Book Review, Fiction, thriller

The Drowning Woman by Robyn Harding ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪.5
Genre: Thriller

Lee is living in her car when she sees a woman who appears to be drowning in the ocean. After saving Hazel, she find that Hazel was attempting to kill herself to escape an abusive marriage. The two strike up an unlikely friendship but Lee soon begins to wonder if all is really as it seems in Hazel’s life.

This is a pretty standard domestic thriller and as such, I could generally guess where things were headed from a mile away. That didn’t keep me from enjoying the story, it just wasn’t terribly original.

The story is told from alternating perspectives allowing us to get inside the head of each of the main characters. I was fully enthralled waiting to see how everything came together and to see if my hunches about various suspected deceptions were correct.

This wasn’t anything groundbreaking and I found the characters somewhat one dimensional, but it was a captivating thriller that kept me hooked all the way through.

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Book Review, Memoir, Nonfiction

Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage by Belle Burden ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪
Genre: Memoir

I have no idea how this memoir got on my radar, but once I started it, it was hard to put down. Belle Burden unflinchingly details her relationship with her husband, from its whirlwind beginning through, decades later, his sudden decision to leave her and their children shortly after the pandemic began.

Through her writing, Belle does a wonderful job of reconstructing her relationship so the reader understands how her husband showed up and presented over the years and the life they built together. It allowed me to understand her shock and her yearning for answers. It made me wonder if writing this served as a way for her to work through everything.

Belle also shares candidly things she wishes she had done differently during her marriage, and makes a strong case for financial literacy and staying involved in your finances even if your partner mostly “handles” them. She highlights different people’s reactions to her husband’s choice and how they reflect societal norms.

The extent of Belle’s privilege that was included was a little offputting to me, although I guess I’d rather she be candid about it than not. It just made me think about how much worse a situation like this could be for someone without her kind of upbringing and wealth, which I don’t think was her point, but in a way maybe including this made its own additional point.

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Book Review, Fiction, Romance

Back After This by Linda Holmes ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪.5
Genre: Romance

After just having finished and strongly disliked a book about a dating radio show, I was a little hesitant to pick up a book about a dating podcast, but I was pleasantly surprised by Back After This. Cecily has longed for her own podcast since her ex took their successful show with him in their breakup. When her boss offers her the chance to host a dating show where she’s the star, she takes it, even though a run-in with a handsome stranger, Will, has her soon questioning if she really wants to be dating a bunch of random other men.

I loved Will and the immediate banter and chemistry he and Cecily had upon their first chance encounter. Every time they bumped into each other, their connection grew and I was rooting for them to figure things out together.

Another big part of the narrative had to do with media and the challenges of working in the field as it struggled. Cecily works with a close friend who she helped get a job at the same company and their dynamic and how they approached being both colleagues and friends was well thought out and added an extra level of complexity to the story.

There was much more to this story than just a romance. The characters were really richly detailed and I could hardly wait to see what would happen to them next. Linda Holmes has become an auto-read author for me.

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Buy Back After This at an indie bookstore near you
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Book Review, Fiction

How to Read a Book by Monica Wood ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪
Genre: Fiction

How to Read a Book explores the interwoven stories of three distinct characters. Twenty-two year old Violet has just gotten out of prison for a drunk driving accident that killed a woman. During her time in prison, she was part of a book club run by Harriet. The two of them run into each other at a bookstore upon Violet’s release and also run into Frank, the widower of the woman killed in Violet’s accident. So begins a character study of these three and the increasing importance they begin to play in each other’s lives.

Throughout the book, we learn deeply about each of these three. There is more to each of their stories than one would expect from the outside and Wood captured the complexity of a human life so well. Each one is deeply flawed but I came to care about them and root for them even when their choices led them down the wrong paths.

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Book Review, Fiction

My Friends by Fredrik Backman ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪
Genre: Fiction

Teenage Louisa has fallen in love with a painting and upon getting to see the original for the first time, she unexpectedly finds herself  to be the new owner of said painting. Ted, a close friend of the late-artist tasked with bestowing the painting to her, joins her on a train ride where he tells her stories of his childhood with the painter and the other people depicted in the painting.

Now that I’m reflecting back on this book several weeks later, I may have rated it too high. I found much of this book to be repetitive and boring. Despite hearing countless stories about this friend group growing up, I did not feel that I got to know them all that well. Some of the stories were quite endearing, but their motivations were not very clear or compelling.

The deeper themes of belonging and growing up as they related back to Louisa were nice, but this will be my last Backman read. I’ve tried him before and his writing style continues not to work for me. 

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Book Review, Fiction, Romance

First-Time Caller by B.K. Borison ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪.5
Genre: Romance

Aiden Valentine is the host of a romance hotline on a radio show. One day, Lucie’s teenage daughter calls in asking dating advice for her mom. When Lucie overhears her and grabs the phone, her ensuing conversation with Aiden goes viral leading his network to pitch her her very own dating show.

This book was quite long and there was simply not enough plot to fill it. Even now, I’m sitting here wondering how there was so much book with so little story. I liked the premise and was hooked for the first third of the book or so. I liked Lucie and Aiden’s growing chemistry and I was excited to see how things would play out. Tension and build up can only last so long though and I got bored waiting for more from them.

The characters themselves didn’t stand out to me as individuals in a way that made me really want to root for them. The combo of boring characters and boring plot didn’t leave much for me to enjoy for the majority of this one.

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Buy First-Time Caller at an indie bookstore near you
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Book Review, Fiction, Magical Realism, Romance

The Other Side of Now by Paige Harbison ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪
Genre: Romance/Magic Realism

I’m such a sucker for a magical realism romance combo and The Other Side of Now is just that. TV star Meg (stage name: Lana Lord) needs a break from her life so she takes a spontaneous trip to a town in Ireland she always dreamed of visiting with her best friend Aimee who died before they got a chance to go. Once arriving, Meg finds she’s landed in an alternate timeline where she and Aimee both moved to Ireland and Aimee is still alive.

There was a heaviness in this story about Aimee and Meg’s relationship and the secrets they kept from each other and regrets they had. Seeing Meg get a second chance with her best friend was so lovely and made for an interesting dynamic between them. There was a lot of lightness and humor to the book too though, that balanced things out well. The characters were nuanced and quirky and believable and I could perfectly picture their town.

I found this book to be so immersive and fell in love with both the characters and the setting and I was on the edge of my seat to see which reality Meg would end up in and how that would influence her future.

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Buy The Other Side of Now at an indie bookstore near you
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Book Review, Fiction, Horror

We Used to Live Here by Marcus Kliewer ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪
Genre: Horror

This one was a bit more of a wild ride than I was expecting. Eve and Charlie have just moved into their new house when a family shows up on the doorstep claiming to have lived there previously and asking if they can show their kids around. Eve hesitantly says yes, but once they’re inside, she can’t get the family to leave and then odd things begin to happen around the house.

Kliewer did an excellent job of making me feel very unsettled while reading. This is really captivating writing and the things that started happening around the house were creepy. The story was also interspersed with news article excerpts and I was so intrigued to see how everything fit together.

I didn’t mind that everything kept getting crazier and crazier because I was expecting a neat ending. I did not get it. The end of the story is very ambiguous, which makes a lot of the details feel like they were randomly added rather than thought-out and relevant. I don’t mind that I immediately ran to Reddit to see what other people were saying, but I would have liked to have a slightly more solid idea of what actually happened in the book.

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Book Review, Fiction, thriller

Forget Me Not by Stacy Willingham ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪.5
Genre: Thriller

Claire returns to her hometown for the summer and decides to take a job at Galloway Farm, where her sister loved working before she disappeared decades ago. As Claire settles into her new routine, she begins to suspect that there may be something sinister going on at the farm and her sister’s case may not be as black and white as it seemed.

The premise of this book was so promising, but it was so slow that I could not get invested. The characters felt fairly one-dimensional and I just couldn’t get myself to care about them.

I enjoyed the setting of a Southern farm in the summer. I could perfectly picture the farm and feel the heat. The descriptive writing was really well done in terms of place.

I may not have given this one such a low star rating if it felt like the ultimate outcome was worth the slow burn, but ultimately, I didn’t find anything about it all that surprising or thrilling.

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Buy Forget Me Not at an indie bookstore near you
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Book Review, Fiction

The Correspondent by Virginia Evans ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪.5
Genre: Fiction

At 72, Sybil spends much of her time alone writing letters to folks from all different parts of her life. Through her letters, we get to know her passions, her (grumpy) personality, and some mistakes and tragedies that have defined large parts of her life.

I loved the letter format of this book. It allowed us to bounce back and forth between different tones and topics without things feeling disjointed. The thing that stayed constant? Sybil’s very distinct voice. She  is very blunt and straight to the point in a way that’s quite endearing. She takes big chances that sometimes pay off (like corresponding with famous authors she likes). Some of her letters don’t seem to ever be sent and these too helped me learn deeply what made Sybil who she was.

The Correspondent is an incredible story of one women’s life as she reflects back on parts of it and thinks about what she wants from the rest of it. I thoroughly enjoyed my time spent with Sybil.

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Buy The Correspondent at an indie bookstore near you
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