Carina
Contains spoilers
This was just such a sweet little book. It starts off a little slow and unassuming with some lovable characters, but some ways in, the author gives you a nice little gut check and you won’t be able to put it down!!! I wasn’t sure where it would land for me, but it was so charming and heart warming that it ended up on my 5 star list !! If you love cozy, feel-good romances with wonderful characters and happy endings (with some “that’s how life is sometimes” sprinkled in), this will be a winner for you!
WOW!!! I would be shocked if this wasn’t at least nominated for Book of the Year. This was such an incredible read, touching on themes of love, heartbreak, betrayal, and the fact that everyone has something to hide. I was most touched by the perspectives of the various women in this book. With each one, the reader will notice that freedom and what it means to them (along with what they would sacrifice in order to obtain it) is a shared theme. I can’t say much more about it without spoiling it, other than the fact that I simply couldn’t put it down and it did not at all feel like a 400+ page read. Brava to Liz Moore on a masterpiece!
I’m not going to lie, I couldn’t stand this book at first. I hated the first person narration (I wasn’t a fan of the voice and it just seemed annoying). I am SO glad I kept reading, though, because this was such a fully realized novel. I appreciated the themes of healing the inner child, love, and feminine rage. It didn’t quite get to 5 stars in the end because of the ending, but I really enjoyed this read and would recommend it to anyone who likes a closed-circle island whodunnit.
I enjoyed it overall!!!! 4.5 stars because the middle got kind of cringy and rushed, but it definitely picked up again in the last third. I definitely wish Erik had a longer stint, I really enjoyed his character and his part was super refreshing. Overall, very interesting concept and I liked the ending!!!!
Book was definitely written for the male gaze. Definitely enough sexist/misogynistic lines to sour this book for me, which is a shame, because I was looking forward to reading it for more than a year. 2 stars because, although the gross lines were that off-putting and annoying, I kept reading to see how it ended and what happened to everyone. All in all, I will say this book did not age well.
Alright. So:
PROS
- Plots twists
- Closed circle horror (kind of..? Not really? In spirit?)
- Intense game of cat and mouse
- Pretty good comedic relief
- Definitely suspenseful as you try to figure to figure out who the victim at the beginning is and then how and why
- Chapters end on cliffhangers
CONS (for me)
- Non-linear can be a little confusing
- Multiple narrators in a non-linear timeline
- Definitely could not decide if it wanted to be more romance or thriller based and I personally wasn't a fan of the jumping back and forth but can also appreciate the duality
- Some of the plot twists kind of felt like when Doofenshmirtz is like “oh, it's just a platypus.... PERRY the platypus”???? But after a while it kind of gets old
- I think some people would definitely like having unreliable narrators but I don't like not knowing who to root for/who to like. By the end I didn't really have anyone I was rooting for so I was just like ... kind of waiting for it to end because then it kept going back and forth with “poor Ciara..... BUT PERHAPS NOT....... poor Oliver..... ALAS!!!!! Poor Ciara again .... But WAIT!!! Poor Oliver .... Oh no, Oliver...” Like by the end I was the most lit about Karl tbh
I feel like this book had a lot of potential for me and I definitely appreciate that it's the first book I've read that happened during quarantine, but it fell short as a result of the cons I described. Again, I'm not necessarily saying they're flaws of the book, I'm just describing elements that I personally was not a fan of.
It was SO GOOD, it was SO good omfg
I am so happy I kicked off this year with this book
I really thought I knew what was going to happen with this book as soon as I finished the first chapter (I liked the premise regardless so I wasn't mad about it) and THEN it absolutely punched me in the neck like 5 times
Honestly I read the bulk of it in 2 days and I really genuinely loved this AND the author includes chapter notes at the end when you're done ?????? And I was like OH WORMMMMM oh my gosh you have to read it however if you don't like open ended books/unanswered questions this might not be super pleasant for you
Okay so I have MANY thoughts on this book which I will summarize in bullets
• I got this book because I thought it was going to be some kind of closed-circle horror story like Saw. At one point I thought it was going to turn into The Most Dangerous Game. But ... I was WRONG
• I liked the protagonist but I wasn't a HUGE fan of the repeated cliches (I.e. “I did something so bad .... Nobody knows what I did.............. so long ago..........” And “oooooooh his father is so HOT but I know that's so BAD” Like they didn't bother me too much but these same points were revisited so much without much variation that it stuck with me
• I knew it was a Get Out situation as soon as I opened the book and I knew Edward had something to do with it when he made Harriet go through all that shit and she was like “is there something fucking wrong with you????? None of this was normal” and then was like NUH-UH
• I like ... still don't understand what was up with Edward in the end. Like... he killed for bloodlust? And he found common ground with Harriet because she also killed one time ? I know he explained that all of the women knew too much or whatever and then he was like “oooohhhh I'm killing my whole family so I can TAKE OVER THE COMPANY even though they said I could take it back once my father retires but he hasn't” so he's just impatient ??????? And why would you need to kill everyone for that??? Like the book was really good overall (I literally read it in a night) but once again I feel like the ending was kind of sloppy and the rationale wasn't as strong was the other plot twists and devices used throughout the book which were SO good
Overall, the book undoubtedly captivated me and I was MAD the whole time during the Krampusnacht part. I'm going to read a synopsis to try to fill in the gaps I have and I might edit. Also I didn't like Fiona from the start she got exactly what she deserved Ls for the kids tho
This book took me out because I KNEW I had to finish the trilogy but it got so confusing??? And then I started to mix up characters from the first two books and then there was the super long desert part (I could only read like one page a day because desert parts kill me) and then the whole meta concept of like “we used technology to bring you to life and you are also Ryuji and Ryuji isn't real but also part of a different timeline” I just literally on my knees
I'm really excited for Birthday, though. I feel like it's going to be a lot more palatable. Overall I would probably rate the series 4 stars because I liked the integration of math/biology and I thought the characters are pretty cool. I STILL don't really understand the virus... like, is there really such a dichotomy between the sci-fi and horror aspects of this book? The Loop turned cancerous because of Sadako's spooky curse, which functioned like a virus? But ya I did enjoy the trilogy I'm definitely going to miss it
This book made me SO SAD, but it was SO GOOD. The only reason I didn't give it 5 stars is because I really wanted to hold onto the story or Wren and Lewis. While I really enjoyed getting some background on Wren's parents (and that whole thing), I really felt a mounting drama in the primary story that was interrupted with the background. I didn't feel that the energy caught on the same way when the story resumed.
The story and its conclusion were so interesting and heartbreaking. It was so unique and captured some of the most vulnerable parts of the human soul. It's raw, new, and it will make you want to hold onto everyone you love tightly.
Yeah, I was starting to question how much I was enjoying this book from about 20%-40% of the way through the book, but I really ended up liking most of the characters (especially Vince and Anne) so
I'm a little confused by the ending, but I'm assuming Janet knew what was going on because Peter kept giving her the jewelry of the dead women. When he was about to get SNATCHED, she wanted to throw away all of the jewelry that Tommy ended up finding and then she finally throws it all into the ocean in the end. Maybe she didn't know at first ... but I'm not about to give her the benefit of the doubt
Feeling really bad for Tommy but hoping he gets justice in a later book
I liked the ending as well. The whole thing read much better than a lot of serial killer books out there now, which are super tropey and don't really pull the reader in at all. This one does a good job of keeping things fresh/unique and giving you enough likable characters to have someone to cheer on AND keep you guessing.
This book was so sweet. I loved that it took place over the course of a day and was a little novella. I loved that Isabel romanticized so much about her life and was so comfortable with her self/coming to her own. I loved the aesthetics, the characters, everything. Realistically a 4.5/5, only because my 5-star ratings are for books that I really think have changed my life in some way. I would wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone looking for a warm, emotional, cute read (especially after something draining).
Yeah idk what I expected but it was not this
Definitely pretty horrific and had almost everything I hate in it, but it was super well written and unique so I couldn't be THAT mad, really more like 4.5 stars
Big fan of the allusion to The Most Dangerous Game and I also really appreciated the subtle political commentary
I wanted to love this book so bad, but it was very ok. The subject matter made it interesting and got me through 500 pages to the end, but I kind of felt like:
• The prologue was completely unnecessary and kind of set a weird tone for the beginning of the book (felt like a rushed infodump that we would have discovered anyways)
• Most of it was incredibly predictable
• The “plot twists” happened in the last 40 or so pages (again, out of 500)
• I still don't completely understand why Delaney or Elliott died??
• Overall, I felt that the plot was very lackluster with some sprinkled in gore that keeps the reader going
I wanted to like Henley, but I feel like the reader is kept at an arm's length, and not because of her personality. She is stuck in a weird 2D/3D limbo where she is constantly on the brink of character development (or at least more realized or likable to the reader, maybe?) but we never quite get there. The chapter where Olivier confronts the copycat lacked gusto - not what I would have hoped for in the rising action.
I will say that I appreciated the character diversity and the way the author shines a light BIPOC discrimination within law enforcement. Again, the book wasn't my favorite, but I think it was a great start for the author. Not sure if I plan to read the next Anjelica Henley installment, but maybe I'll pick it up on a whim one day and give it a shot.
OK SO I have a lot of thoughts about this book so here are my hot takes
• I honestly planned on giving this 2 stars because I really wasn't a fan of the way it was written. I'm guessing it's YA, but there were times where I felt the prose was kind of cringy (also there were a few editing errors). The pace/style matched the frenzy at the end, though.
• It took me almost 200 pages to start liking any of the characters TBH. I didn't mind, just a note.
• I would have really liked more formalized sections of chapters or chapters dedicated to outlining what happened to each of the girls/their history. I know one of the emphases of the book is the center the girl over the tragedy, but my rat brain was working overtime to put everything together
• Fast pace made it a quick read for me and I did enjoy that
• I did end up liking Heather in the end but I still don't fully understand what her deal was
• Okay and finally (I'm just saying but like) i just thought it was interesting how the first and only final girl to be picked off was a WoC