am still processing the entirety of this book, but that fact alone is enough for me to give it 5 stars (major TW for rape, genital mutilation, and obscene violence).
“Because they could.” That is the only answer there ever is.
WOW. Reading this i felt it had so much depth and also lacked so much depth. What was her name? That drove me crazy. Why don't i know anything about her? When it all came together in the end i just had to sit there and think over the book again with the knowledge that she's simply a delusion and was in awe that a book with so little character development kept me so hooked that i read it in one sitting. I am so impressed with the authors writing.