Book Blog #403: The Tenant by Frieda McFadden

 

Title: The Tenant

Author: Freida McFadden

# of Pages: 344 (paperback)

Genre: Adult, Thriller, Mystery

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Synopsis: Blake Porter is riding high, until he's not. Fired abruptly from his job as a VP of marketing and unable to make the mortgage payments on the new brownstone that he shares with his fiancee, he's desperate to make ends meet. Enter Whitney. Beautiful, charming, down-to-earth, and looking for a room to rent. She's exactly what Blake's looking for. Or is she? Because something isn't quite right. The neighbors start treating Blake differently. The smell of decay permeates his home, no matter how hard he scrubs. Strange noises jar him awake in the middle of the night. And soon Blake fears someone knows his darkest secrets... Danger lives right at home, and by the time Blake realizes it, it'll be far too late. The trap is already set.

Review: This was an EXTREMELY fast and easy read. 

This is my first McFadden book, and it's clear that she knows how to write for the masses. The writing style is quite simple and very plot-focused (definitely not some literary masterpiece). The story is told in from a couple point of views (for the most part in series) in first person present tense, so you are along for the ride with Blake in figuring out why his life is going so wrong so suddenly. Usually I strongly dislike first person POV switching, but since the different POVs weren't intertwined, this actually didn't bother me. 

I'm not a huge fan of thrillers (this was meant to be a daytime-only read for me), but I was glad to find this was scary in the sense that weird events happen in Blake's life that the reader doesn't find out how it happened until later. There's less explicit "thrilling" scenes compared to Verity (e.g. no freaky lady jump scaring the main character by staring at her), although the concept of strange events happening at home while a couple lives with a random new person is coincidentally very similar. It also reminded me a bit of the Black Mirror episode Bête Norie (but based in reality), so the story's premise is nothing super original. 

I was totally expecting to not be entertained by her books (since she's so popular with The Housemaid series, I was bracing myself for an overhyped read). However, I was pleasantly surprised that I incorrectly guessed the twist, and I couldn't put the book down (read in <1 day). 

Something I didn't like is how the characters wouldn't follow through with logical solutions (e.g. if you're bothered by loud noises and can't get them to stop, why not try wearing earplugs or doing something else within your control? If you're broke, why insist to talk to someone in person rather trying first to call them and save the drive out as a backup plan?). The story also relies on the miscommunication trope which is always frustrating. The very ending seemed rushed; didn't really need the epilogue. 

Overall a very light (but still somewhat thrilling) read; would recommend it to people who already like the mystery-thriller genre. 

Book Blog #397: Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke

 Title: Yesteryear

Author: Caro Claire Burke

# of Pages: 391

Genre: Adult, Mystery, Thriller

Rating: ★★★ ☆ ☆

Synopsis: Natalie lives a traditional lifestyle. Her charming farmhouse is rustic, her husband a handsome cowboy, her six children each more delightful than the last. So what if there are nannies and producers behind the scenes, her kitchen hiding industrial-grade fridges and ovens, her husband the Republican equivalent of a Kennedy? What Natalie’s followers—all 8 million of them—don’t know won’t hurt them. And The Angry Women? The privileged, Ivy League, coastal elite haters who call her an antifeminist iconoclast? They’re sick with jealousy. Because Natalie isn’t simply living the good life, she’s living the ideal—and just so happens to be building an empire from it. Until one morning she wakes up in a life that isn’t hers. Her home, her husband, her children—they’re all familiar, but something’s off. Her kitchen is warmed by a sputtering fire rather than electricity, her children are dirty and strange, and her soft-handed husband is suddenly a competent farmer. Just yesterday Natalie was curating photos of homemade jam for her Instagram, and now she’s expected to haul firewood and handwash clothes until her fingers bleed. Has she become the unwitting star of a brutal reality show? Could it really be time travel? Is she being tested by God? By Satan? When Natalie suffers a brutal injury in the woods, she realizes two things: This is not her beautiful life, and she must escape by any means possible.

Review: Good but not great. Fresh but not extraordinary. 

This is the first book I’ve read about a tradwife influencer, so I liked how this story delved into how this type of person rises to fame. 

The narrative reminded me of Yellowface; Natalie, our tradwife narrator, is extremely unlikable and unreliable. I was quite disgusted with her narcissistic, judgmental attitude but thought the author did a great job at creating such a distinct, unhinged narrative. 

The story jumps between the Natalie’s rise to fame from her college days onward and her present day 1855 life. Most of the mystery is how she’s suddenly in this 1855 life, and the story of her past has to run in parallel to this to build up to the reveal. I wasn’t a huge fan of switching back in forth because some of the past segments were slower/boring, and I wanted to hear more about her trying to understand the 1855 lifestyle. 

The mystery reveal was a letdown for me; I wasn’t able to fully guess the ending, but it felt like a cop-out ending. The resolution felt rush and unrealistic logistically. 

I’d recommend this book if you’re interested in the topic (especially if you’re interested in the real life influencer account Ballerina Farms); it’s an easy and quick read. 

Book Blog #395: Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy

 

Title: Wild Dark Shore

Author: Charlotte McConaghy

# of Pages: 300 (hardback)

Genre: Adult, Mystery, Contemporary

Rating: ★★★★☆

Synopsis: A family on a remote island. A mysterious woman washed ashore. A rising storm on the horizon. Dominic Salt and his three children are caretakers of Shearwater, a tiny island not far from Antarctica. Home to the world’s largest seed bank, Shearwater was once full of researchers, but with sea levels rising, the Salts are now its final inhabitants. Until, during the worst storm the island has ever seen, a woman mysteriously washes ashore. Isolation has taken its toll on the Salts, but as they nurse the woman, Rowan, back to strength, it begins to feel like she might just be what they need. Rowan, long accustomed to protecting herself, starts imagining a future where she could belong to someone again. But Rowan isn’t telling the whole truth about why she set out for Shearwater. And when she discovers sabotaged radios and a freshly dug grave, she realizes Dominic is keeping his own secrets. As the storms on Shearwater gather force, they all must decide if they can trust each other enough to protect the precious seeds in their care before it’s too late―and if they can finally put the tragedies of the past behind them to create something new, together.

Review: McConaghy has written yet another great book.

But most noticeably, there's a huge climate/nature/animal conservation and appreciation element to this book that seems to be now be a running theme for all her books. This book is actually paced very slowly, and there's a lot of descriptions of the animals on the island and seeds in the seed bank that don't necessarily drive the plot forward. It wasn't surprising to hear that McConaghy visited, researched, and based the setting off Macquarie Island, and reading this book knowing that this is ultimately an ode to that island explains why there's so much focus on this rather than the mystery it's pitched as.

However, surprisingly I actually liked the simultaneously despairing but hopeful slice of life story that allows the reader to get to know Rowan, Dominic, and his children. The whole book could have focused more on these people building relationships with each other (focus on themes of family/parent-child relationships, trauma, etc.) and I would have been happy (4+ stars). 

What did bother me was the first and third person POV switching. The rapid switching between 5 characters means short chapters, but this could have been told equally effectively in omniscient third person. 

Most of the mystery element is created by omission; the characters collectively know the full story but will trickle truth it to the reader. I don't remember much about Migrations after 4 years but IIRC, they similarly used this story telling strategy. Not a fan, and on the mystery aspect and POV switching (especially in the beginning before I became invested in the characters, I was almost going to rate this book 2-3 stars.

The way children were depicted in Migrations felt unrealistic to me, and I feel similarly about the 9 year old child (Orly) in this book, especially in the beginning. This improved a bit later on in the story, but the older children and adult character felt more authentic. 

In the end, this book lands somewhere between a high 3 stars and a low 4 stars. I couldn't put this book down and blazed through the latter half. I'd recommend this book, especially if you're interested in a slower paced, story with a focus on beauty and fragility of nature.  

Book Blog #391: On a Quiet Street by Seraphina Nova Glass

 

Title: On a Quiet Street

Author: Seraphina Nova Glass

# of Pages: 302 (ebook)

Genre: Adult, Mystery, Thriller

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Synopsis: Who wouldn’t want to live in Brighton Hills? This exclusive community on the Oregon coast is the perfect mix of luxury and natural beauty. Stunning houses nestle beneath mighty Douglas firs, and lush backyards roll down to the lakefront. It’s the kind of place where neighbors look out for one another. Sometimes a little too closely… Cora thinks her husband, Finn, is cheating—she just needs to catch him in the act. That’s where Paige comes in. Paige lost her son to a hit-and-run last year, and she’s drowning in the kind of grief that makes people do reckless things like spying on the locals, searching for proof that her son’s death was no accident…and agreeing to Cora’s plan to reveal what kind of man Finn really is. All the while, their reclusive new neighbor, Georgia, is acting more strangely every day. But what could such a lovely young mother possibly be hiding?

Review: Entertaining enough, but there's nothing mind blowing that On a Quiet Street is doing that hasn't already been done.

There's POV switching between not just two first person perspectives (Cora and Georgia) but ALSO a third person perspective (Paige). Cora's and Georgia's perspectives are also in present tense, so it feels like you're actually in their head. Considering that Georgia is a bit dull/naive, this can get frustrating sometimes. 

There's a slow start, and it quickly becomes obvious that most of these people are insufferable. However, it's a pretty quick and easy read that gets in the latter half of the book as the answer to the whodunnit becomes clearer. I wish the reveal incorporated more hints dropped along the way rather than relying on withholding information from the reader to shock them with it at the end of the story. 

The main message I got from this book is that women are stronger together, and some men can be really horrible. If this doesn't resonate with you, I wouldn't recommend this book. I also would only recommend this book if you're interested in a classic whodunnit rather than something revolutionary. This was a low-mid three star read for me.

Book Blog #386: The Couple Next Door by Shari Lapena

 

Title: The Couple Next Door

Author: Shari Lapen

# of Pages: 308 (paperback)

Genre: Adult, Mystery, Thriller

Rating: ★★★★☆

Synopsis: Your neighbour told you that she didn't want your six-month-old daughter at the dinner party. Nothing personal, she just couldn't stand her crying. Your husband said it would be fine. After all, you only live next door. You'll have the baby monitor and you'll take it in turns to go back every half hour. Your daughter was sleeping when you checked on her last. But now, as you race up the stairs in your deathly quiet house, your worst fears are realized. She's gone. You've never had to call the police before. But now they're in your home, and who knows what they'll find there.

Review: This is a classic whodunnit mystery that's fast paced and easy to read. Perfect for some light reading that is actually best enjoyed if you turn your brain off.

The Couple Next Door is told in third person omniscient perspective, drifting primarily between the parents Anne and Marco and Detective Rasbach. This works well for the book aside from the weakness where the reader will obviously know more information than the other characters. Usually this is frustrating, but Detective Rasbach is great at his job, and I found that he (and thus the author) was always one step ahead of me. 

The ending was sloppier than I liked. Lapena tried to incorporate too much for the grand finale that made unrealistic, and a particular character's backstory felt too underdeveloped. 

Part of why this story is so easy to read is Lapena chooses to tell the reader all the possible theories rather than showing them implicitly through observations. This story could have been richer and grittier if Lapena showed rather than told, but it was still an entertaining read nonetheless. 

This book definitely leaned more toward the mystery aspect than thriller. There was only one aspect of the book that was ominous but isn't the focus of the plot. 

This was a solid read that I could not put down, but Lapen isn't doing anything groundbreaking here. It's in the low-mid 4 star range (low 4 for execution, mid 4 for enjoyment and readability). I would recommend it if you're a fan of mystery!

Book Blog #379: Verity by Colleen Hoover

 

Title: Verity

Author: Colleen Hoover

# of Pages: 333 (ebook)

Genre: Adult, Thriller, Mystery

Rating: ★★★★☆

Synopsis: Lowen Ashleigh is a struggling writer on the brink of financial ruin when she accepts the job offer of a lifetime. Jeremy Crawford, husband of bestselling author Verity Crawford, has hired Lowen to complete the remaining books in a successful series his injured wife is unable to finish. Lowen arrives at the Crawford home, ready to sort through years of Verity's notes and outlines, hoping to find enough material to get her started. What Lowen doesn't expect to uncover in the chaotic office is an unfinished autobiography Verity never intended for anyone to read. Page after page of bone-chilling admissions, including Verity's recollection of the night her family was forever altered. Lowen decides to keep the manuscript hidden from Jeremy, knowing its contents could devastate the already grieving father. But as Lowen's feelings for Jeremy begin to intensify, she recognizes all the ways she could benefit if he were to read his wife's words. After all, no matter how devoted Jeremy is to his injured wife, a truth this horrifying would make it impossible for him to continue loving her.

Review: Brava, Colleen Hoover, for writing a book in completely different style and genre than I was expecting. I firmly bucketed her as a romance author, but I’m happily proven wrong.

Although there are romance elements, I actually don’t consider Verity to be a romance at all because it’s overpowered by the thriller (and mystery) qualities. It took me a while to sort out my actual thoughts on this book while recovering from the dread/fear I felt while reading.

Verity had plenty of flaws that almost made me rate this 3 stars instead of 4. 

- There’s POV switching in the form of switching between two mediums: Lowell’s (the main character) narration and Verity’s manuscript. Both are in first person, but I actually wasn’t as bothered by this as I usually am. However, it did weaken the story’s grip on my attention because there were times where Lowell’s chapters felt like filler. 

- This is yet another case where an author creates a main character who is ALSO an author or has writing related interest. In Verity, there's actually TWO author characters (Lowell and Verity). But I guess authors "write what they know".

- Hoover was VERY intentional with making this story a thriller. Verity is written to be ominously freaky, and Lowell is the classic jumpy main character whose paranoia is contagious. If this was Hoover’s goal, mission accomplished. That being said, it felt like some cheap ways to make a story creepy in ways that weren’t plot relevant. But I’m not a huge thriller fan, so I can imagine others might love this aspect.

- Without spoiling it, the ending felt rushed, and the extended epilogue was unnecessary or should have been incorporated in the rest of the story. The ending was also divisive (which I liked), but to make it truly defendable, I wish Hoover made sure there was continuity in her story when looking at it from the most common angles. 

But in the end I felt this book earned a low-4 stars:

- This book flowed really well; I read it in a day and couldn’t put it down (but maybe this is because I was too scared?)

- While the beginning felt like a cliche romance (meetcute in the very first chapter really fit with Hoover’s style), the rest of the story was actually not recognizable to me as Hoover’s style at all. I applaud the writing diversity and thought she pulled it off really well without being overly reliant on incorporating romance elements. 

- I like books that make the reader at the end want to go back and overanalyze the story, and this book fits the bill. I couldn’t get this book out of my head and found myself scrolling through fan theories to hear other people’s interpretation of the story. 

- There’s a lot of nuance in the characters; even one’s that are meant to be “villainous” are still realistic and have some admirable qualities (love to hate them). 

- I would actually recommend this book to people, especially since it’s such a quick and gripping read. 

Book Blog #376: The God of the Woods by Liz Moore

 

Title: The God of the Woods

Author: Liz Moore

# of Pages: 478 (ebook)

Genre: Adult, Mystery, Historical Fiction

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Synopsis: Early morning, August 1975: a camp counselor discovers an empty bunk. Its occupant, Barbara Van Laar, has gone missing. Barbara isn’t just any thirteen-year-old: she’s the daughter of the family that owns the summer camp and employs most of the region’s residents. And this isn’t the first time a Van Laar child has disappeared. Barbara’s older brother similarly vanished fourteen years ago, never to be found. As a panicked search begins, a thrilling drama unfolds. Chasing down the layered secrets of the Van Laar family and the blue-collar community working in its shadow, Moore’s multi-threaded story invites readers into a rich and gripping dynasty of secrets and second chances. It is Liz Moore’s most ambitious and wide-reaching novel yet.

Review: This was more of a slow historical drama with some underlying mystery than a page-turning mystery-thriller.

In fact, it was so NOT paging turning that I kept putting this book down because I was frustrated/bored. There's a few reasons for this:

- There's time skipping (between 1950s to 1970s) AND third person POV switching, which wouldn't have been a huge issue except Moore decided to switch between a billion side characters (some of which aren't super relevant and who's perspectives are never seen again later in the story). It's super painful because right when I'm getting into the story from one person's perspective, Moore switches to another person in a different time period which breaks the immersion. 

- Since there's so many characters, there's a lot of chapters spent on telling the reader about their backgrounds which made the story progression very slow. 

The writing actually was very good (4 star worthy), but the storytelling was painful (2-3 stars) because of the above points. 

This is also one of the mysteries where I couldn't guess what happens because there's possible red herrings everywhere (make the reader appreciate the work investigators do and how hard it is to get to the truth). The ending is actually unsatisfying because it felt like it came out of nowhere rather than looking at the hints reader's received throughout the story with a different perspective. 

On a completely different note, this book reminded me of The Great Gatsby in that there was strong messaging that rich people sucks, and the games they play with other people's lives is both self-serving and deeply destructive.

Overall a good but not great slow read. I don't regret reading but do think it is too slow-paced for me to recommend it highly.

Book Blog #374: Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt

 

Title: Remarkably Bright Creatures

Author: Shelby Van Pelt

# of Pages: 362 (ebook)

Genre: Adult, Contemporary, Mystery

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Synopsis: After Tova Sullivan's husband died, she began working the night shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium, mopping floors and tidying up. Keeping busy has always helped her cope, which she's been doing since her eighteen-year-old son, Erik, mysteriously vanished on a boat in Puget Sound over thirty years ago. Tova becomes acquainted with curmudgeonly Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living at the aquarium. Marcellus knows more than anyone can imagine but wouldn't dream of lifting one of his eight arms for his human captors--until he forms a remarkable friendship with Tova. Ever the detective, Marcellus deduces what happened the night Tova's son disappeared. And now Marcellus must use every trick his old invertebrate body can muster to unearth the truth for her before it's too late. Shelby Van Pelt's debut novel is a gentle reminder that sometimes taking a hard look at the past can help uncover a future that once felt impossible.

Review: I never thought I would say this, but the octopus is my favorite character.

Remarkably Bright Creatures is told from the octopus Marcellus's first-person perspective, but each chapter alternates between 3 other third-person perspectives: 

- Tova, who cleans the aquarium where Marcellus lives. She's a tidy, self-reliant 70 year old woman who's still grieving over the sudden disappearance of her son Erik even after decades have passed. 

- Cameron, who's an entitled loser from Modesto who's got mommy and daddy issues that will infuriate the reader.

- Ethan, who is similar age as Tova and works at the store Tova shops at. It's unclear why his perspective is included at all since it overlaps with Tova's and Cameron's. 

On the other hand, Marcellus is a surprisingly insightful octopus that makes you wish the whole story was told from his perspective instead. If it was, this could have been a 4 start read at least, or even if it was just from Marcellus and Tova's perspective. 

Cameron experiences basically no character growth (I don't buy the sudden "growth" at the end of the book; it felt like the author just threw that in to try to make him more likable). He's erratic, irresponsible, and like to blame his problems on those around him. Sounds like your run of the mill teenage boy who has time to grow out of these problems right? Except he's freaking 30 years old! Gives me the ick. By the end of the book, he still sounds ungrateful for those who have helped him along the way and sounds judgmental of his aunt for being a hoarder in a trailer park. 

Otherwise, the book overall is a slow paced slice-of-life style story about these characters who are tied together by a shared mystery. The mystery reveal is predictable (Van Pelt makes it very easy to piece together what ties all these characters together very early on with the knowledge from all these different characters). The real mystery ends up being how the characters themselves find out the big reveal. 

Overall, a three star read! Although the story dragged a little bit, and Cameron was insufferable, the story was cozy and a refreshing read after binging a bunch of trashy romance books. It's a wholesome read and is an applaudable effort for being Van Pelt's debut novel!

Book Blog #372: Strange Sally Diamond by Liz Nugent

 

Title: Strange Sally Diamond

Author: Liz Nugent

# of Pages: 320 (ebook)

Genre: Adult, Thriller, Mystery

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

Synopsis: Sally Diamond cannot understand why what she did was so strange. She was only doing what her father told her to do, to put him out with the rubbish when he died. Now Sally is the centre of attention, not only from the hungry media and worried police, but also a sinister voice from a past she has no memory of. As she begins to discover the horrors of her childhood, recluse Sally steps into the world for the first time, making new friends, finding independence, and learning that people don't always mean what they say. But when messages start arriving from a stranger who knows far more about her past than she knows herself, Sally's life will be thrown into chaos once again . . .

Review: Is the thriller/mystery in the room with us?

This book aims to demonstrate how abuse can affect generations and trauma can be cyclical. It also gives the reader some insight on how dark minds justify their twisted agendas. But this book wasn't particular sinister; everything is recounted pretty clinically. It’s more of a crime book than a rollercoaster thriller/whodunnit page-turning mystery. 

I kept waiting for something to hook me in or some big mystery, but everything was hinted at very obviously. I reached the end of the book and still couldn’t figure out if any of what I read was supposed to surprise me. 

A comparison to a similar story: Although I haven’t read the books, the Netflix TV show You did a better job at showcasing the mental gymnastics a person goes through to justify actions that are otherwise blatantly messed up. People were even sympathizing with the main character, which made the horrors of what he was able to accomplish even freakier and more believable. Strange Sally Diamond tries to do something similar but less effectively and leaves the reader frustrated and disconnected from the characters. 

This book only further affirms that I don’t like POV switching. The first person narrative switches between Sally and Peter, each starting in two different places on the timeline. I could respect Sally for her logical thinking and honesty but never felt truly invested in her character growth. 

But is this book really about Sally (as the title suggests)? Peter’s story was actually more interesting; which made the POV switches back to Sally even more frustrating. Instead of switching throughout the story, there should have been a Sally prologue, and then the rest of the story could have been about Peter (might be a hot take, but it's my honest opinion). 

Maybe I’m just jaded from reading similar content, it really felt like this story could have been told more effectively in general. I wasn’t a fan of the mixed use of media (first person narrative, letters, transcripts of recordings, etc); felt like an amateur way to get out details of the story. 

The middle section of Peter’s narrative was almost a 4 star read for me; I really wanted to know what happened to this guy. But then everything fell into place rather quickly, and the conclusion of his story felt sloppy and rushed which would his overall narrative around a 3 star read. 

I wouldn't recommend this book unless it already sounds interesting to you. Go into this book expecting to read about crime rather than thriller/mystery, and you might enjoy it more than I did. 

Book Blog #356: A Crane Among Wolves by June Hur

 

Title: A Crane Among Wolves

Author: June Hur

# of Pages: 363 (ebook)

Genre: YA, Historical Fiction, Mystery

Rating: ★★★★☆

Synopsis: 1506, Joseon. The people suffer under the cruel reign of the tyrant King Yeonsan, powerless to stop him from commandeering their land for his recreational use, banning and burning books, and kidnapping and horrifically abusing women and girls as his personal playthings. Seventeen-year-old Iseul has lived a sheltered, privileged life despite the kingdom’s turmoil. When her older sister, Suyeon, becomes the king’s latest prey, Iseul leaves the relative safety of her village, traveling through forbidden territory to reach the capital in hopes of stealing her sister back. But she soon discovers the king’s power is absolute, and to challenge his rule is to court certain death. Prince Daehyun has lived his whole life in the terrifying shadow of his despicable half-brother, the king. Forced to watch King Yeonsan flaunt his predation through executions and rampant abuse of the common folk, Daehyun aches to find a way to dethrone his half-brother once and for all. When staging a coup, failure is fatal, and he’ll need help to pull it off—but there’s no way to know who he can trust.

Review: Despite my better judgement, I HAD to give this book 4 stars instead of 3.

There were several components not working in its favor - there's POV switching (Inseul in first person, Daehyun in third person), and some keywords in Korean were not translated or explained to the reader. As is sometimes characteristic of YA books, the protagonist quickly (but unrealistically) befriends others critical to her journey. While this kept the story relatively compact and fast paced, I wasn't able to develop that deeper connection with these characters through the protagonist's experiences in this format, and it made reading the first half of the book slower than I would've liked.

My expectations were also completely off; based on the cover, I thought it would be a hot, romance-forward historical fiction, but instead I got a historical fiction forward story laced with mystery and a splash of romance. But it was actually a very pleasant surprise; the restraint and tension in the romance component actually made it more addicting and shows you don't have to be in your reader's face with the passionate and the sex to write a good love story (cough cough The Fourth Wing cough cough).

I stayed up late last night reading the latter half of the book because of the mystery aspect. Even though there were a lot of obvious hints along the way for readers to guess WHAT will unfold, what kept me turning the pages was wanting to know HOW it would unfold and how the characters were impacted by these changes. What I really respected and admired too was how Hur tried to stay as true to being historically accurate as possible, which made the atrocities committed by the king land even heavier on the reader's heart. 

While not without it's flaws, this book does tell a compelling story and highlights a brutal but less well known piece of history. It's also great that Hur made this a stand alone book; no need to worry about being left on a cliff hanger and dragged along for series that wasn't meant to be a series. I would actually recommend it if the story sounds interesting to you as it's a quick and engaging read. 

Book Blog #352: The Push by Ashley Audrain

 

Title: The Push

Author: Ashley Audrain

# of Pages: 307 (hardback)

Genre: Adult, Mystery, Thriller, Contemporary

Rating: ★★★★☆

Synopsis: Blythe Connor is determined that she will be the warm, comforting mother to her new baby Violet that she herself never had. But in the thick of motherhood’s exhausting early days, Blythe becomes convinced that something is wrong with her daughter–she doesn’t behave like most children do. Or is it all in Blythe’s head? Her husband, Fox, says she’s imagining things. The more Fox dismisses her fears, the more Blythe begins to question her own sanity, and the more we begin to question what Blythe is telling us about her life as well. Then their son Sam is born–and with him, Blythe has the blissful connection she’d always imagined with her child. Even Violet seems to love her little brother. But when life as they know it is changed in an instant, the devastating fall-out forces Blythe to face the truth.

Review: I knew very little going into this book other than vaguely knowing it was somehow related to motherhood. 

The narration is in first person and starts from the end before bouncing between multiple generations of history to peel the onion on Blythe's family's story. It took me a while to figure out what was going on (I didn't even know whether the protagonist was a woman or not, whether the main source of conflict would be with her past or her present or something else entirely).

After the first ~80 pages though, I became hooked and started to the feel the mystery/thriller aspects more strongly. It's more of a thriller in a realistic sense rather than in a way that is amped up to try to scare the reader. The protagonist will notice something is not quite what she expected with her daughter, and the reader feels the same worry, fear, and repulsion that Blythe feels. 

The Push was not without its failings though - the narration is very disjoint jumping between the grandmother's generation, Blythe's childhood, and even between parts of the present. The sloppy narration may have been on purpose to make the reader question Blythe's narration, but it broke my flow while reading and "spoiled" outcomes later in the book as a cheap and frustrating way to make the reader want to know how something happened.

Also, although it's a smaller part of the book, this is another example where the protagonist wants to do something related to writing as her profession. This always screams unoriginality and hints at the author's inability to create characters that are different from the industry they are familiar with. 

Audrain did a great job making motherhood seem really horrible. It draws on a real nightmare scenario that all parents fear that they'll create a monster via their children. I could see this being a great required reading for aspiring mothers to test how strongly the actually want to have kids. 

Otherwise, I sped through this book (a few days where most of the book was read in 1), and my mind kept wanting to know more details about Blythe and her family. I was wavering between 3 and 4 stars, but leaned toward 4 stars just because of how easy it was to read. However, I'm not in a hurry to recommend it - the story is interesting but the execution could have been cleaner. I'd be excited to see Audrain's future works since she came up with a great concept for a debut novel. 

Book Blog #351: Sing Her Down by Ivy Pochoda

 

Title: Sing Her Down

Author: Ivy Pochoda

# of Pages: 272 (paperback)

Genre: Adult, Historical Fiction, Mystery

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

Synopsis: Florence “Florida” Baum is not the hapless innocent she claims to be when she arrives at the Arizona women’s prison―or so her ex-cellmate Diosmary Sandoval keeps insinuating. Dios knows the truth about Florida’s crimes, understands what Florence hides even from that she was never a victim of circumstance, an unlucky bystander misled by a bad man. Dios knows that darkness lives in women too, despite the world’s refusal to see it. And she is determined to open Florida’s eyes and unleash her true self. When an unexpected reprieve gives both women their freedom, Dios’s fixation on Florida turns into a dangerous obsession, and a deadly cat-and-mouse chase ensues from Arizona to the desolate streets of Los Angeles.

Review: Is the "thrilling Western" in the room with us? Because whatever I read was a historical fiction with unnecessarily flowery prose. 

The good: this captures a sliver of what life was like during COVID pandemic (which wildly is several years in the past already). 

The bad: everything else. 

It's a given I wasn't going to like the POV switching, but this one is particularly poorly executed. It's not just POV switching but ALSO first and third person narration switching AND time skipping. The switching made the narration VERY disjointed (a risk for this style that REAL stood out as a failing for this book). 

Even after finishing this book, I'm struggling to figure out why this book was even written. It's clear that there is some feminist messaging going on, but I'm failing to see a positive message here. The book seems to be pushing the idea that "all women are capable of being violent," but this message isn't particularly enlightening/surprising. 

Overall, it was just really hard to get into this book with all the different characters' ramblings. It's not a gripping mystery because I didn't care enough about these characters to care about what these criminals are doing with their lives. There's a bunch of action/crime that happens in gruesome detail, but even that failed to engage me as a reader, and I couldn't help but keep putting this book down.

I really don't get the point of reading this book and wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

Book Blog #341: Miracle Creek by Angie Kim

 

Title: Miracle Creek

Author: Angie Kim

# of Pages: 398 (ebook)

Genre: Adult, Contemporary, Mystery

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Synopsis: In rural Miracle Creek, Virginia, Young and Pak Yoo run an experimental medical treatment device known as the Miracle Submarine. A pressurized oxygen chamber that patients enter for therapeutic “dives,” it's also a repository of hopes and dreams: the dream of a mom that her child can be like other kids; the dream of a young doctor desperate to cure his infertility and save his marriage; the dream of the Yoos themselves, Korean immigrants who have come to the United States so their teenage daughter can have a better life. When the oxygen chamber mysteriously explodes, killing two people, all these dreams shatter with it, and the ensuing murder trial uncovers imaginable secrets and lies.

Review: It's almost cheating to write a mystery because the reader is more than likely going to have a difficult time putting the book down. Even poorly written mysteries have had a history of taking over my day, my weekend because I NEED to figure out who dunnit. 

That being said, Miracle Creek somehow managed to miss this gripping quality. I didn't even mind the third person POV switching too much (the format is popular for the "peeling the onion" types of courthouse mysteries where different perspectives are necessary to build the full picture). There was something about how the character building and the story telling seemed to drag on, and the time skipping between the past and the present was annoying rather than suspenseful. 

What put me off the most was how Kim chose to write hints that the SOMETHING had happened, strongly indicating that some characters knew about some critical events, but stopped short of telling from the reader what actually happened until later in the story, in the name of suspense. It made the mystery aspect feel forced rather than letting letting the narratives from the courthouse and character interactions conjure the air of mystery themselves. 

A part that I did enjoy was how Miracle Creek explores parenthood of kids with likely lifelong conditions through the HBOT patients. This was the first time I've read about HBOT, and I learned a lot more than I expected about how some parents approach their children's typically "incurable" conditions. 

The Yoo family's immigration experience into the US made this book stand out amongst other court house mysteries. Immigrating from the US is explored from all angles within the family (father, mother, and child) and how they all face unique challenges in adjusting to a new culture and how pursuing the American dream inevitably changes the family dynamic. In particular, Young's growth in how she views Pak and his role as a patriarch of the family makes me really appreciate her as a character.

Overall, this book was...okay - there are some good parts, and there's nothing glaringly wrong with the book. But when I finished reading, that's what I felt about the book: it's "just okay."

Book Blog #339: Yellowface by R.F. Kuang

 

Title: Yellowface

Author: R.F. Kuang

# of Pages: 329 (ebook)

Genre: Adult, Contemporary, Mystery

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Synopsis: Authors June Hayward and Athena Liu were supposed to be twin rising stars. But Athena’s a literary darling. June Hayward is literally nobody. Who wants stories about basic white girls, June thinks. So when June witnesses Athena’s death in a freak accident, she acts on impulse: she steals Athena’s just-finished masterpiece, an experimental novel about the unsung contributions of Chinese laborers during World War I. So what if June edits Athena’s novel and sends it to her agent as her own work? So what if she lets her new publisher rebrand her as Juniper Song—complete with an ambiguously ethnic author photo? Doesn’t this piece of history deserve to be told, whoever the teller? That’s what June claims, and the New York Times bestseller list seems to agree. But June can’t get away from Athena’s shadow, and emerging evidence threatens to bring June’s (stolen) success down around her. As June races to protect her secret, she discovers exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves.

Review: Yellowface is a fictional book by an Asian author about a white character who is an author that catfishes people into thinking she's an Asian author. 

Told in first person, this book's main character June Hayward is an unreliable narrator and someone who you're meant to hate. While this is definitely intentional, most of my thoughts while reading Yellowface were about how much I strongly dislike June. 

The book was interesting enough as June digs herself further into a hole, but it didn't have the gripping suspense that I would expect from a mystery novel. It also felt like not ENOUGH happened in this book. Despite it not being very long, it felt like the story was dragging a bit and by the end it still felt like I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. This is why I decided to rate Yellowface at 3 stars rather than 4 stars.

I also found it amusing that this was a book about an author navigating the publication industry. It's great when authors write about what they know, but this felt like TOO obvious of a choice. That being said, I learned a lot more about an author's experience in getting a book published. 

I would still recommend the book to people who are already interested in it as it's pretty easy to read.

Book Blog #333: Saving Noah by Lucinda Berry

 

Title: Saving Noah

Author: Lucinda Berry

# of Pages: 221 (ebook)

Genre: Adult, Contemporary, Mystery

Rating: ★★★★☆

Synopsis: Meet Noah—an A-honor roll student, award-winning swimmer, and small-town star destined for greatness. There weren’t any signs that something was wrong until the day he confesses to molesting little girls during swim team practice. He’s sentenced to eighteen months in a juvenile sexual rehabilitation center. His mother, Adrianne, refuses to turn her back on him despite his horrific crimes, but her husband won’t allow Noah back into their home. In a series of shocking and shattering revelations, Adrianne is forced to make the hardest decision of her life. Just how far will she go to protect her son?

Review: Four stars for feelings, three stars for everything else. 

Anyone who categorizes this as a true horror + thriller as the top Goodreads genres indicate must consider true crime documentaries to be in those categories as well. This book starts AFTER the sexual assault has occurred, so at most it would be consider a mystery for its page-turning qualities on what will happen next to Noah.

It's hard to not compare Noah's (fictional) situation with the real-life, high profile Brock Turner case that happened a couple of years prior to the publication of this book. Both Noah and Brock were popular, high achieving athletes before committing their respective sex crimes. With the unwavering love a mother has for her child,  Adrianne lives in the delusion that her son deserves better because of how much of a "good boy" he's been in the rest of his life, making her a very unreliable narrator for this story. 

Of course, Adrianne delusion immediately repulsed me - these were VERY similar arguments that result in Brock Turner getting a sentence lighter than the crime committed. I couldn't believe this story was going to be told from such an unpopular perspective, yet this lesser-told POV is the aspect of the book that made it so gripping.

Not that her POV is without faults - Adrianne is TELLING the reader the story rather than letting the reader experience it alongside her. This means a lot of time skipping (less bothersome) AND another POV weaved in every few chapters (first person POV switching, more bothersome). 

I'm conflicted over the book's message. Pedophilia is not "fixable", so Noah's resolution for this sends a controversial message to other pedophiles who have truly good intentions. This story also raises a lot of questions about pedophilia that don't get answer in this book, e.g. what are the possible cause of Noah's pedophilia (environment, genetics, etc.), that would have been important and helpful to the reader when presenting a very challenging, pedophilic-sympathetic argument. 

There's also a lot of focus on how being a sex offender has ruined Noah's life, but very little focus on what happened to the victims of being molested and how they were affected. This makes it MUCH easier for the reader to feel sorry for Noah when he receives backlash from society. 

Without presenting the (more popular) other side of the story of the impact on the victims, it is more difficult for readers to holistically determine for themselves how warranted society's disgust toward pedophiles is. While some people may agree that the "punishments" Noah's peers inflict upon him are too extreme, Adrianne's extremely biased perspective on Noah deserving a second chance at a normal life is a hard pill to swallow when readers know that victims can carry this trauma with them for the rest of their life to no fault of their own. 

That being said, Adrianne's (delusional) love for her son is admirable and is a love that many would hope to have when experiencing (hopefully lesser) faults of our own from our mothers. Their story and relationship is heartbreaking genuinely had me in tears at the end. This aspect of the book is what earned the fourth star in my rating rather than the surprise twist at the end of the book that fell flat for me. 

This was a very fast read, and not just because it's a short book. I had problems putting this book down because I wanted to know what was going to happen to Noah. I couldn't shake the feeling that the shoe was going to drop and had to keep reading. Even though I was disappointed by the twisting and resolution and wasn't a big fan of the simplistic writing style (Berry could have added more nuance to her characters), I would still recommend this book if you can handle an unpopular perspective on a difficult topic.

Book Blog #328: The Heavan and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride

 

Title: The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store

Author: James McBride

# of Pages: 389 (hardback)

Genre: Adult, Historical Fiction, Mystery

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

Synopsis: In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighbourhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side and shared ambitions and sorrows.

Review: This is somewhere between 2 and 3 stars. 

This book wasn't BAD per se. My problems with the writing style can be mostly chalked up to McBride making "artistic choices" that I don't enjoy. 

First, the most obvious: third person POV switching. This one is employed A LOT - every chapter. Third person story telling is already somewhat prone to some POV switching, but this one tries to cover everyone involved AND can time skip (either a bit before or a bit after the previous chapter's events). I got the classic "I wish I could hear more about the OTHER characters" feeling with some of the characters (such as Doc, Gus, etc.). 

Now, I would say that the third person POV switching did make the ending ~100 pages more gripping, and the ending is by far the best part of the book. However, this is more because the book becomes less-slice of life and more mystery, and there's actually PLOT PROGRESSION. 

Which leads me to my second major problem with this book - the author is a big rambler. There's a lot of TELLING rather than SHOWING the characters' background. McBride repeats some "important" details as if forgetting that it was already mentioned 50 billion times already. I wanted to scream "I KNOW already! Let's get a move on the rest of the story!" It wasn't even clear what this book would be about in the first 100 pages because McBride was introducing so many people - even at the end it's clear that McBride doesn't have a single protagonist for this book (is it Moshe, who is the focus at the beginning but less so by the end? Nope, likely no one person is the protagonist). 

Not having a clear protagonist DID mean that I ended up caring about a lot of characters (thus why I considered giving it 3 stars), but not everyone's story is nicely tided up in a bow by the epilogue, unfortunately. Unlike other mysteries where there ending is satisfying, this one left me feeling like there was still more story that could have been told, but McBride decided it was time to focus and end it at 389 pages.

I probably will not read another McBride book again. 

Book Blog #315: The Client by John Grisham

 

Title: The Client

Author: John Grisham

# of Pages: 401 (hardback)

Genre: Adult, Mystery, Thriller

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Synopsis: This is the story of eleven-year-old Mark Sway, who as the novel opens, witnesses the bizarre suicide of a New Orleans attorney. Just before he dies, the lawyer tells Mark a deadly secret concerning the recent murder of a Louisiana Senator, whose accused killer, Mafia thug Barry Muldanno, is about to go to trial. The police, the federal prosecutor and the FBI pressure Mark to tell them the attorney's last words, but he knows that with the mob watching his every move, revealing his secret will almost surely get him killed.

Review: Jeez, this was a hard one to keep picking up. And even when I did muster the energy to pick it up, it was just so easy to put it down again, thus why it took over 4 months for me to get through this book. 

I've tried (and failed) to read John Grisham's books before, for the same reasons and should have learned my lesson and stayed far away. I can see how there is a market for this sort of thing - especially suckers for crime mystery/thrillers. I wouldn't say I'm not in the category, but it requires a little more craftsmanship in the writing to get me hooked. 

Mystery is an easy way to keep a reader interested - in this book, the mystery is how the young protagonist Mark handle a critical secret that the Mafia would be willing to kill him over. Unfortunately for The Client, even the allure of this mystery is not enough to keep the reader interested in the first half of the story. The story is told over the course of a week, but with all the unnecessary details Grisham decides to add in - such as repeatedly emphasizing how overweight a judge is - it felt more like months. 

The story does pick up at the end (as most mysteries do), but Grisham could have actually milked the ending longer. The ending was abrupt - it would have been more satisfying to flesh this part out about and cut a good portion of the beginning where there is too much character development and not enough plot progression. Sometimes abrupt ending leaving the reader thinking - this ending made me feel robbed of the time I invested reading the beginning only to get a rushed ending.

And of course, likely the biggest contributor to why it took so long for me to finish this book - the third person POV switching. Grisham decided to switch between the POV of pretty much ANYONE in the book. This is frustrating because I found myself being very interested in Mark's POV but much less in the accussed killer Barry, the FBI agents, etc. Not only that, but Grisham pretty clearly spells everything out - with multiple POVs, there's hardly a mystery to the reader even if there's a huge mystery for the rest of the characters. 

I would not recommend this book unless you're interested in anything (even the mediocre) crime and mystery genre or if you've already read some of Grisham's books and liked his work. 

Book Blog #310: The Oceanography of the Moon

 

Title: The Oceanography of the Moon

Author: Glendy Vanderah 

# of pages: 319 (paperback)

Genre: Adult, Romance, Mystery

Rating: ★☆☆☆☆

Synopsis: After the untimely deaths of her aunt and mother, young Riley Mays moved from Chicago to her cousins’ Wisconsin farm. Here she found solace in caring for her extraordinary adoptive brother, exploring the surrounding wild nature, and gazing at the mystical moon—a private refuge in which she hides from her most painful memories. But ten years later, now twenty-one, Riley feels too confined by the protective walls she’s erected around herself. When a stranger enters her family’s remote world, Riley senses something he’s hiding, a desire to escape that she understands well. Suffering from writer’s block, bestselling novelist Vaughn Orr has taken to the country roads when he happens upon the accommodating, if somewhat unusual, Mays family. He’s soon captivated by their eccentricities—and especially by Riley and her quiet tenacity. In her, he recognizes a shared need to keep heartbreaking secrets buried.

Review: This was just....not good. I wish I didn't waste the time reading it.

I picked this book on a whim - I saw it on the shelf, didn't know anything about it, and saw it was pretty highly rated on Goodreads (with a low but decent amount of reviews). I only let myself walk out of the building with one book that day, and this one was the lucky winner.

I should have left it on the shelf.

Here's what I liked:

- It was a relatively quick read (with spotty reading sessions, I finished it in a week). The writing and plot is simple enough (+ there is some repetitive points) where you can practically skim it and still get the same experience.

- The cover is pretty, in a simple way. Very ambiguous, definitely some better covers out there (and I bet other designers/artists could have come up with a better cover based on the book), but overall I have no problem with it. 

And as for what I didn't like...

The most obvious offender is first person POV switching. I know this is something I am particularly sensitive to a fault about. Sometimes POV switching is justified (although I still believe that every first person POV switching story can be told better from third person and/or without any POV switching). Sometimes the POV switching doesn't even bother me that much because it's not too disruptive to the flow of the story. 

This was not one of those books. The POV switching was COMPLETELY unnecessary - it is a prime example of why I STRONGLY dislike it when a story is told like this. The Oceanography of the Moon is told from two perspectives - Riley's and Vaughn's. Throughout most of the book, these two characters are interacting with each other, which means there's A LOT of duplicate information for the reader to slog through. 

For example, Riley might mention from her perspective that Vaughn seems to be experience a certain emotion, only for Vaughn to tell us in the very next chapter the EXACT SAME THING but from his perspective. The problem? There is NO new information in doing that. Riley's perspective is good enough, and if it's important to know that she is wrong, then we can find out the same time Riley finds out. 

The second offender is the writing itself. I haven't read Vanderah's other books (and based off of this one, I'm not sure I ever will). However, for this book, her writing simply is not believable. Generally, the characters' dialogue does not sound realistic. There's a moment when climate change is mentioned by people who are supposedly passionate about the topic. However, it was mentioned at such a superficial level to the point that I assume Vanderah did not do enough research on climate change to write a character that could convincingly talk about the topic. Additionally, the romantic development is minimal - way too quick for what I would expect based on the characters and the situation they are in. 

Now, I can usually be overly critical and tear apart a trashy romance BUT a lot fo the time I still end up enjoying it because I am a HUGE sucker for trashy romance (or of course non-trashy romance). When I realized this book was not well written, I thought to myself - "at least we will get some good romance action later on." NOT. I can usually ignore poor character building if the author is able to convincingly write about two people's relationship with the assumption they are deeply in love with each other. Unfortunately this didn't work either because all the hot and heavy moments (regardless if there was sex or not) fell flat. I was not emotionally engaged at all. Anytime a romantic moment came up it was either not described in enough detail (physically, emotionally, you name it) or it was cut short to chug along with the plot. 

The final big offender was the plot. I didn't realize there was even an actual story to read until half way through (I went in blind, didn't read the synopsis), which means this book really lacked focus. The beginning part of the story was so full of fluff and boring. I was not interested in any of these characters nor their backstory and didn't realize that Vanderah intended for the reader to be interested in the mystery of Riley and Vaughn's past until half way in or so. I also was curious on if more would come from the "magic" aspect (no, I didn't even know if this was a sci-fi/fantasy or not, and it was not apparent in the beginning of the story either). On the other hand, the second half of the book read like a soap opera (no spoilers) in the way that soap operas make a bunch of "shocking" reveals and random dramatic things happen at "convenient" times. There was no redeeming section of the book. 

I was flip flopping between 1 and 2 stars while I was reading because I wasn't sure if 1 star was too harsh. But by the end, I, not feeling stimulated emotionally nor intellectually by this book, decided that 1 star is appropriate. 

Don't read this book; it's not worth your time.

Book Blog #309: The Basic Eight by Daniel Handler

 

Title: The Basic Eight

Author: Daniel Handler

# of Pages: 329 (paperback)

Genre: YA, Mystery, Contemporary

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Synopsis: Meet Flannery Culp, a world-weary high-school senior. She is primed to take on the few remaining obstacles that stand between her and the rest of her life: the SAT, college applications, the fall semester....Mercifully, there are a few distractions: 1) her friends, the Basic Eight; 2) Adam State, the object of her affections. If only things hadn't gotten out of control. If only Flan had stayed away from the absinthe. Then she wouldn't be a topic on daytime talk shows, or incarcerated, or have time to edit her journals....

Review: This lands somewhere between 2 and 3 stars.

I was really struggling through most of this book (I'd say the first 2/3rds were really tough to get through). There's only so much entitled, angsty teen protagonist POV I can stand reading in one sitting - it took me a LONG time to get through it just because I kept putting it down. I even took a break to read Project Hail Mary instead try to mitigate the reader's block that was setting in.

The most interesting aspects of The Basic Eight are that it's told by an unreliable narrator (this part of the mystery of the story - is Flannery telling the truth? Are there hints that indicate otherwise?) and the ending (finally, some mysteries are solved!). The ending was actually what helped me decide on 3 stars - I was actually gripped by the story and wanted to know what was going to happen next.

Additionally, since this book is actually pretty old now, it was interesting to compare with how teenagers were portrayed in YA written 22-23 years ago vs how they are portrayed today. 

That being said, this still does not excuse the earlier parts of the book and how Flannery is just not a very likable protagonist (not even in the love-to-hate type of way). Since this book is her "diary," it's written in her voice (first person), which makes for a somewhat unpleasant read. There's a lot of build up that is unnecessary - a lot of fluff I didn't need to read. 

I really liked the ending, but I don't think it was worth reading (there are better books out there to read that might have the same affect!). I've yet to read a mystery that beats Silent Patient, and after reading this book, that DEFINITELY remains true to this day. 

Book Blog #297: The Guest List by Lucy Foley

 

Title: The Guest List

Author: Lucy Foley

# of Pages: 9 hours, 53 minutes (audiobook)

Genre: Contemporary, Mystery, Thriller

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Synopsis: On an island off the coast of Ireland, guests gather to celebrate two people joining their lives together as one. The groom: handsome and charming, a rising television star. The bride: smart and ambitious, a magazine publisher. It’s a wedding fit for a magazine, or for a celebrity: the designer dress, the remote location, the luxe party favors, the boutique whiskey. The cell phone service may be spotty and the waves may be rough, but every detail has been expertly planned and will be expertly executed. But perfection is for plans, and people are all too human. As the champagne is popped and the festivities begin, resentments and petty jealousies begin to mingle with the reminiscences and well wishes. The groomsmen begin the drinking game from their school days. The bridesmaid not-so-accidentally ruins her dress. The bride’s oldest (male) friend gives an uncomfortably caring toast. And then someone turns up dead. Who didn’t wish the happy couple well? And perhaps more important, why?

Review: I would recommend reading this book rather than listening to it. 

There is first person POV switching, which I already don't like when I'm reading a book. It's even more confusing when listening to the audiobook, especially if you are listening to it sped up because it's harder to distinguish the voice actors. 

The big reveals of some of the mysteries in the plot were revealed very undramatically, which was a bit of a let down for a mystery book. One of the biggest appeals of mystery for me is the shock of the big reveals, and this one fell short.

I also was expecting this book to be faster paced and gripping, but the whole mystery only takes place over the course of one wedding, which made progress feel really slow.

Overall, an okay book, but I don't think I will be recommending it to anyone anytime soon. I would have preferred to spend my time reading something else.