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0593331540
| 9780593331545
| 0593331540
| 3.88
| 22,002
| Apr 19, 2022
| Apr 19, 2022
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it was amazing
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If diabetics need insulin to regulate their blood sugar, then Ruby needs murder to regulate the self-imposed ethical rules by which she lives her life
If diabetics need insulin to regulate their blood sugar, then Ruby needs murder to regulate the self-imposed ethical rules by which she lives her life. Just as she refuses to sleep with more men than her age (so, if she’s 24, she refuses to sleep with a 25th man until she turns 25), she finds that after a wide spread of time (about a decade or so), she finds the need to either commit or cause a death to happen. She doesn’t feel guilt, remorse, or concern over these deaths. To her, they simply needed to happen, so she ensured they did, and the world is better off without these people anyway. A bully when she’s 5. A rapist when she’s a young adult. A bigoted and violent woman who treats her employees like slaves once she’s fully grown and an established professional. She’s either outright guilty of some form of murder or had a hand in the death in all three of these people, but what this book is about is the one death she had absolutely nothing to do with: the death of her husband, who died of low blood sugar in his sleep on the first night she had gotten a full night of deep sleep at home in what felt like forever after a week-long retreat on teaching Type-A personalities how to relax and let go. Ruby has emotions like anyone else. The deaths she helped cause or had a hand in came about because, after internal analysis, she felt these people would only do more damage in the long run if they lived, so dying now would save everyone a whole lot of trouble. Hence why she carries no guilt or remorse over those deaths. They were, ultimately, necessary and a public service. No one ever need know. So she’s ultimately shocked and bemused when the police haul her in for her husband’s death when she had absolutely nothing at all to do with it. Type I diabetics die in their sleep from low blood sugar often enough there’s a moniker for it, “Dead in Bed”. That doesn’t stop her from being frozen in amber before she can even start her grieving process because the cops are laying the death at her door, despite the medical examiner’s findings that the husband died naturally of “Dead in Bed”. What I loved about this book so much is how human Ruby is. Rothschild goes to great lengths to weave a completely mundane, intimate, almost-normal but somewhat-extraordinary personal life story for Ruby: adores her sister, higher-than-normal IQ, a preternatural talent for reading people she’s never even met before, a great judge of character, hates clutter, loves routine, her favorite color is purple and you will never change her mind, doesn’t second-guess herself, and once she sets on a path she doesn’t deviate. There are so many little things revealed here and there during the book that humanize Ruby we feel as if we’ve known her forever by the time the book ends. Heck! I wanted to be her friend! How human she is makes the things she’s done seem almost just like a quirk of hers–something she just needs to do to equalize herself every decade or so, and it’s always someone who really deserves it. I found myself going, “Well, honestly… I can’t say she was really all that wrong in what she did there.” Do I feel bad about thinking that? No, not really. Should I? I don’t even know at this point. This book is a mind trip. It’s narrated in first-person POV, so I could write this off as unreliable narration. But I don’t. I don’t find Ruby to be unreliable. I don’t find she has the appropriate mens rea to be an unreliable narrator. No motive. She has no reason to lie to us readers. The plot has nothing to do with the crimes she actually committed: it has everything to do with the one crime she didn’t commit. And that’s the irony of it all. Rothchild could’ve gone for the jugular and wrote us the story of this serial killer in slow-motion, but instead we got the story of a grieving widow who had lived an incredibly interesting life and was being put on trial for the one murder she didn’t commit. I highly recommend this sharp suspense mystery. It’s worth every page. Thanks to NetGalley, Penguin Publishing Group, and G. P. Putnam’s Sons for early access to this title in exchange for a fair and honest review. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Apr 06, 2022
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May 03, 2022
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Jan 21, 2022
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Hardcover
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1956830111
| 9781956830118
| 1956830111
| 4.10
| 3,968
| Jan 13, 2022
| Jan 11, 2022
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it was amazing
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I was absolutely flippity-freaking-thrilled when I found out Sara and Rachel were writing a sequel to the very first (and still one of my absolutely f
I was absolutely flippity-freaking-thrilled when I found out Sara and Rachel were writing a sequel to the very first (and still one of my absolutely favorite) reverse-harem novels, “Four”. For the longest time, I think most of us had thought “Four” would stay as a standalone, and we were okay with that because Sara and Rachel both consistently put out quality material, but to hear they were going to give us a sequel? That was so exciting I pre-ordered it the day it was announced. So, as you can expect, I had very high expectations for this book. Did it meet them? Heck yes it did! It not only met them–it exceeded them. It took everything I loved about “Four” and elevated it. It took it higher. Iris was fiercer, Silas was more protective, Baron was more passionate, and Gabriel was… well, more Gabriel (and I just when I thought I couldn’t love my sweet little torture bunny more). And then, well… I won’t spoil that for you. There was the perfect amount of angst for me: not so much I felt like it was dragging the book into the ground and not so little I felt like the characters were taking the situation too lightly. The characters themselves were consistently carried over from the first book as necessary and new characters were well fleshed-out and extremely well-written. The plot was nicely woven into the plot from the first book and carried out to its conclusion in this book, and it ended on the perfect note. Thank you, Sara and Rachel, for an incredible duology. Thank you for these characters and thank you for the love and time you put into them. I know I will miss them (but thank goodness I have the books for the memories)! ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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not set
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not set
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Jan 13, 2022
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Paperback
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1682633241
| 9781682633243
| 1682633241
| 4.13
| 23,020
| Jun 07, 2022
| Jun 07, 2022
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it was amazing
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If this fantastic, imaginative, riveting, castigating, captivating, intense, passionate, diverse, and grotesque novel is only Andrew Joseph White’s de
If this fantastic, imaginative, riveting, castigating, captivating, intense, passionate, diverse, and grotesque novel is only Andrew Joseph White’s debut effort in the mad, mad, mad, mad world of literary publishing, I cannot wait to see what he has in store for us next, because this book was not only worth the wait, but it exceeded expectations. I’m going to go ahead and admit that I would need some time to sit and marinate with this book to give you a really good rundown of all the metaphors, parallels, and themes that run rampant all over this book. The double-sided meanings behind every Bible passage quoted and the intention behind their repetitiveness. The evolution from larvae to final form, in more ways than one. The completely justified castigation of evangelical Christianity and their hypocrisy versus the open arms with which the LGBTQIA+ community welcomes everyone and takes them in as a member of their tribe. This has always been the way of the queer community, and it always will be. When religious families kick their queer children, teens, and young adults out of their homes, the LGBTQIA+ community has a long tradition of taking these lost and often broken strays with them to safety and shelter whenever possible. This book illuminates this quite clearly. Even if it’s evident the apocalypse may be coming quite soon, the local queer community has come together and not only managed to find each other, but to stay alive and to prop each other up at the end of the world. I couldn’t have adored more the queer representation in this book. I think maybe the only letters I didn’t see represented were B and I. And hey, that’s okay! We got more than one trans character in there, and that’s a miracle in and of itself when it comes to mainstream publishing houses. This book is horrific in many ways, but it’s not scary. The horror comes purely from two sources: what people will do in the name of religion (which is nothing new) and body horror/gore. I say this with one caveat: PLEASE READ THE CONTENT WARNING AT THE BEGINNING OF THE BOOK. This is AJW’s request, as there is a great deal of material in this book that could be triggering to queer youth. I don’t normally include content warnings in my reviews, but since the author himself wants to be sure people read it, I’m gonna go ahead and sling it in here. I seriously recommend you give this book a shot. It’s horrific but absolutely justified in its righteous anger. Have you ever felt enough rage over the way LGBTQIA+ people are treated that you wished you could rain down a little hellfire on those who oppress them? Believe me, this book will give you a little taste of that. Thanks to NetGalley and Peachtree Teen for granting me early access to this book in exchange for a fair and honest review. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jun 21, 2022
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Jun 23, 2022
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Jan 11, 2022
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Hardcover
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0593198255
| 9780593198254
| 0593198255
| 3.24
| 11,490
| Jan 25, 2022
| Jan 25, 2022
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it was amazing
| I love morally bankrupt characters. I love morally grey characters. I love unreliable narrators. I love characters who are just empty inside, as empty I love morally bankrupt characters. I love morally grey characters. I love unreliable narrators. I love characters who are just empty inside, as empty as the color eggshell white. This book is absolutely filled to the brim with nothing but all of these things: morally bankrupt characters, morally grey characters, an unreliable narrator, characters as empty as the eggshell white on their walls and bedding, and their eyes as glassy as the windows in their mansions in the hills above Los Angeles. This book is absolutely fabulous. I picked it up and was swallowed within the first couple of pages. Every time I had to put it down to attend to something else I was bitter and put out. I ate my lunch holding my Kindle in one hand and shoving food in my mouth with the other. This book is told in two juxtaposed first-person POV’s: Lyla, the rich wife of a rich man who’s the son of an even-richer woman, and “Demi”, a homeless woman who has stolen the identity of the actual Demi who was meant to move in as a tenant in the guest house below Lyla and her husband. When Lyla is telling the story it reads like satire, almost like something Kathy Wang (who wrote Impostor Syndrome) would write. When “Demi” is telling the story it reads more like something gothic and suspenseful, like Meg Abbot (who wrote “The Turnout”) would write. This is reflected in how both women talk about their situations and each other in the narrative prose, and it’s a stunning writing style. It makes for a great tapestry. The book has a texture to it, but a very claustrophobic feeling. All of the action mostly takes place either in Lyla’s home, the guest house, or on the grounds of the main house in its entirety. As such, you feel like these characters are all isolated in this ultra-rich location high in the hills above Los Angeles, where no one but the richest should be able to breathe the cleanest air available and build elaborate houses that might burn or fall down any minute. As these characters play their games with each other, you will be revolted in some ways, angry in other ways, sad in some ways, and savage in some ways. This book isn’t a happy book. It’s a razor-sharp and suspenseful book that peeks over two different shoulders into the lives of people who have more money than sense, no moral compass, and are utterly bored with the game of life. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jan 23, 2022
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Jan 23, 2022
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Jan 09, 2022
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Hardcover
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0593356012
| 9780593356012
| 0593356012
| 4.08
| 1,342
| Mar 15, 2022
| Mar 15, 2022
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it was amazing
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I’ve always loved Chekhov’s play, “The Cherry Orchard”, because Chekhov not only had a lovely way with words, but because he could convey so much abou
I’ve always loved Chekhov’s play, “The Cherry Orchard”, because Chekhov not only had a lovely way with words, but because he could convey so much about the mutability of humans in a concise and clever way. The play is a classic for a good reason, and so when I saw there was going to be a novel not only about three times as long as the play but also updating the setting to Soviet Russia, I simply couldn’t resist. I wanted to know mainly if the author could capture the same story and the same lovely manner of storytelling as Chekhov without resorting to cheap tricks or melodrama. Would it be literary fiction or literary farce? My verdict? Literary fiction. An outstanding take on the classic play with the same feeling of ennui and mutability I cherished so much from Chekhov. I have to let you know I annotated my copy very heavily, simply because so much of this book is not only beautifully written, but some of the narrative reveals and points are genuinely insightful and often scratchy with dry wit. Humor comes at unexpected times from unexpected sources, and yet even the humor that’s present is either morbid or almost bellicose in tenor. This book is almost straight forward literary fiction, with a hefty chunk of the book relying on coming-of-age during the early 1980s. So you understand when I tell you this is not a quick read. The book is character-driven, with a large amount of characters all well worth taking the time to try and understand. The introspective passages about life in Soviet Russia, the notion of what makes a place home even if that place is absolutely terrible, how men and women do and don’t interact in a culture heavy with patriarchy, why so many Russians were absolutely okay with the autocratic version of Communism that reigned behind the Iron Curtain, and what it takes to be a survivor in a country that only cares if you live or die if you get in their way are all absolutely brilliant and the sentence-structure is lovely. I can’t recommend this book enough. In a sea of novels updating old stories, it stands out as one of the best I’ve read. Thanks to NetGalley and Ballantine Books for early access to this title in exchange for a fair and honest review. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Apr 06, 2022
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Apr 09, 2022
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Jan 06, 2022
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Hardcover
| |||||||||||||||
1250800552
| 9781250800558
| 1250800552
| 4.13
| 12,232
| Jan 25, 2022
| Jan 25, 2022
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it was amazing
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The first thing you need to know about this book is that it is INTERESTING. It’s unlike any other book I’ve read in this genre and in the YA category
The first thing you need to know about this book is that it is INTERESTING. It’s unlike any other book I’ve read in this genre and in the YA category in general for as long as I can remember. For that alone, this book would bring this book three stars, simply for attempting something outside the status quo and putting the time and effort into researching this era in Korean history and these historical figures enough to create an interesting historical fiction mystery around them. The second thing you need to know is that it gets to five stars by being utterly EXCELLENT at telling this story. The prose is elegant. The characters are well-developed and easy to identify with. The mystery is intriguing and well-plotted. The culprit is well-hidden. The subplot romance is understated the right amount and developed organically. The pacing and editing is well-done. There seem to be no plot holes and little to no loose ends. The book is neither too long nor too short. It’s all just so well-told and interesting I couldn’t find it in myself to put it down. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jan 20, 2022
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Jan 21, 2022
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Jan 06, 2022
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Hardcover
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unknown
| 4.33
| 248
| unknown
| Feb 02, 2022
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it was amazing
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This series, from beginning to end, has been such a joy to read: Petit four-sized treats of dirty, spicy romance that have titillated and delighted me
This series, from beginning to end, has been such a joy to read: Petit four-sized treats of dirty, spicy romance that have titillated and delighted me ever since I started reviewing these titles about midway through the series. But I’m not here to review the series. I’m here to review the last installment in the Master Class series: Choose. This is Juliette’s tenth lesson… and it was a long time coming. As with all the Master Class novellas, going into the plot at all is just kind of a spoiler from the outset, but if you read the previous installment you know it ended with Juliette flying off with her fiance to Paris while Malcolm being just minutes too late to stop their plane. And that’s where Choose picks up… just as the plane to Paris is lifting into the air. I don’t care that Paris is, as in most books, over-romanticized. That’s a trivial matter here. What counts here is the push and pull within Juliette as she is caught between what she was born for and what she truly wants. The man she was trained to serve or the man that taught her everything she knows? The man who bought her or the man that took her as she was and shaped her into the woman she has become? Duty or love? Expectations of her or what she truly desires? Deep down, what does she know she can’t live without? Bridges once burned are mended. Certain characters show their true colors. Sacrifices are made. And HEAs? Guaranteed. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jan 05, 2022
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Jan 05, 2022
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Jan 05, 2022
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Kindle Edition
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133541861X
| 9781335418616
| 133541861X
| 3.67
| 1,609
| Jan 04, 2022
| Jan 04, 2022
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it was amazing
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Taylor Swift truly is universally loved. And by “universally”, I mean that when aliens land on Earth, they can’t help but really love Taylor Swift too
Taylor Swift truly is universally loved. And by “universally”, I mean that when aliens land on Earth, they can’t help but really love Taylor Swift too. Music as a universal language is only one of many themes explored in “The Kindred”, but it certainly is one of the most consistent. Family, both found and not, is another. But love, in all its myriad forms, looms the largest and provides the emotional framework for this story. Because this book has a huge heart, as big as all the galaxies between the home planets of our main characters and Earth. This book is courageous with its open approach and attitude toward POC, plus-sized people, caste systems, class warfare, religious differences, sexuality, gender norms, toxic masculinity, and patriarchy. And it’s gregarious with its affection, words of affirmation, nonverbal communication as a form of exhibition, fast friendships, the human capacity for true charity, and using plain old kindness to build bridges and alliances. Our main characters, Felix and Joy (and isn’t it cute that the name Felix means “lucky”?) have been attached at the… brain?… since Joy’s birth, which occurred 3 minutes after Felix’s, and that attachment has taken them through stage after stage of love, to the point where they’re beyond love. They’re woven into the fabric of each other’s selves. They’re stitched together at an atomic level. And somehow that manages to come through in Dow’s writing, through talking out loud, through their internal communications with one another, and through nonverbal communications and gestures you might not think of as communication normally, but communication it is. I’m not usually a fan of flashbacks, but the periodic flashbacks that show just how much Joy has meant to Felix (or vice-versa) or what one has done to avoid punishment or consequences for the other over the years really do a lot to serve as timely reminders of just how long these two have been emotionally tethered to one another and just how much two people can go through in those formative years of life. On their own, Joy and Felix are each a delight, too. Felix is at turns pessimistic and overly earnest. Joy is wide-eyed and curious while still trying to keep a straight backbone. Even though Felix is the one who went to school, Joy is usually the one who is more capable of putting knowledge to good use. Felix has little to no people skills but is better at assimilation, but Joy is better with the humans. They truly balance one another out and are so respectful and adorable with one another that it makes you want to grab them out of the book and hug them. The world-building is excellent for once! It was so nice to read a YA sci-fi romance with such good world-building! And I found it doubly impressive since there was a whole lot of story to pack into this book. Dow somehow made it all fit without making the book too long or making it too dense with information (which would’ve interrupted the creative flow). This is just a great book. Plain and simple. Pure escapist fantasy with its own emotional soundtrack and a lot of love, love, love. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jan 05, 2022
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Jan 05, 2022
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Jan 05, 2022
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Hardcover
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1250280664
| 9781250280664
| 1250280664
| 3.82
| 34,514
| Aug 09, 2022
| Aug 09, 2022
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it was amazing
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I was so hyped up to read this book I ended up being kind of scared to read it, you guys. Have you ever been so excited for something you feel like yo
I was so hyped up to read this book I ended up being kind of scared to read it, you guys. Have you ever been so excited for something you feel like you may have talked yourself into it disappointing you? That's what I kind of did with "Stay Awake": For months on end I was so excited to read this book that when it came time to read it (I read my ARCS rather chronologically and I have a system, folks)... I put it off. Then everyone in my house got COVID, so I fell behind in my ARC reading. And then I moved on, telling myself I would make time for "Stay Awake" when I had time for it. And now I feel awfully dumb, because this book was flipping fantastic! Sure, it does remind me of the fabulous 2000 Christopher Nolan film "Memento" in a lot of ways, but I simply couldn't bring myself to care too much, because from the very first page, I was rolling with this story and how Goldin used the bookend storytelling method in such a unique and effective manner. It's not easy to bookend a story that starts in media res specifically like this one does and echo that beginning with an ending that's much the same but with the plot resolved and the character completely changed. Also, the themes of PTSD, enduring grief, and needing a purpose in life to keep moving on after a great loss echoed in both our protagonist, Liv Reese, and in one of the NYPD detectives in charge of the chase, Detective Halliday. A tenuous psychological insight between Halliday (who used to be in the military and lost fellow troops and friends in Afghanistan and at home) form a solid sympathetic backbone between the unreliable narration of Liv (who, of course, knows not to trust her own brain so we know better too) and the too-pragmatic and masculine brain of Halliday's partner, Detective Lavelle. Detective Lavelle's not a bad cop by any means, but he's a city copy who just doesn't know to look any deeper than the evidence right in front of him, while Halliday can see there are nuances to this case that she can't dismiss. Memory loss is a horrid, traumatizing thing. I suffer from memory blackouts myself. That's part of what drew me to this book. I don't suffer the same kind of blackouts, but I've lost hours, days, weeks, and once I missed months. The time I missed months I had a nervous breakdown. You panic, not knowing or understanding why, and it simply makes you want to beg to be locked away because you can't be sure of what you did in that missing chunk of time. I actually did beg to be committed. I didn't trust myself. It also makes you paranoid, because you realize that you're vulnerable: people could say things to you or talk you into things or take things from you and you may never remember. So I had a very visceral reaction to Liv's memory blackouts, because I remember that feeling of hopelessness and helplessness. I remember how that feels, to go into a place and have people remember you being there and you not remember. It didn't trigger me, but boy did it make me empathize with Liv and her predicament. If it weren't for [spoiler reasons], I'd have been mentally begging her to just go to the police and tell them to take me to the mental hospital, because it was obvious Liv was just too vulnerable to be alone. As the plot unfolded in this book, page by page and scene by scene, I was also reminded of "Wrong Place, Wrong Time" by Gillian McAllister, even though that title came out later in the year than "Stay Awake". But both books have that time device plot of the past coming up to meet a predetermined point near the end of the book, and it works so well because it allows just a drip of information of what Liv went through in a pivotal time frame to the entire plot, allowing all the collected information from the rest of the book to coalesce into a clear picture at the exact right time for the rest of the book to press forward into one exhilarating conclusion. I absolutely loved this book and wish I had read it sooner this year. What an excellent thrill ride! Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for granting me access to this title in exchange for a fair and honest review, and another thanks is due to St. Martin’s Press for sending me a complimentary finished hardcover copy of the book. Thanks, you guys! Please note this review is being written as part of a series of backdated ARC reviews that were due earlier in the year but, for one reason or another, I wasn’t able to get to them by the publication date. File Under: Psychological Thriller/Suspense Thriller/Crime Thriller/Five Star Reads/Thriller ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Dec 14, 2022
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Dec 14, 2022
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Jan 05, 2022
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Hardcover
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1542030692
| 9781542030694
| B091PRWHR6
| 3.24
| 1,177
| Feb 01, 2022
| Feb 01, 2022
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it was amazing
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This book is another of my most-anticipated reads of 2022. Given my slight obsession with books that focus on the senses as a plot device (olfactory b
This book is another of my most-anticipated reads of 2022. Given my slight obsession with books that focus on the senses as a plot device (olfactory being my favorite, which is the sense this book relies on), it’s hardly a surprise that I wrote directly to the publisher in order to get early access to this title. I wasn’t going to let it slip away from me. I was focused on getting my hands on it, and I am so happy I did, because it was so good. This book wasn’t exactly everything I hoped for, but it was dang close. Close enough to warrant the full five stars. The first-person POV narration is written as if this were a memoir written by an unreliable narrator. In this way, the book reminds me of Nabokov’s “Lolita”: you know from page one of both that classic novel and this book that your narrator is not to be trusted. They’re spinning the yarn, and you’re only getting to see what they are choosing to show you. In this book, the narrator, going by the name Vic Fowler, even breaks the literary fourth wall to speak to us readers directly, because he needs to make sure he has our attention. He’s a vain man who longs for someone to understand him or to accept him. The perfume industry is one historically steeped in barbarism, shady experiments, and chemical experimentations I cannot even begin to understand. But I’ve always had a strong nose, even for being a girl growing up in a smoking household, and I’ve always adored perfumes (I have worn the same scent for a good many years now: Marc Jacobs Daisy). I can remember vibrantly the smell of my grandmother wearing White Shoulders, my mother wearing Elizabeth Arden’s Red Door, my prom date (and eventual assaulter) wearing Aspen, too many boys I went to high school with wearing Drakkar Noir, my ex-girlfriend and how she always smelled neutrally of Ivory soap and cigarettes, the heady and dark smell of the wall of leather floggers at Mr. S in San Francisco, and my ex-husband smelling of Ralph Lauren Polo Blue and sweat. None of my memories can compare with the in-depth and highly-descriptive words, phrases, and passages in this book not only describing scents, but describing the process of capturing nature and managing to put it into alcohol so it eventually makes its way into a glass bottle to be worn by a human. But this book goes even further than just talking about the mainstream perfume industry, because Vic Fowler also has an off-the-books commission-only perfume business… and the commissions are definitely illegal. And that’s where this book, also like Lolita, becomes elevated to something both darker and more satirical than just your regular thriller. Because the rich can have any perfume they want, legal or illegal. But what if they want the memory of a person? They pay a perfumer whose business is on the rocks for the privilege. But what if it doesn’t stop there? What other scents or memories can their money buy? And to what lengths will out narrator allegedly go to in order to perfect his art, to meet these challenges, and to cover all of his tracks? Donnelly obviously did her research and put hard work and devotion into this book. It shows with every page she wrote. The writing is precise, and I love morally ambiguous, unreliable narrators. Vic Fowler’s vanity is only outmatched by his narcissism. I both hate him and admire him. When he seemingly commits to a course of action he commits, but when he tells us what he’s done, I of course don’t know if he’s telling us the truth or just trying to make himself look better. That’s the beauty and the horror of an unreliable narrator. You just want things to be easy. You just want to lean into the narrative and not question it. But that’s letting the narrator seduce you. Do you really want to be that easy of a mark? I don’t, so I admire their audacity and hate them for it at the same time. It’s a much more thoughtful and satisfying read that way. I'd like to thank NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for granting my request to review this title. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jan 29, 2022
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Jan 30, 2022
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Dec 27, 2021
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Kindle Edition
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1538754851
| B093ZPVQ4Y
| 3.82
| 18,592
| Jan 18, 2022
| Jan 18, 2022
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it was amazing
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This book, right here, is why I insist on requesting and reading as many LGBTQIA+ romances as I can when I come across them on NetGalley. It’s because
This book, right here, is why I insist on requesting and reading as many LGBTQIA+ romances as I can when I come across them on NetGalley. It’s because of this warm, bubbling, sparkly feeling I have in my stomach after reading something beautiful and golden and true. This book was like champagne butterflies fluttering in my tummy, drunk and fluttering and golden and sweet. I don’t often (literally) laugh out loud at books. I smile, sure. I may snort. I smirk… a lot. But I’m a big smirker in general. But this book caused me to genuinely let out unexpected giggles and chuckles and a few guffaws a few times, and that was a feeling I’m always going to be thankful to this book for, because I don’t get to laugh very often anymore. I also shed a few tears: for London and Dahlia (our main characters), for how much I identified with Dahlia, and for all the LGBTQIA+ folx in the world who feel out of place and/or out of step with the world, with themselves, and especially with their loved ones. And I wished again, as I often do, for a world in which everyone could just be who they are and love who they love without anyone caring. The plot of this book may be a pretty basic recipe, at first glance, but Kelly does so much with it! Food is one of the most versatile metaphors to work with when it comes to love, to home, to who you are, to where you come from, to where you’ve been, to domesticity, to where you want to go someday, and to who you might want to be someday. Kelly takes great advantage of both the food metaphors to be had and also the reality television competition format to weave the romance between Dahlia and London together like a neatly-made basket. The book is a page-turner, too: there are no parts that sag, move too slowly, move too fast, or seem extraneous. There aren’t too many characters, and all the characters are realized to the appropriate amount. The humor, angst, romance, and steam are all nicely balanced for a romance of this genre and for the target audience. Books are meant to make you feel. The intention of all art is to make you feel something. This book made me feel a great many things. I went into my genderfluid daughter’s room and flopped down on the bed and said, “I’m all up in my feels!” She gave me a hug and kissed me on the head. Because she knows how her Mama gets over books sometimes. And then I told her the premise, and she told me that if she were a reader she would’ve gotten all up in her feels too. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jan 17, 2022
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Jan 17, 2022
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Dec 27, 2021
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Kindle Edition
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0374603391
| 9780374603397
| 0374603391
| 3.29
| 20,082
| Jun 07, 2022
| Jun 07, 2022
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it was amazing
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Call it a rom-com for cynics. Call it a romance novel for misanthropes. Whatever you call it, call it brilliant as well, because it really is. This bo
Call it a rom-com for cynics. Call it a romance novel for misanthropes. Whatever you call it, call it brilliant as well, because it really is. This book was everything it was hyped up to be, and yet it was somehow even better, owing to Crosley’s incredible prose. At times deeply philosophical before taking a turn for the equally deep emotional (or vice versa) before turning delightfully wry, achingly raw, or even throbbing with rage, there are narrative passages in this book that absolutely took my breath away. I love the very idea of this book. If you’ve ever had friends or family that are just too invested in your love life, then you only know a fraction of what Lola (our main character, who is just about done with all the Lola references people can make) is going through in this book. I love how Crosley took that idea and just turned it up to 11. Combine that idea with the concept of a mash-up of “This is Your Life/”A Christmas Carol”/”High Fidelity” and you’ve got… well, you’ve got “Cult Classic”. And the world is all the better for it. Crosley’s talents don’t only apply to prose, either. Her dialogue is quick, bright, and witty: fencing as speech. Lunge, parry, riposte, repeat. Watch your footwork. If you’re not smiling or laughing when conversations are being had in this book, you’ll be thinking, because there are a lot of emotional and thoughtful conversations to be had in this book. Like all New York-centric books, I deeply appreciate how Crosley uses this book to write a love/hate letter to the isle of Manhattan. You can tell the difference when someone writes a book about New York and has an idealized vision of the place and when someone has actually lived in its bones. Pick this book up. It’s about love, but it’s not romantic. It gives romance the finger and is the better for it. Thanks to NetGalley, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, and MCD for granting me early access to this title in exchange for a fair and honest review. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jun 10, 2022
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Jun 10, 2022
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Dec 24, 2021
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Hardcover
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1250831164
| 9781250831163
| 1250831164
| 4.27
| 5,422
| May 16, 2023
| May 16, 2023
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it was amazing
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First line: “Let me state one thing up front: I wasn’t trying to start a cult.” Right there and then, I remember exactly why Little Thieves captivated First line: “Let me state one thing up front: I wasn’t trying to start a cult.” Right there and then, I remember exactly why Little Thieves captivated me so much last year and how brilliant of a writer Margaret Owen is. You can almost see Vanja, our protagonist, cringing with slight embarrassment and shrugging in a way that can only convey a feeling of, “Oops?” Not only is that first sentence one hell of a hook, but later on in the book, Owen manages to sneak in a well-known Backstreet Boys lyric as the start of a poem, and I laughed even as my heart grew three sizes bigger in soppy adoration. Owen knows her audience and knows that even though not all of them may get the joke, the ones who would get the joke would be overjoyed by it. The second novel in a trilogy is notoriously difficult to get right. There are so many that fail and fail spectacularly (not naming any because that’s just plain rude). Owen knocked this one out of the park, though, and she made it look easy as pie. In some ways, it was better than Little Thieves, and I didn’t even know that was possible. Painted Devils is more cathartic, for sure, and definitely more character-driven. There’s humor a-plenty, and a great deal of expanding on the excellent worldbuilding started in Little Thieves. Not only does this book deal in false prophets and revealing truths, but it also deals with confronting your inner demons and the negative voices inside you, whispering their nasty filth in your ear and holding you back from being all that you can and should be. It also has a lot to say about the arbitrary scales of justice and sacrifice: How much good do you have to do to outweigh the bad? Is there enough? Is the order of the land so rigid that too many cases of gray injustice fall through the cracks? What do you do about those cases and those people? Just let them suffer? Can two lovers on two sides of the law be together or is that love doomed? Can you ever truly wash away the many ways you feel tainted by time and crime? Where Margaret Owen shines the brightest is in her dialogue. It’s truly the brightest part of her novels. The witty banter, the heartfelt and intimate conversations, the high voltage arguments, the sly negotiations and scams, the genuine humor, the squirm of shame, the discomfort in navigating romance, the deep scars of fear, the high that comes with triumph, and the deep chill of horror. None of Owen’s dialogue feels contrived or disingenuous. Every conversation feels appropriate and real, relevant and well-written. Speaking of relevant and well-written: This book is a fierce page-turner. If you pick this up, be prepared to settle down and ignore everything else for however long it takes to read it. It took me around eight hours to finish this, and I could hardly bear to set it down in all that time. I skipped my afternoon nap to keep reading, people, and I love naps. I just wanted to keep reading, because I needed to see how Vanja was going to get out of accidentally starting a cult. Because of course Vanja accidentally started a cult. Just pick it up and you’ll see. If you haven’t read Little Thieves yet, pick that up first, and then pick this up. And then we’ll all collectively wait with baited breath for the third book and act like patience is our strong suit when we all know it’s not. I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you. File Under: 5 Star Read/Fantasy Series/Book Series/Coming of Age/Dark Fantasy/Epic Fantasy/Fantasy Romance/YA Book Series/YA Fantasy/YA Fantasy Romance/YA Fiction ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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May 20, 2023
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May 20, 2023
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Dec 23, 2021
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Hardcover
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0062973169
| 9780062973160
| 0062973169
| 3.66
| 21,540
| Jun 21, 2022
| Jun 21, 2022
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it was amazing
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“Juniper & Thorn” is a very loose retelling of a German fairy tale originally called “The Juniper Tree” (it’s also sometimes known as “The Almond Tree
“Juniper & Thorn” is a very loose retelling of a German fairy tale originally called “The Juniper Tree” (it’s also sometimes known as “The Almond Tree”). It was sanitized somewhat by those pesky Grimm Brothers once they picked it up and put it in their collection, but the very loose roots of this wonderful new adult (NOT young adult) dark fantasy (at times it verges close to horror fantasy but doesn’t quite get there in whole) Ava Reid has written come from a much simpler but no less horrific story involving a vengeful parent, a juniper tree, a dead child, a bird transformation, and a girl named Marlinchen. Ava Reid took the seeds (pardon the nature pun) of that story and crafted a gaslamp fantasy set in the same world of her book “The Wolf and the Woodsman” (AKA - Eastern Europe, the Caucasus Region, and Russia) that hooked me immediately, reeled me in effortlessly, and kept me on the line for the whole ride with no complaints. I was happy to read page after page of this beautifully, lovingly crafted story that brings me the beauty of a person’s first trip to the ballet (I’m a huge fan), mentions the fairy tale of “The Swan Princess”, which is the basis for my favorite ballet, “Swan Lake”, and doesn’t shy away from the darkest parts of fairy tales for the sake of wider audience appeal. Fairy tales were initially not meant to serve as stories to entertain small children to the tune of “... and they lived happily ever after”. After all, fairies themselves weren’t considered to be good or evil. They just were. And they possessed an extreme amount of power. Fairy tales were stories meant to serve as warnings to small children about the evils and trials the world outside might put them through. They were cautionary tales. Tolkien once argued that if you were going to keep the dark parts of fairy tales from children then you shouldn’t tell them the tale at all. Do I think my 7 year-old nephew needs to hear about ritualistic cannibalism? Nope. Do I think he’d think it’s wicked cool? Right now, yeah. He’s at that age. But my niece at 7? She would’ve been terrified. That’s why I love these fairy tale and folklore retellings by authors like Ava Reid and Hannah Whitten (among others): they do their research into those original tales and the permutations of them over time, collate and matrix the tales to find out where they differ and where they’re the same, find out what works and what doesn’t so they can sort the wheat from the chaff, and then they put their own spin on the distillation of the tale. It’s the fruits of literary phylogeny. Throughout all this meticulous storycraft, Reid’s wonderful prose shines like a diamond. She has a fantastic eye for setting a scene without lapsing into being overly descriptive. She gives us just enough of a visual outline that we can fill the rest in easily with our minds. She keeps our senses engaged: smells, tastes, colors, textures, awareness of how the body looks and moves are all kept in mind and used as part of the story in a way that reminds me a bit of Erin Morgenstern. Best of all, Reid uses her plot devices to deliver the exposition instead of using the characters themselves. This accomplishes my favorite thing: showing and not telling us what’s going on. That’s true literary magic right there. I highly recommend it. It’s dark, violent, fantastical, romantic, tragic, whimsical, crude, and may even trigger some readers. But it’s also magical in word and deed. Thanks to NetGalley and Harper Voyager for granting me early access to this title in exchange for a fair and honest review. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jun 21, 2022
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Jul 03, 2022
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Dec 22, 2021
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Hardcover
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0062909894
| 9780062909893
| 0062909894
| 3.67
| 34,929
| Apr 05, 2022
| Apr 05, 2022
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it was amazing
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This book is the type of romcom that’s absolute catnip to a reader like me: quick, witty, clever, bright, peppy, an often sardonic sense of humor, and
This book is the type of romcom that’s absolute catnip to a reader like me: quick, witty, clever, bright, peppy, an often sardonic sense of humor, and a sly dash of snark peppered in at all the right times. I’ve read a few different 5 star romcoms this year already, and this one has more heart and more outright chuckle-worthy moments than them all. Usually I’d go through the whole spiel about plot arcs and characterizations and setting… But here, with this novel, I just want to talk about the dialogue. Sosa writes the type of fast and sharp dialogue that reminds me of if Aaron Sorkin wrote romcoms. The kind of humor that’s so witty and clever you need to travel along with it, only pausing when the punchlines and laugh-out-loud moments punch you lightly in the jaw or make your shoulders shake in complete amusement. I found myself sometimes just stopping and basking in the way a joke or line landed just so perfectly. Shortly: You won’t be let down with any of the spice or tension in this book, either. It’s realistic, hot, and dirtier than I expected. Which is such a good thing. This isn’t an atmospheric book or a book strong on prose. It’s not exactly a character-driven novel either. It’s a plot-driven romantic comedy that piled a diverse, adorable, and highly amusing cast of characters into a clown car and then drove it merrily down the street while the rest of us are left wishing we were half as brilliant as these people and also being reminded of why we love romantic comedies so much. So roll around in this book. Soak up its brilliance and savvy. Read it more than once. It’s more than worth it. Thanks to NetGalley and Avon & Harper Voyager for early access to this title in exchange for a fair and honest review. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Apr 06, 2022
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Apr 21, 2022
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Dec 21, 2021
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Paperback
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0063003058
| 9780063003057
| 0063003058
| 3.66
| 573,438
| Feb 22, 2022
| Feb 22, 2022
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it was amazing
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This book is what I wish all suspense mysteries could be. I’ve read a good amount of them since I started doing reviews on a full-time basis, and I ke
This book is what I wish all suspense mysteries could be. I’ve read a good amount of them since I started doing reviews on a full-time basis, and I keep getting disappointed by matters such as pacing, characterization, too many characters, and/or too predictable of a turn. This book, however, had no such problems. This book? This book checked all the boxes I feel necessary to make for a perfect, closed-loop, suspense mystery. I’m not going to rehash the plot for you. If you want that, read the blurb. Or look at other reviews that will give you that. Many other reviewers do that. I’m not one of them. The “chapters” of this book are very, very short, and each of them is told from the point of view of one of the characters in the loop. I absolutely love this manner of narration and the length of the chapters, because it keeps the pacing moving swiftly. It gives the book a sense of urgency that the plot wouldn’t necessarily be able to convey all on its own. This book only takes place over the course of a few days, and from the time the main character, Jess, enters the gates of the apartment building in Paris, the clock starts ticking on how much time she’s got before things really get too dangerous for her in Paris. She knows it. The other members of the loop know it. We readers know it too. So the quick-moving chapters help us to feel that same anxiety and pressure. It was a brilliant move on Foley’s part. Each character had a distinct feel and voice to them, which is so important when you have a set loop of characters. You never want to get members of a loop mixed up. And, what’s more, every single member of this loop is some shade of morally grey. Even Jess is morally grey. But what matters in this story isn’t that they’re grey: it’s just how grey are they and why. I love that. There are just about the right number of main characters for a closed loop with this number of pages, and supporting characters are added in and taken away at just the right times to interject a fresh stream of exposition before disappearing (and, in some instances, reappearing after a little while). This is the correct way of doing exposition: showing and not telling. When the plot gets stale, introduce a new character. It’s not sloppy and it’s not lazy writing and it’s brilliant. There are two revelations in the book: one about 50% of the way through and then the turn near the end (because there’s always a turn!). The one halfway through caught me a little by surprise and I felt kind of stupid for not realizing it sooner. The turn, though? I was completely taken by surprise, and that doesn’t happen often at all. Really, it hardly happens. That’s why I’m usually so let down by suspense mysteries and mysteries in general. With this one, let’s just say I was sitting in a chair in the living room and I said out loud, “What?!” So, believe me when I say this book earned every single one of those five stars, easily. I couldn’t put it down. It’s well worth the read. Thanks to William Morrow for the early copy of this book! ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Feb 12, 2022
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Feb 13, 2022
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Dec 21, 2021
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Hardcover
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B00XHHV3YK
| 3.81
| 114,892
| Apr 05, 2016
| Apr 05, 2016
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it was amazing
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None
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Notes are private!
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1
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Dec 20, 2021
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Dec 21, 2021
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Dec 20, 2021
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Kindle Edition
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1982180110
| 9781982180119
| 1982180110
| 3.97
| 3,569
| Apr 01, 2021
| Jan 04, 2022
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it was amazing
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It’s been a long, long time since I’ve read a book that I wanted to take my time reading because the prose was simply so beautiful and well-written I
It’s been a long, long time since I’ve read a book that I wanted to take my time reading because the prose was simply so beautiful and well-written I found myself sometimes re-reading passages a couple of times (or even whole sections) simply for the joy of it. “The High House” has a print length of only 268 pages, but it’s not a book you’ll want to plow through. It’s a book you’ll want to take your time with. It’s not that the book demands that of you, like some books do, it’s that you won’t want to read this book quickly. Greengrass knows how to weave sentences that feel like spells and paragraphs that feel like poetry instead of prose. I found myself constantly stopping to highlight sentences and sometimes whole passages just so I could come back to them for reference later. “The High House” juggles first-person POV narrative (in the past-tense) between three of the book’s four main characters: Caro, Pauly (Caro’s half-brother), and Sally (one of the two caretakers at High House). The fourth main character is Grandy, Sally’s grandfather and the other caretaker of High House. High House is a summer home belonging to Pauly’s mother (and Caro’s stepmother) that is set up on a sloping hill on the coast of England among arable soil and near a tide pool. When our book starts, global climate change is already well on the way to its ultimate tipping point, and Pauly’s mother is one of the fiercest and foremost advocates for fighting against climate change. As we switch between Sally and Caro’s narrative viewpoints, we can see Caro battling with having to raise Pauly essentially by herself even though she hasn’t even finished her own schooling and Sally dealing with this strange woman constantly being around, conversing and working with her grandfather for days and weeks at a time before she disappears randomly again until the day she comes and tells them she is retaining them to become caretakers of High House for the foreseeable future and to help ensure her son and stepdaughter are kept safe when they someday show up. And show up they do, when an extreme weather event with no name or category for it hits the US and Pauly’s mother calls just before it hits to tell Caro to leave London first thing in the morning and go to High House. Greengrass does a great job of grafting distinct narrative voices for Caro, Sally, and Pauly, so you always know whose narrative voice you’re reading. Pauly doesn’t remember a time before High House, so High House and its surrounding environs, Caro, Sally, and Grandy are all he knows. Sally is older than Caro, more set in her ways and used to everything being the way she likes it, and while it breaks her heart to see how many people are hurting in the middle of this huge climate disaster she is pragmatic enough to swallow it down and compartmentalize it for the sake of the people in her life. Caro is afraid, all the time. And when Caro isn’t afraid, she’s resentful of her stepmother or feeling guilty about having more than other people in the world have. She knows her stepmother planned this home out and how privileged that makes all of them. This book doesn’t go by chapters. It is parsed into parts and then into the switching POVs, and then into subparts. But I think that chapters would’ve ruined the flow of the text anyway. Either that, or I wouldn’t have even noticed, given how entranced I was by the flow of the words and the elegance of the sentences. If you’re a fan of beautiful books full of beautiful sentences, I highly recommend this book. If you’re a fan of books that feel sad, beautiful, and tragic (do not cue Taylor Swift right now), then I highly recommend this book. If you want to read a lovely, elegiac book about what life might look like after the tipping point of global climate change, then I recommend this book. I just recommend this book. Highly. Overwhelmingly. Go read it. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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not set
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not set
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Dec 19, 2021
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Hardcover
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1250780934
| 9781250780935
| 1250780934
| 3.73
| 39,722
| Apr 17, 2013
| Sep 21, 2021
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it was amazing
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I’m looking at the average rating on this book and I’m perplexed, because this is one of the best horror novels I’ve read in quite some time. It has e
I’m looking at the average rating on this book and I’m perplexed, because this is one of the best horror novels I’ve read in quite some time. It has everything I love about horror novels in this genre with the added joy of possessing several layers of social and cultural commentary that have me itching to deconstruct the whole story down to its bones. I’m not kidding: In between devouring the pages with greedy eyes, I was humming in delight at the implacable dread that saturated every page and the way this story moves like a runaway train and you know the wreck at the end is going to be calamitous. I was eager to know who was finally going to be the one to f*ck around and find out (because of course someone was going to). I was wiggling my toes as I laughed darkly at the townspeople and their naive, foolish, and futile endeavors. The story was deep, black, bleak, and absolutely right up my alley. I love Scandinavian horror. For some reason I was utterly fascinated (at first) as to why Olde Heuvelt chose to write a story set in upstate New York in his native Dutch, but then I discovered the original story Heuvelt wrote (before he sold the rights to the US translation) had the story set in a small village in the Netherlands. Talk about a change in location! Heuvelt and the translator worked sublimely together, though, to bring the original story over to the US and weave this story into something wholly engrossing, entertaining, and wicked. File Under: 5 Star Review/Book Series/Horror/Paranormal Horror/Psychological Thriller/Urban Fantasy ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Apr 27, 2024
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Apr 28, 2024
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Dec 15, 2021
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Paperback
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1250274214
| 9781250274212
| 1250274214
| 3.37
| 4,584
| Jan 18, 2022
| Jan 18, 2022
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it was amazing
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Okay, so… I’ve been hanging onto this review for a LONG while, because I read this book back in September, if you can believe it. I read it and I had
Okay, so… I’ve been hanging onto this review for a LONG while, because I read this book back in September, if you can believe it. I read it and I had to sit on it forever, because it took even longer for me to process my feelings on it enough to put it into words than it took for me to do the same thing for “Iron Widow”, and it took me days for my brain to wrap itself around how to put how much I loved that book into words. It’s a similar, if even stronger feeling here: I love this book so much it’s pretty much beyond being able to put it into words. It’s just that good. One of the things that resonated in my brain as I read “Such a Pretty Smile” was the Charlotte Perkins Gilman short story. “The Yellow Wallpaper”. This book is like someone took that story and gave it a 21st-century feminist horror glow-up. If you’re wondering if that’s a bad thing, believe me when I say that it is very much not. I love “The Yellow Wallpaper” all on its own, but “Such a Pretty Smile” digs deeper, scoops out more, shows more and sharper teeth, and shines harsher lights on the gaslighters of the world and holds them more accountable. This book is not for the faint-of-heart. It is a horror novel–make no mistake about that. It gets gory. It gets bloody. It doesn’t flinch. And that’s all the more sweet, in my opinion, because I adore a book that deals with some of the worst and largest issues females face and doesn’t flinch. This book doesn’t bat a dang eyelash. I’m so glad it’s time for this book to be unleashed on the world. So glad. Now I can tell you to go order it. Read it. Read it again. Tell someone else to read it. Because it’s a bloody good time. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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not set
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not set
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Dec 08, 2021
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Hardcover
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