Book Review, thriller, Uncategorized

Count My Lies by Sophie Stava ~ Book Review

Morgan

Genre: Thriller

My Rating: 🍪🍪

Sloane Caraway has been lying about who she is all her life. When she sees an opportunity to becomes the nanny for the wealthy Lockhart family, she jumps at the chance and quickly lies her way into their life.

We slowly learn about the lies Sloane has told in her past and how her obsessive nature has gotten her in trouble and cost her her last job.

The first part of this book is told through Sloane’s point of view and I enjoyed watching her worm her way into Jay and Violet’s life, however, there was a lot of repetition including random allusions to Taylor Swift lyrics like every other chapter?? I’m a Swiftie, but it was really off-putting.

When we switch to Violet’s POV I think it was supposed to feel like some big dramatic twist, but it just fell into a very overdone set of thriller tropes that I have enjoyed in the past, but have been done very well already. It made it hard for me to get through the rest of the book.

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Book Review, Fiction

The Compound by Aisling Rawle ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪.5
Genre: Fiction

I was obsessed with the concept behind this book. It takes place on the ‘set’ of a reality show much like Love Island in which contestants must pair up into couples as a safety net to remain on the show. The compound they are staying with starts out trashed from the previous season of contestants and with few supplies and they must complete tasks or challenges to gain things, which they often then promote to watchers back home.

The setting of this compound was so vivid to me and I loved the way it changed throughout the story as contestants were rewarded or punished for their actions. It was also clear that the outside world was in some way dystopian, making the motivation to stay on the show and in the compound that much greater. I love it when a setting feels almost like a character in itself and that was definitely the case in this one.

Lily, our narrator, is extremely beautiful but doesn’t have much else going for her (in her own words). She doesn’t really have much of a personality, but I think that was largely the point. She’s exactly the type of vain, fame-hungry person you might expect to be on this kind of show. I appreciated getting to know the other contestants through her eyes and trying to figure out who would be trustworthy.

I’m a big fan of reality tv, which I think added to my enjoyment of the premise, but the unsettling, cutthroat nature of the game upped the ante. There were elements of desperation in the game that reminded me of The Hunger Games in the best way.

I was expecting there to be a little more to the ending, which is why this didn’t quite make it to five stars, but I loved it nonetheless.

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Book Review, Fiction, mystery, thriller

The Kind Worth Killing by Peter Swanson ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪.5
Genre: Thriller

When Ted meets Lily on a flight, he finds himself confessing to her that his wife, Miranda, is cheating on him. After a throwaway comment expressing his anger, Lily offers to help him kill Miranda. Slowly, we begin to learn that there might be much more to Lily’s interest in helping Ted.

I enjoyed the parts of this book narrated by Lily. We hear about her dark childhood and she speaks in such a matter of fact way about her twisted thoughts and actions. It allowed me to really get inside her head and understand her motivations. Miranda’s sections on the other hand seemed pretty surface level. Ted as a narrator had no real personality and I had trouble caring about him.

The storyline was very twisty with a lot of layers, which I enjoyed. That said, I didn’t find any of it super gripping or particularly shocking. This was a pretty good thriller, but nothing I would go out of my way to recommend.

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Buy The Kind Worth Killing at an indie bookstore near you
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Book Review, Fiction

These Summer Storms by Sarah MacLean ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪
Genre: Fiction

When the patriarch of the Storm family dies, his family gathers on their private island to find out what was left to each of them. Alice is returning after a long estrangement after choosing not to use her family name to get ahead in life. When she gets back, she quickly remembers why she got out from under the manipulative grasp of her father. He has set up for them an inheritance game requiring them to stay on the island for a week and each perform different tasks.

I loved the concept of these inheritance games and the fact that the family was trapped on an island with an attractive employee of their patriarch overseeing their actions. I found the games themselves to be kind of boring though. They were painted as being really shocking and humiliating, but they just…weren’t that crazy. Honestly, it made me want to reread The Inheritance Games if anything.

One of my favorite parts of the book was the romance, which I didn’t event expect to be part of it. I thought that relationship was far more compelling than those of the family members (who I couldn’t keep straight because they weren’t individually given any depth). I think I mostly kept reading to find out how the romance would wrap-up and there were some twists along the way that kept me going.

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Buy These Summer Storms at an indie bookstore near you
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Book Review, Fiction, Magical Realism

Cassandra in Reverse by Holly Smale ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪.5
Genre: Fiction

Cassandra, our neurodivergent main character, has always needed things to be done in a certain way and tends to struggle to understand other people’s perspectives. When she unexpectedly discovers that she has the ability to go back in time, she uses it to her advantage to learn more about the people and experiences around her and play out scenarios in a way that she’s happier with. Most notably, she attempts to keep her job and her boyfriend, both of which she loses at the beginning of the book.

The premise of this story was so intriguing to me. I love magical realism and have enjoyed a lot of similar types of books. Unfortunately, the way time travel was used in this book was a) incredibly repetitive and b) undefined to a point where it was confusing what the rules of this new ‘ability’ were.

I really enjoyed the way that Cassandra (sometimes) learned and grew from her power, but often she was just hitting rewind willy nilly to her heart’s content when she said something slightly wrong. I also didn’t particularly appreciate how much effort she spent trying to change herself for a man and using her powers to keep herself in situations that clearly did not serve her. I found it to be incredibly frustrating.

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Buy Cassandra in Reverse at an indie bookstore near you
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Book Review, Fiction, Magical Realism

Once and Again by Rebecca Serle ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪.5
Genre: Fiction/Magical Realism

I am SUCH a big Rebecca Serle fan and it physically pains me to write a not glowing review of one of her books, but man did Once and Again make me mad. Lauren learns as a teenager that every woman in her family is granted the ability to turn back time once in their life. Her mother used this gift to prevent a deadly car accident from killing Lauren’s dad and Lauren has spent her life wondering when she will need to use hers. Conceptually, I loved it. It made for interesting dynamics between Lauren and her mom and grandma and I appreciated the explorationof the mental toll the gift took on each of them.

I found Lauren’s decision making absolutely horrible. I could not stand the choices she made and the way she handled the aftermath of those choices that she was in complete control of. It made the *very cool* concept lose a lot of its power for me.

The split setting between the Malibu beach and New York City was wonderfully written and I could picture Lauren’s life in each place so well. Serle absolutely made the settings come alive which was a huge redeeming factor for me.

Something felt lacking with the intercharacter relationships. I felt like I did not know Lauren’s husband or her childhood sweetheart well enough to really feel invested in them. I felt the same way with her mother and grandmother. There were a couple chapters from their perspectives, but it was so little in the grand scheme of the book that they felt misplaced to me.

TONS of potential here and I largely could not stop reading, but ultimately I couldn’t look past the weakness of the relationships and the main character’s choices, which steered the narrative.

Thank you to the publisher for my ARC!

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Buy Once and Again at an indie bookstore near you
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Book Review, Memoir, Nonfiction

Semi-Well Adjusted Despite Literally Everything by Alyson Stoner ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪
Genre: Memoir

What a powerful memoir. In Semi-Well Adjusted Despite Literally Everything, Alyson Stoner recollects their experience growing up in the limelight of Hollywood. From the time they were six, they were attending auditions and competing endlessly for roles that so often seemed just out of reach.

Alyson’s voice throughout this narrative especially stood out to me. They tell their story in such a straightforward way, which made it really impactful to see how they’d normalized very not-normal things they experienced during their unusual childhood and adolescence.

From being promised roles that never came to fruition to battling an eating disorder, to weighing the merit of kidnapping threats, Alyson illustrates their strength and perseverance over and over again.

In addition to the pressures of being on set and on screen, they also found themselves deeply involved with a religious community only to later realize that the beliefs of that community made it hard for Alyson to actually be true to who they are.

I listened to the audiobook, narrated by Alyson, and highly recommend it.

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Buy Semi-Well Adjusted Despite Literally Everything at an indie bookstore near you
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Book Review, Fiction

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪
Genre: Fiction

I’ve seen this book around forever and I don’t know why it took me so long to pick it up. Now that I’ve finished it, I keep kind of getting it mixed up with I Hope This Finds You Well, which I read earlier this year and is also primarily a workplace focused story about someone who doesn’t quite fit in with her colleagues around her.

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine did an exceptional job at getting inside of Eleanor’s head and showing the reader how she came to the conclusions she did and why other people might find her thought processes odd. She strikes up an unexpected friendship with the IT guy at work, Raymond, and it was really heartwarming to watch them open up to each other. I really appreciated seeing her realize that maybe the things she believed about herself and her future were not all true.

Eleanor has frequent phone calls with her ‘Mummy’ and we slowly learn about the abuse she suffered as a child. There was a lot more to this part of the story than I was expecting and it helps to inform Eleanor’s actions in the present-day narrative.

This was a surprising and unusual book where not all that much happens plot-wise, but the main character is interesting enough that I stayed invested and a whole lot happens in terms of her growth.

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Buy Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine at an indie bookstore near you
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Book Review, Fiction

Finding Grace by Loretta Rothschild ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪
Genre: Fiction

It’s hard to write a review of Finding Grace without giving away a major twist in the book – but don’t worry, it happens very early on. The story is told from the perspective of Honor, who has a daughter named Chloe, and a husband, Tom, but longs for another child. She is so close to getting what she wants until suddenly, the unthinkable happens and the entire story is flipped on its head.

The rest of the book is kind of a weird twisted, suspenseful romance. I was so shocked by the initial twist in this book and completely sucked in by Tom’s compulsive behavior. This was the kind of book where you feel utterly sickened by characters’ actions, so much so that you can’t look away.

I will say, toward the end of the book I was completely fed up with Tom and felt like his behavior had gone off the tracks to the point where it wasn’t really enjoyable to read about. But overall, a suspenseful and unexpected story start to finish.

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Buy Finding Grace at an indie bookstore near you|
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Book Review, Fiction, Romance

Maine Characters by Hannah Orenstein ~ Book Review

Morgan


My Rating: 🍪🍪.5
Genre: Romance

The first time I tried to read this book I couldn’t get into it at all, but I decided to revisit it during the summer since it has a lake house setting. Marginally helpful. Vivian’s dad never told her she had a half sister, so after he dies, she is shocked to find Lucy at her dad’s lake house. The two of them are forced to grapple not only with the grief of losing their father, but also the reality of coexisting.

I really enjoyed the Maine setting and the descriptions of life on the lake. It was atmospheric and realistic and fun to hear about during the summer, particularly since I live in New England. That was the main (get it) redeeming quality of the book for me. Both sisters were incredibly annoying. There was too much emphasis on one being really not well-off and the other being an uppity city girl. I did not care about their romances whatsoever A. because they were making bad choices and B. because I did not care about them.

People keep comparing this one to The Parent Trap and I personally find that insulting.

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Buy Maine Characters at an indie bookstore near you
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