My eyes light up at psychological thrillers, True Crime & great literary fiction
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 I hope you had a great weekend!
I’m keeping this review short because life. Q: Do you prefer short or long reviews? I tend to prefer longer reviews personally. Except for when I’m writing them. Then shorter somehow seems better. One-sentence summary: Three once-close friends who have been out of touch for years decide to skip school together and accidentally stumble upon a murder. ----- Karen McManus is a fabulous writer, and the characters and dialogue in this book were of the exceptional YA-caliber that she always seems to deliver. Although nothing about this book could be described as shockingly new to the genre, it was a compelling and easy read full of some fun twists and turns. The climax hit at about the 90% mark of the book, which meant that for something in the mystery and thriller genre, there was a very loooooong epilogue that -- timing-wise -- didn’t feel quite right to me. I just wanted it to wrap up. Despite the long ending, this is a super-solid mystery that is an incredibly fun read, so I recommend it for McManus fans or anyone who loves a solid YA mystery. This comes out Nov. 30! Thank you Delacorte Press/Random House for the ARC!
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 Happy Pub Day to this one!!
I really enjoyed this read - unique premise, solid pacing, and a few good twists! And I’m always down for books about vigilante justice! Q: Besides this one, I really enjoyed The Killer Collective by Barry Eisler ps We just welcomed a dog into our little family!! And he is the sweetest little guy! He’s peeking out from behind the book here because he’s a little shy, but get ready to see a LOT more of him! I plan to spoil him silly Book summary: Camille Gardener is a grieving—and angry—mother who, five years after her daughter’s death, is still obsessed with the privileged young man she believes to be responsible. When her rash actions draw the attention of a secret group of women—the collective— Camille is drawn into a dark web where these mothers share their wildly different stories of loss as well as their desire for justice in a world where privilege denies accountability. Fueled by mutual rage, the collective members devise and act out retribution fantasies via precise, anonymous, highly coordinated revenge killings. As Camille struggles to comprehend whether this is a role-playing exercise or terrifying reality, she must decide if these women are truly avenging angels or monsters. Becoming more deeply enmeshed in the group, Camille learns truths about the collective—and about herself—that she may not be able to survive Thank you William Morrow for the ARC!  I'll preface this by saying that I hate being critical of anyone who has managed to get a book published or even finished a book. Authors pour their artistic souls into their work, and I recognize how difficult that is. So this is just my own, humble opinion of the first third of this book, as I've chosen not to finish it.
This story focuses on an actress who attends the intimate Hollywood Hills birthday party of her ex-husband Richard, who is the director who launched her career, only to wake up in the morning and find him dead. It's a locked-room mystery that starts off with the promise of an Agatha Christie-style mystery, but for me, the mystery and characters didn't deliver. Although the writing is really quite good, I didn't take to the story. The pacing is slow, and I didn't find the characters compelling or interesting enough to warrant learning the minutiae of their lives. Now, I typically LOVE unlikable characters, when done well. To me, the dinner party guests -- there are about eight of them -- seemed both flat and unlikable. They came off as shallow and grating to me, and I couldn't tell if that was intentional or not. If it was clear that this was a skewering of the elite, Hollywood types - who themselves are little lost souls - it may have been very engaging! Honestly, sign me up for that. I've lived around those types of people for a long time, and they deserve a good skewer. But instead, this seemed more like an earnest representation of people I'd prefer to avoid: in real life, and in books. The book description makes mention of David Lynch. While the inclusion of the octopus as a character was interesting and definitely Lynch-ian, that's as far as I'd go in comparison to his semi-surrealist and at times wonderfully disturbing style. There's just more depth and insight and bravery within his work. To be fair, I didn't finish the book. I made it one-third of the way through, which is what I always attempt to do before closing a book for good. The characters just weren't coming to life for me, and I found myself disinterested in finding out who killed Richard, a character who seemed rather pretentious and possibly deserving of a good kill. Although this didn't work for me, this may work well for those who like slightly eccentric, slow-burning mysteries. It came out Oct. 5. Thank you Ballantine Books for the ARC! |