Reviews

Madly by Ruthie Knox

eesh25's review

4.0

I've been waiting for this book to come out for a long time. And not necessarily because of the first book. I liked [book:Truly|18481904], but this wait was more due to the author, who I love.

Ruthie Knox has the most brilliant style of prose that I absolutely adore. It's very clever, involves a lot of reading-between-the-lines, and is such that even the simplest lines carry so much meaning...

For example, a line as simple as "Ben wasn't cooking", which doesn't seem like it would mean much at all, in the context, it does. It signifies something that you would know if you'd read the book. And the novel is packed with simple yet meaningful lines. Each sentence is so deliberate, and constructed to insinuate instead of straight up telling us. And it's so witty, too. I missed the writing style.

As for the book, I really liked it. The main characters is Allie, who follows her mother to New York and sees her flirting with another man in a bar. There she meets Winston (the utter jackass from About Last Night) and involves him in her harebrained scheme to "fix" her family... somehow. She doesn't actually have much of a plan.

Allie, you see, has a life motto and it's 'don't think'. Personally, the worst motto I've ever heard of. And it doesn't really work. She always manages to mess things up. She does great with her business, but when it comes to her personal life, she's a runner. She jumps into situations and avoids thinking, and when everything goes to hell, she tries to pretend thing are fine and jumps into other situations hoping everything will just work out anyway. She's basically a train wreck when it comes to her personal life and she's also exactly the kind of characters I usually hate.

But I don't hate her. Partly because she has her heart in the right place and always has good intentions (just little guidance would go so far with her) and partly because Ruthie Knox is just really fricking good at writing messy characters who are somehow not as annoying as they should be.

As for her romantic interest; Winston is very different from who he was in the previous book, in a good way. He's regretful of his actions, he's nice, caring, sensible, and exactly right for Allie. Because Allie really needs someone mature in her life who can calm her down in her moments of messy-ness and provide some guidance. She needs someone to balance her crazy side and Winston is it. They work really well together.

My highlight of the book, though, was Ben. I was very suprised by that. But there was this one chapter that I go into detail about, and Ben was in it and he was perfect. Love him and his frowney, intimidating self.

Overall, I really enjoyed the read. The story was great, the prose I loved, and the characters were a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to the last book, Completely.

ayooo6767's review

5.0

The best book I have read in a long time

jackiehorne's review

4.0

See full review at:

http://romancenovelsforfeminists.blogspot.com/2017/03/experimenting-with-sex-ruthie-knoxs.html

brandypainter's review

3.0

I don't know if it is the stress of the move and how it caused me to put this down and then come back to it several times, or if it's the book but I just didn't like this as much as I expected.

maggiemaggio's review

4.0

Highly enjoyed. Absolutely loved the first half-ish and then thought it dragged out a bit. It was nice to get to know Allie and Winston and revisit characters from Knox's previous books, even though it sometimes felt like she was managing too many characters. I did enjoy the romance even if it at times sooner of they're scenes together felt repetitive. Loved all the stuff about successful women and the challenges that successful women face.

erinarkin20's review

4.0

I pretty much love everything Ruthie Knox writes and surprise, surprise...this one was no different. Knox pulled me in with great characters in book one (Truly) and continues this by giving us a better introduction to Allie, May's sister. I loved finding out more about who she is and what has been going on with her. It was also great to see May and Ben show up in this one.

Allie happens to be in New York...even though she is supposed to be in Wisconsin but she has some concerns about her mom and dad's relationship so she is trying to figure out what her mother is up to and while spying on her in a bar, she meets Winston. I loved these two together and loved how they challenged each other and the bucket list was fantastic.

There is a great link to one of my FAVORITE books by Ruthie Knox, About Last Night, that until I read it I didn't really make the connection. I guess that means I should be doing a re-read of that one soon. Honestly, Ruthie Knox is one of my auto-buy authors and this book is one of the reasons why. If you haven't read anything by her yet, you are missing out and should fix that. She always writes great stories with characters who aren't perfect but make you love them anyway.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the review copy.

msmattoon's review

5.0

Allie and Winston's story starts strong and with some wonderful emotional beats in the middle ends strong as well. I curse Ruthie Knox's name for making me cry, but also I love this book.

scrow1022's review

4.0

So awesome. I liked this one even more than her others, maybe because there was more family involved and so more relationships to see Ali and Winston try to negotiate and to see them from those perspectives. Loved the issues of roles in families, in communities, of how women are seen professionally. Loved New York as a character (even though I am not fond of New York).

pickypricklypessimest's review

funny hopeful inspiring medium-paced

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

3.75

readbooks_eatapples's review

3.0

This is probably more of a 3.5. I liked it. It was just so painfully implausible, and it didn't jibe with the feel (or facts) I got in the first book. I don't want to spoil the twist, but the situation with the mom just didn't seem to mesh. Eh. The romance was fine, and I liked the premise. Still pretty implausible, but I like the writing and story well enough that I went along with it.