Reviews with content warning for Misogyny - The Secret, Book & Scone Society

I read this for APL’s April book club. The mystery pulled me in, but the writing style left a lot to be desired. It is unrealistic and pulled me out of the narrative when characters often used flowery language and spoke in long, poetic passages about things ranging from dramatic to even mundane. I am definitely not the target audience, I will admit; all of the characters are over 35. I still enjoyed this book but I am not incentivized to read the sequel.

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tangleroot_eli's review against another edition

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lighthearted mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No

First, a couple things I appreciate about this book:

Our Heroes are pretty bad at sleuthing, and they admit it. A nice choice in a subgenre full of amateur detectives who’ve never investigated so much as a checkbook register but can suddenly solve a murder
A group of women! Who are friends! And support each other! Rather than constantly tearing each other down!
Adams has attempted to give the Society members “tragic pasts” and really seems to have considered the ramifications of that for their interpersonal relationships

So those things are good! And then there’s… the rest of the book.

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helalost's review against another edition

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dark mysterious sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0

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maeverose's review against another edition

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Stopped at 18% (first three chapters)

I can just tell it’s not gonna be for me so I’d rather not bother. I didn’t hate it. But there were some things that I disliked.

First off it feels like it was written by a 40 something year old white woman, for other 40 something year old white women. Therefore I don’t really feel like I fit the target demographic. The dialogue was also very unnatural and weird. The characters don’t talk like real people.

I didn’t like the way she describes Nora’s disfigurement in such negative words most of the time, when the author herself is not disfigured. Also, only going off of the part I read, it felt a little like her disfigurement was her entire personality? The only information we got about her had to do with her accident or appearance, other than her being a librarian-turned-bookseller and liking books. She was depressed and stand off ish because of her accident and she liked to tell people to read books… that was it, that’s her personality.

There’s the trope that I despise of using very fatphobic language to describe an unlikable character.

I also thought June was a bit of a racial stereotype but maybe that’s just me.

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misse3's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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alex_delart's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

You can tell the author loves books very much and if you like me have been stuck in a reading rut, this book might be the one for you (it also includes many namedrops and recs so it may be a gateway to other lovely titles). The mystery solution is quite satisfying, the book had me guessing all along. I felt inspired by the courage of the members of the secret club, they are people of no big influence or power and yet they risk their livelihoods for whats right, and they listen to their intuition. Im so glad that there is a sequel as I would miss the characters very much.

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alexleigh20's review against another edition

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emotional inspiring mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes

4.0

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