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justdiana's review
funny
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Enjoyable, romp. Hint of romance. Crime caper.
Content Warnings
Minor: Fire/Fire injury, Murder, Sexual content, Vomit, Cancer, Death of parent, Gun violence, Infidelity, Kidnapping, and Violence
fkshg8465's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
As fun as the first one. Already excited to read the next. Hope this becomes a very long series. Only thing that bothered me was the marker. Addictions never really go away. Anyone who’s ever gone through a twelve step program can tell you that. Also, can’t decide if I’m rooting for the cop, the lawyer, or neither, but that’s why I have to read the third one tomorrow ;-)
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Cancer, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Infidelity, Murder, and Violence
abicaro17's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
lighthearted
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Another great book! Finn is at it again in another addition of novelist/contract killer mom Finnley. I didn't rank this as high as the first book because it seemed a tad less messy and chaotic than the first. The appeal of the first to me was that Finn was a recently divorced mom of two struggling to make ends meet and write her book while fending off her cheating ex. The mystery of the hit and the mod seemed more organic and chaotic in thought. This book seemed to have the thoughts in boxes and every trail was followed like a practiced detective who had a lot of experience. Even with Finn and Vero basically solving several murders and getting a mod boss arrested, they're still just civilians who dabbled in contact hits. It was a tad disappointing but it's still a great read!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cursing, Blood, Death, Alcohol, Fire/Fire injury, Toxic relationship, Gaslighting, Infidelity, Medical content, Murder, Violence, Addiction, Body horror, Car accident, Confinement, Toxic friendship, Gore, and Kidnapping
brandie_abbie19's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Toxic friendship, Murder, Cursing, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, Medical content, Blood, Sexual content, Physical abuse, Police brutality, Injury/Injury detail, Gun violence, Death, and Kidnapping
Moderate: Cancer
pernillelsk's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gun violence, Death, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Stalking, Blood, and Violence
Moderate: Confinement and Alcohol
carolineeckels's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Murder and Violence
lovelymisanthrope's review against another edition
emotional
funny
lighthearted
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
After thoroughly enjoying "Finlay Donovan is Killing It", I was so excited to pick this up in preparation for the Literally Dead Book Club discussion.
"Finlay Donovan Knocks 'Em Dead" picks up immediately after the conclusion of the first book. Finlay is struggling to continue writing her book and is still trying to navigate how to coparent with her ex-husband. Someone has ordered a hit for Steven, Finlay's ex-husband, so on top of worrying about his parenting, Finlay is worried to leave her children alone with him. At least she has her partner in crime, Vero, but Finlay quickly suspects that Vero may be hiding something from her...
Although I did not enjoy this quite as much as the first one, I am still enthralled by Finlay as a character. The plot of this series is going off the handle a little bit, which is highly entertaining, but makes it feel less realistic. The situations Finlay and Vero find themselves in are wild, and I do not think the average person would be able to get out of them quite so well. Although this is fine for a novel, what I love about Finlay is how relatable she feels, so for me as a reader, I want the story to feel more realistic.
I love how close Finlay and Vero are. Their friendship is something to aspire for and they are the epitome of "ride or die". Having the support of another woman does make it more probable to me that Finlay is navigating this situation more sanely.
The love triangle between Finlay, the law student, and the detective was something lighthearted and fun to read about. I think it again makes it more realistic that Finlay might know what she is doing because she has the advice of two different people with criminal knowledge. I am excited to see her relationships develop more in book three!
I love that Finlay remains a powerful, strong woman who is taking on her situation head on. I also really love that her novel she is writing is loosely based on her current predicament. Having to write out what is going on I think is helping her process her crimes and uncover the bad guys.
I am still enjoying this series and I am so excited to see what antics Finlay gets up to next!
"Finlay Donovan Knocks 'Em Dead" picks up immediately after the conclusion of the first book. Finlay is struggling to continue writing her book and is still trying to navigate how to coparent with her ex-husband. Someone has ordered a hit for Steven, Finlay's ex-husband, so on top of worrying about his parenting, Finlay is worried to leave her children alone with him. At least she has her partner in crime, Vero, but Finlay quickly suspects that Vero may be hiding something from her...
Although I did not enjoy this quite as much as the first one, I am still enthralled by Finlay as a character. The plot of this series is going off the handle a little bit, which is highly entertaining, but makes it feel less realistic. The situations Finlay and Vero find themselves in are wild, and I do not think the average person would be able to get out of them quite so well. Although this is fine for a novel, what I love about Finlay is how relatable she feels, so for me as a reader, I want the story to feel more realistic.
I love how close Finlay and Vero are. Their friendship is something to aspire for and they are the epitome of "ride or die". Having the support of another woman does make it more probable to me that Finlay is navigating this situation more sanely.
The love triangle between Finlay, the law student, and the detective was something lighthearted and fun to read about. I think it again makes it more realistic that Finlay might know what she is doing because she has the advice of two different people with criminal knowledge. I am excited to see her relationships develop more in book three!
I love that Finlay remains a powerful, strong woman who is taking on her situation head on. I also really love that her novel she is writing is loosely based on her current predicament. Having to write out what is going on I think is helping her process her crimes and uncover the bad guys.
I am still enjoying this series and I am so excited to see what antics Finlay gets up to next!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Stalking, Violence, Murder, Blood, and Death
caughtbetweenpages's review against another edition
funny
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
This was a fun sequel to the first book in this series, though I think the suspension of disbelief ratcheted up significantly in this volume. It gets harder to believe all the hitwoman, forum for having men in your community offed hijinks as Finlay gets deeper into actual organized crime. She can barely keep her life as a single mom and an author in order, so it takes a big stretch to imagine she could fool cops, let alone career criminals at their own game. On the other hand, I do like the discourse about women, and particularly moms, being pigeonholed into the role of Nurturer of Children Only by society at large, so there was a satisfaction to watching Finlay get underestimated by most of the men around her and just barely scraping by through that.
Finlay is easily my favorite part of this series; she's an easy character to root for, being as in over her head and yet ultimately good as she is. She definitely falls into the "relatable protagonist" bucket, but that sort of works because of the story's genre conventions. Competence at real-life crime would be too much to expect and make this comedy-thriller far less funny. I digress. Finlay is great. Her love for her children, her arc of self-assertion and self actualization despite her asshole manchild ex (even to the extent ofsaving his life because as bad a husband as he was, he's actually a good father and her kids deserve that ), and her loyalty to Vero make Finlay someone I want to see succeed.
With small exceptions, the cast around her is a little charicature-ish at times so she's allowed to be less fleshed out/more Flanderized because she's still a solid character comparatively, but that's okay because this story isn't really about character exploration so much as it is about the plot. (Though the moments of in-depth characterization we DO get play against this idea; Finlay has some Opinions about Theresa and Aimee, and ends up recognizing in the two of them a depth of relationship and a ride-or-die-ness akin to the sort she has with Vero. Aimee literally helps Theresa bury a dismembered body and escape her house arrest. I was happy to see that, because dismantling the idea that women can be typecast as just one thing is one of the best parts of this series for me.)
All that said, gripes about suspension of disbelief and characters aside, I think what really took this book down a notch from the previous for me was the romance angle. I'm not a fan of cop love interests, or pushy love interests who "won't take no for an answer," so the blend of the two in Nick the Shithead was Not It for me. He seemed like a greater threat to Finlay during their ostensibly romantic moments than Felix the Literal Mob Boss did... ever. And Felix killed people. I don't know that I preferred Julian the Law Student to Detective Shithead by any wide margin, but at least he knows when to back off when Finn tells him to. Frankly, I think this series as a whole would be best served by Finlay being happily single or taking it super slow with Julian instead of cuffed to either these guys (but especially Nick.) (Frankly, her relationship with Vero is more developed than either of the romantic relationships.)
I'll be reading the third to close of the trilogy for sure!
Finlay is easily my favorite part of this series; she's an easy character to root for, being as in over her head and yet ultimately good as she is. She definitely falls into the "relatable protagonist" bucket, but that sort of works because of the story's genre conventions. Competence at real-life crime would be too much to expect and make this comedy-thriller far less funny. I digress. Finlay is great. Her love for her children, her arc of self-assertion and self actualization despite her asshole manchild ex (even to the extent of
With small exceptions, the cast around her is a little charicature-ish at times so she's allowed to be less fleshed out/more Flanderized because she's still a solid character comparatively, but that's okay because this story isn't really about character exploration so much as it is about the plot. (Though the moments of in-depth characterization we DO get play against this idea; Finlay has some Opinions about
All that said, gripes about suspension of disbelief and characters aside, I think what really took this book down a notch from the previous for me was the romance angle. I'm not a fan of cop love interests, or pushy love interests who "won't take no for an answer," so the blend of the two in Nick the Shithead was Not It for me. He seemed like a greater threat to Finlay during their ostensibly romantic moments than Felix the Literal Mob Boss did... ever. And Felix killed people. I don't know that I preferred Julian the Law Student to Detective Shithead by any wide margin, but at least he knows when to back off when Finn tells him to. Frankly, I think this series as a whole would be best served by Finlay being happily single or taking it super slow with Julian instead of cuffed to either these guys (but especially Nick.) (Frankly, her relationship with Vero is more developed than either of the romantic relationships.)
I'll be reading the third to close of the trilogy for sure!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gore
Moderate: Murder
Minor: Violence and Injury/Injury detail
ashleycmms's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gun violence, Violence, Murder, and Body horror
Moderate: Fire/Fire injury, Blood, and Injury/Injury detail
luverbyrd's review
adventurous
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.75
Content Warnings
Moderate: Violence
Minor: Death