I have literally never read anything by Leah Konen before but now I think I might have to read more. Her style reminds me a lot of Greer Hendricks's and Sarah Pekkanen's, so if that's your vibe, I think you'll enjoy this one a lot. I found this in a little free library and stealth-read it, and it was a breezy read I finished in about two days.
Mary and Willa are friends, but we know from the dual timeline that something went wrong. They aren't friends anymore, and Mary has suffered some kind of betrayal. Willa, the pretty younger friend, was responsible for said betrayal and then she disappeared. Or did she? Because one day, Mary sees her again but she won't respond to her name.
This was a wild rollercoaster of a read with several twists and turns that I didn't see coming. Some of that was because the twists and turns in question didn't always fully make sense. But I was entertained. And, also, I really liked the feminine empowerment/girlpower themes of the book. All of the female characters were way more than they first seemed at face value, and I really liked that.
So it was a little silly, yes, but I was entertained.
CLEVER CREATURES OF THE NIGHT is such an interesting book, part gothic, part survivalist horror. There's a very isolated and desolate vibe to the book, almost dystopic, and I would describe the vibe as "assemble style gothic": the heroine ends up in a remote area, trapped with a somewhat large cast, all of whom have something to hide, when she goes to first seek out answers about why her friend invited her to a rural Texas house out in the middle of nowhere-- and then, later, why she appears to have gone missing.
The 2.77 rating shocked me because the writing style is fantastic and Mabry did a great job writing an unlikable but relatable heroine. Apart from the somewhat surreal atmosphere and, I guess, slightly anticlimactic ending, the unlikability is the only thing I saw that would even slightly warrant a rating like this. And even so, I feel like I can think of similar titles that didn't elicit a reaction like this.
Personally, I fell in love with this author's writing after reading TIGERS, NOT DAUGHTERS, and knew I would have to read everything else she ever wrote. The MEXICAN GOTHIC comp is honestly fairly on-point, maybe with a dash of SADIE by Courtney Summers. If you're into raw and visceral young adult books, with fierce girls and a hint of tragedy, you'll probably love this book.
Gen Xers read FLOWERS IN THE ATTIC when they were in middle school. I read WHITE OLEANDER when I was thirteen. Should I have? Probably not, but it was one of the first literary fiction books I read outside of school, which taught me that a book can be written for literary merit and still be fun and entertaining to read. Whenever I see one of those "list a book that defines you" lists, I really want to put this one, but I feel like people will see that and be like, "Dear god, what happened to YOU" when really, it's not so much the story or the plot that I relate to (thank god) so much as the writing, the use of art as solace, and the feeling of helplessness and loneliness.
This is one of my desert island books. Every time I read it, I get something new out of it, notice something different.
WHITE OLEANDER's writing is gorgeous and the callbacks, motifs, and metaphors are incredible, even outside of the context of the story, which is also amazing. Like, this is the sort of story that I would like to write one day: big, intense, epic, beautiful, heartbreaking, powerful, EVERYTHING. I'm always shocked when I meet someone who hasn't read it. If you can get past the trigger warnings, it feels like one of those stories that everyone could talk about, even if they didn't enjoy it. It's got a flavor. You either like it or you don't.
At its core, this is the story of a girl who is the daughter of a sociopath who commits a crime, who then wanders through the foster care system, ending up in a series of terrible homes, all awful in their own way. It's also an intimate character study and coming of age tale. Astrid is a very passive character at first, and the way that she is shaped and molded by her environment and the people she comes into contact with is subtle and well done. She is such a dynamic character, even when she lacks agency.
The child abuse is so hard to read, and I don't think there's a character outside of Jude from A LITTLE LIFE who was in such desperate need of a hug. But the story is just as amazing as I remember and these characters will haunt me for life. I love this book so much.
I got this off of a list of transgressive women's fiction that pushes boundaries and explores uncomfortable topics. When I bought this book, I was wondering why the author's name sounded familiar, and when I looked her up, I realized she was the same author who wrote a memoir about having an affair with her dad. Or at least, that's how the Goodreads reviews for that book frame it. But considering this book, and how it is allegedly THE KISS's semi-autobiographical predecessor, it's looking more like that the author was probably the victim of abuse-- from both her parents-- and these works of fiction and nonfiction are her way of reclaiming what happened to her.
THICKER THAN WATER reminded me a lot of WHITE OLEANDER. It has the same dreamy, disconnected prose that reads like someone trying to put distance between themselves and what is happening on the page. Isabel is the daughter of a mother who probably has either borderline personality disorder or narcissistic personality disorder; she is self-absorbed, jealous, possessive, and utterly uninterested in her daughter, though these interludes hint that she might have sexually abused her daughter as a baby.
This is a coming of age story set in an abusive household. The mother character's abuse is different from the father's, but both are heartbreaking, and both take their toll on Isabel, who doesn't feel at all comfortable with her body, or who she is as a person, or how she interacts with other people. By the end of the book, I felt really sad for her. This book is mostly set in the 70s and I think the author really captures that changing zeitgeist perfectly, where progress and social justice clash against infrastructural sexism and so-called traditional beliefs. It's a fascinating, but depressing read. However, if you enjoyed WHITE OLEANDER a lot, the subject matter is similar, though it lacks the poetry.
This is a strange, short, faced-paced thriller that kind of reminded me of some of the erotic thrillers from the 90s. Especially with the whole, "ooooh, BDSM is so fringe and weird" subplot that entered briefly.
I liked the writing style a lot. Eden and Olivia were both distinct narrators with flaws and quirks. I thought Eden was better rounded than Olivia, who fell into a literary stereotype trap that was a little hard to swallow. The first half of this book was great and one twist actually made me gasp out loud, although it didn't pan out the way I had hoped it would.
The second half of the book was a bit anticlimactic by comparison. I thought I knew what was going to happen and then when what I thought was going to happen didn't happen, I realized that I didn't like the actual ending better lol. It almost felt like the author wasn't sure how she wanted to end this book and drew random endings out of a hat.
I would read more from this author but man, this family needs a TON of therapy.
Whoa. The next time someone asks me for a book rec of a dude who actually does a good job writing female characters, I'm sending them this. THE CLIFF HOUSE by Chris Brookmyre is fast-paced trashy fun, about a group of women who go to an isolated venue in the Hebrides for a bachelorette weekend only for someone to be murdered. But there's a twist on the usual "oh no, murder party!" plot: every single one of these ladies has a dark and glaring secret.
This book was a little silly but the characters were amazing and the tension was SO well done. There were several twists that literally had me shocked, and I admired how everything came together full circle. It's been a while since I read a book that hooked me from the beginning, and had me engaged from start to finish, but this was it.
I'll have to check out more books by this author because this one basically ticked all of my boxes. Except the smut box. But honestly, there was enough scandalous behavior in here to make up for it.
Thanks so much to my friend Corvina for buddy-reading with me!
There's a Little Free Library near me that, I kid you not, is owned by someone with the best taste in books. I'll go there a couple times a week to do drop offs of my own cast-offs, and I'll find some really amazing thrillers and romance novels in there to take home. IT TAKES MONSTERS is one of those.
The premise intrigued me-- because who doesn't love the revenge fantasy of a fed-up woman who decides her husband must die for taking away her agency and turning her into a baby-maker-- and the cover seemed to promise some sort of sexy menage action... or maybe another man or woman, who maybe, idk, helps the heroine hide the body? (Or bodies? *wiggles eyebrows*) But no.
I don't want to say too much about this book because less is definitely more and I also don't want to spoil the ending (which I TOTALLY predicted, by the way, ugh). So first, here's what the book did well. This had a fun, almost retro, 90s horror/thriller vibe to it, and I liked that. The banter was also fun and sometimes quotable, and you know me, I love a female antiheroine (even if she's pretty stupid and is a little too attached to her emotional support murder tarp). Victoria was hilarious and fun.
IT TAKES MONSTERS didn't work for me in a couple ways. I feel like the premise and the cover promise smut, or at least some spice. This book had no spice. What KILLS me is that it would have been so easy to include some too, since one of the scenes literally takes place at a masked sex party, which the heroine goes to and does not have sex. RUDE. I also felt like the motive for the murders didn't make sense, and for me, that's the whole point of a murder mystery. Having it make sense.
This wasn't a bad book by any means and even though I kinda sorta skimmed the end a little bit, I would read more from this author. It's too gory to be a cozy mystery but if you are looking for thrillers that don't have spice or romance, but do feature female protagonists and a bit of a scare, this will definitely be your cup of tea. Thanks so much to Corvina for reading it with me!
I fell in love with this author's Jane Eyre retelling, THE SILENT WIFE, and immediately added a ton of her books to my TBR. Thank God most of them are on KU. UNMISSING sounded like the perfect book to launch into next: it's about a married couple whose lives are disrupted when the husband's missing wife, previously thought dead, returns unexpectedly one cool night.
Merritt and Luca have the perfect bougie life in Coastal Oregon. Until Lydia returns, after being held in captivity by a man she refers to as The Monster for nine years. But instead of going to the police, she gets a job with a crunchy new age woman and her crystal shop before confronting the husband and wife team directly.
This was a really fun story. It kind of felt like a soap opera. Was it the best written thriller I've ever read? No. But I really enjoyed it, and even though the twists didn't exactly surprise me (maybe I've read too many mysteries??) I really appreciated all of them.
I found this in a Little Free Library and decided to pick it up on a whim since it was a Goodreads Choice Award. I wasn't sure how I would feel about it when I first picked it up, but it ended up being kind of like if SUCH A FUN AGE were written by Harlan Coben. So, basically an intimate dissection of privilege, racism, generational pain, and culture shock-- with thriller elements!
There are two narrators in this book: Jasmine and Rebecca. Jasmine has come here from China illegally and is struggling to support herself while seeking the daughter who was stolen from her years ago. Rebecca is a white woman who works at a publishing firm that used to be her father's. She's trying to acquire the hottest new book written by a woman of color, but there are dark secrets dogging her past.
I liked how the two stories intertwined. I guessed most of the twists but I really liked how the author did them and I think this would translate well to the screen. My only qualm is that the last act felt rushed and a little messy, but the ending made me tear up.
I just finished this book and I swear my jaw is still unhinged from that twist. First and foremost, though, this book needs to have a solid page of trigger warnings because it is one of the most psychologically intense books I've picked up in a while, and the first half basically sucked my soul into a black and desolate void. DON'T pick this up if you cannot read about on-page rapes or you're feeling depressed and miserable, because this book will make you feel so much worse.
That said, it's brilliant. The first person narrative feels so raw, and Annie is a survivor in every sense of the word. While on Threads, we were talking about strong female protagonists and how some authors like to shit on weak or traumatized female characters in order to boost able-bodied and emotionally stoic women who kick butt, possess sexual agency, and mostly have their shit together. And that's all well and good, but while reading this book, I kept thinking about this comment someone left on my thread, about how sometimes survival itself is strength. And that's this book. Strength in survival.
STILL MISSING is a lot like ROOM by Emma Donoghue or Roxane Gay's UNTAMED STATE. It shows the psychic aftermath of abuse, but also has a woman regaining her sexual agency after trauma (with a pretty hot scene) and some genuinely shocking and memorable twists. I don't want to say more, because less is more going in, however I will say that there is infanticide, mentions of child sexual abuse, and also animal deaths (graphic and upsetting ones). I will definitely be checking out more from this author but I probably won't ever read this one again. I sure won't forget it, though.
I call books like these FULTs, or fucked up lady thrillers, and the requirement is basically that the female narrator hasn't got her shit together and there's a Suspicious Hot Guy (SHG) who might or might not be the villain. FULTs are the best kinds of thrillers and you absolutely cannot change my mind.
I found THE SILENT WOMAN in a Little Free Library and loved the cover and thought the summary sounded amazing. It actually sounded a lot like Freida McFadden's THE WIFE UPSTAIRS, and there are a ton of similarities, but I think this is because they're both clearly inspired by Jane Eyre. The twists and some of the core elements are different enough that they don't feel exactly the same.
If you're familiar with stories like Jane Eyre and Rebecca, you know the score. A woman marries a charming and rich man only to find out that he has baggage in the form of an ex-wife who's still kind of in the picture. I liked that Jade was a biographer and met her husband through her work. She felt fleshed out and competent and nice. Don't get me wrong, I love messy ladies, but I like nice ladies, too.
I don't want to say too much more because I don't want to spoil any of the twists, but if you enjoy books written by authors like May Cobb, Lindsay Marcott, or Emily Carpenter, you're probably going to enjoy this.
The premise of this book totally lured me in. A group of women blackmailing bad men in the era of Me Too? Um, hell yeah.
I thought the beginning was really well done but it felt like the author didn't really know how to end her book. I found that the beginning really slogged and it ended kind of disappointingly. At first I was like, "Oh my god, why does this have such a low Goodreads rating? What didn't people like about it?" but by the end, I was like, ahh.
Writing style isn't bad and I thought Sutton did a great job writing believably morally grey heroines. I just wanted more depth and sparkle from the story itself.
While reading the summary for this book I thought it might have been Jane Eyre-inspired but if anything, it's more like Rebecca. Charlotte is a forty-year-old interior decorator who has just married a man named Gideon, who has a young daughter, named Emily. For a woman who has always wanted a family, this feels like a dream come true. There's just one catch: Gideon's first wife, Sarah, is still in the picture. Sarah, his first love, and mother to his child. Sarah, who was the perfect wife... until she started hearing voices and being unable to sleep.
Sarah has only just recently gotten out of a psychiatric facility and everyone has agreed that she should still be a part of Emily's life. But Charlotte is resentful of this. She feels like Sarah is trying to steal her husband away and thinks it would be a lot better if Sarah went back to the hospital. Or better yet... if she died. Leaving her alone with Emily and Gideon forever. When Sarah begins slipping again, Charlotte is exhilarated. But what if... Sarah's not imagining her fears?
Or worse: what if she IS?
I don't read a lot of domestic suspense because a lot of it revolves around motherhood and that is something that just isn't very interesting to me. Case in point: Charlotte is close to my age, but she can think of nothing but babies and being the perfect mother and biological clocks. Women in these books tend to define themselves by nothing but motherhood and children, and that's fine, but that's not who I am or even something I'm really interested in, so I tend to avoid books like these as a matter of fact. But the psychological element really roped me in, and so did the tension between the two wives. I do feel like this was probably inspired by REBECCA, but whatever you think is happening, it probably isn't what you think. I was surprised by the ending. I think it worked.
But oh my God, all of these characters were awful. The little girl, Emily, was sweet, and I felt bad and worried about Sarah. But Gideon, Charlotte, and her mother? Hate, hate, hate, loathe entirely. And there were a bunch of other total trash people in this book as well, who I'm not going to talk about because spoilers. This is not one of those thrillers where you read the book rooting for or relating with the protagonists involved. I basically hate-read my way to the end, grimly demanding justice. This was honestly such a stressful, nail-biting experience. But did it keep me hooked? Also yes.
This was great, kind of a cross between Knives Out and THE SEVEN HUSBANDS OF EVELYN HUGO. There's three narrators: Ruby, the infamous patriarch of the McTavish fortune, who survived four unlucky husbands, and kidnapped as a child; Camden, her heir by means of adoption, hated by all of the by-blood McTavishes; and Jules, Camden's wife, a calm and ruthless woman who is determined to see to it that her husband gets everything that he deserves.
I could not put this down and was utterly obsessed with it. When I wasn't reading this book, I was thinking about it, and wondering what would happen next. It's similar to the stories that I like to write, and even references a folktale I've used in one of my own works because it's such a sinister favorite (The Scorpion and the Frog! It's so good), which felt like kismet. I feel like one of the biggest compliments that you can give another author is saying that you wish that you'd written the story-- except that's not true, because with the historical elements, mixed media format, and three distinct and vicious voices of the narrator, I could not have done this book justice the way she did.
I've read and loved THE WIFE UPSTAIRS, because it was a Jane Eyre retelling (another one of my favorite books), but this one was even better. There's more of a romance angle, which I loved, and Camden was hot. It had the same doomed family legacy vibes as Roanoke Girls and Fall of the House of Usher, so if that's your vibe, you'll eat this up. I hope they make it into a Netflix series.
"Everyone loves a pretty dead girl, and to be reminded of what happens to girls who aren't careful."
BAD GIRLS WITH PERFECT FACES isn't just an edgy YA title; it could also be the name for my favorite genre of books. Fucked up lady thrillers, AKA FULTS. Our cast of doomed characters is a trio of edgy, bitter alternative teens. Sasha is a loner who is in love with her best friend. Xavier, her best friend, has depression that he is self-medicating for. He's also in love with a bitter and mean-spirited manic pixie dreamgirl named Ivy. After watching Ivy jerk Xavier around, Sasha decides to catfish her. But it doesn't work out the way she thought it would. Nothing does.
I'm not surprised that this book has low ratings, even though it's totally undeserved. BAD GIRLS has all of the things that make the pearl-clutchers wring their hands nervously. There's teen sex, drug use, alcohol use, girls being very mean to each other, and people being imperfect fucked up versions of themselves. You know, just like real life.
This is a sad and miserable confection of a book but I did really enjoy it. In as much as you can enjoy something like this. If you're reading this book, just make sure you're in the right headspace for it. But if you're a fan of books like 13 REASONS WHY or BEFORE I FALL, you'll like this a lot.
I really hate the blurb on the cover calling this an "antidote to chick lit," even though when I read this book as a teenager for the first time, I probably would have agreed with the sentiment. LIKE THE RED PANDA is a desperately unhappy book, featuring a desperately unhappy protagonist. Stella lost both her parents when they died of drug overdose (they were cocaine addicts). Despite her adversity, she lives with her foster parents in Irvine and is Princeton-bound. But then one day, something in her brain shifts. She gets the idea that nothing really matters. She cuts off her friends and family, she stops attending classes or taking care of herself; she is planning to end her life.
LIKE THE RED PANDA is a difficult book to read because when I had really bad depression as a teen, I related pretty strongly to the heroine. I think the author does a good job showing how depression kind of transcends sadness. There's a gnawing emptiness to depression, that nothing can really fill. The more you try to pour in, the worse you feel. The heroine has really dissociated from her life and the way she disconnects from herself and everything is painful to read because it's so well done.
As an adult who has my depression managed, I liked this book less. Mostly, because it made me feel so sad for the heroine, and how all the adult figures in her life failed her. LIKE THE RED PANDA doesn't romanticize suicide-- the heroine's grandfather, Donald, also seems to have depression and is also trying to end his life in his retirement home, and as the heroine struggles with her own decision she refuses her grandfather's attempts to enlist her in his own-- but it kind of feels like a cautionary tale. Privilege doesn't protect you from depression, and adult figures who are supposed to be guardians for the kids they manage can sometimes be so wrapped up in their own securities that they never really move on from their own internalized adolescence. It's a bleak, sad book with a miserable ending. I don't think it's an "antidote" to anything, except maybe that feeling of loneliness and isolation.
Holy shit, you guys. What in the name of Mr. Ripley was this. You know, it's totally appropriate that this author's name is Kim Savage because this book was SAVAGE. Brutal. Is this really YA? Because IN HER SKIN was basically everything I love in a thriller, except with characters who are, like, half the age of the ones I usually read about. And normally I think YA authors find themselves curtailed when writing edgy thrillers, because they're like okay, but how edgy can I really be when writing for kids? Kim Savage found a way.
Jolene Chastain has just lost her mother. Or, to be more specific, her mother was just murdered by one of her sleazy boyfriends. Jo and her mom were semi-homeless con artists, and now Jo is all alone. While sitting next to a rich girl at a library, who looks kind of like her, she gets the idea to steal her identity. But when she looks the girl up (after stealing her ID), she figures out an even better plan: the girl, Temple Lovecraft, was childhood friends with a girl who's been missing for years, Vivienne Weir. She can become the friend instead.
So Jo becomes Vivi and learns that in the years since her disappearance, Vivi's parents have both died, and in the event of their deaths, Vivi was meant to live with the Lovecraft family instead. They are super rich and give Vivi basically anything she could ever want, and mysterious, brooding Temple quickly develops a close and toxic bond with Jo (that's kind of a little sexual, too). But there's something this family is hiding that goes beyond your typical levels of jaded rich person ennui. And by taking up the Vivienne Weir mantle, Jo might just have put herself in danger.
I'm surprised IN HER SKIN has such bad reviews, but also not really. One, even though this book has some sapphic moments, it wasn't really branded or tagged that way by readers, so the people who would love a book about dark, morally chaotic girls-who-love-girls don't know it exists. Two, everyone in this book is awful. And I've noticed that a lot of people who claim to like "villain characters" just want romantic villain characters, like the Darkling, and get angry when presented with actual sociopaths. Both Jo and Temple are terrible people, and part of the fun, especially in the last act, is seeing what they do next. Lastly, it's cheesy. This is the YA version of a Lifetime movie, okay? Or like V.C. Andrews but without all the incest and underage stuff. If a gothic melodrama is what floats your boat, reading this is going to have you cracking open the champagne on deck.
I personally LOVED this book and now that I see that Kim Savage has penned a couple other edgy-looking YA mysteries, I'm going to have to find a way to get my hands on them.
Nenia ✨ I yeet my books back and forth ✨
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