Reviews

Cover Story by Susan Rigetti

izzys_internet_bookshelf's review against another edition

4.0

4.5/5

My jaw is on the floor. Omg. This book. I will admit it took a while to get into the story but once it got to the third part I was 100% invested in the story and everything from then on til the end had me freaking out.

wardenred's review against another edition

challenging funny mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.5

The truth was that I didn’t know how to fix my life, that I wanted to throw it all away and start over again.

This was such a trip! Not a book I would normally pick up or even perhaps know about, honestly. But it was assigned to me as part of a book swap event in one of my discord servers, and it was such a nice opportunity to broaden my horizons a little. From the very start, there’s so much going on here. On the surface, there’s this simple story of a naive small-town girl trying to make it in NYC: wanting to be a writer, being happy and overwhelmed about her internship at a fashion magazine, and not knowing how to tell her family that she let her college grades drop too low and now can’t afford to register for classes. But all around the journal entries that tell this story, there are all those e-mails and transcripts and mentions of FBI investigations. So you immediately find yourself questioning everything. What is this book *actually* about? International spies? Con artists? Something even darker?

This is one of those rare cases when I didn’t vibe with any of the characters but was still majorly invested in the plot, latching onto every small new detail to try and solve the puzzle. Which is why I actually find it hard to talk about the book without dissolving into spoilers. All the things that impressed me the most are the kind that you really should experience for yourself for best effect. Like the ending. OMG, that ending! I was reading the last few chapters with this impending sense of wrongness: like, sure, things are getting wrapped up more of less nicely, but something is off, something is so off… And then, BOOM, that final twist, and suddenly so many things from earlier in the book gained a brand-new context and I realized that I’ve just read a whole different story from what I thought I was reading??? Like. Wow. So cleverly done. And to make it even better, there were all those things that I mentally filed as “small flaws,“ but looking back from the vantage point of that final revelation, the flaws are more like features.

It’s probably not going on my list of 2024 favorites because I prefer to be more engaged when it comes to the characters, but I’m definitely very happy I’ve read it and I can tell I’ll be thinking about the book’s plot a lot, mentally going through all the twists and bends!

jesslolsen's review against another edition

4.0

An entertaining and quick read.
The ending had an exciting twist which left me with some questions but I think I’ve wrapped my head around it.

chaseberry's review against another edition

really quick read that left me impressed. unfortunately not fully comprehensible until a second read which i don't know if i want to put the effort into doing. i do wish lora's diary was less informal-millenial-speak coded, and the guise of the format gets weaker as i think about it: those who choose to go the diary route want to have their cake and eat it too. (no matter the ending- the diary needs to be believable from the start, not for the sake of in-universe readers at all, but for real readers, who are led through this story by lora). I also can't help but feel like it's an excuse to get away with mediocre prose the entire time, and i think without that it would've been a perfect little capsule novel.

interesting to dig into rigetti's history and find the parallels she slipped in- w/ memoir deal she could start to publish fiction, et cetera. does make me feel like something kind of sadistic is afoot though. & really unsure what this is insinuating about sally rooney

kpabs's review against another edition

3.0

3.5, because of that ending!

fairyhag's review against another edition

2.0

im very confused by all of the stellar reviews for this book, i guess i didn't get it. the plot is a complete rip off of anna delvey's story which i didn't enjoy the first time around. lora is insufferable as a narrator and i didn't really care for the "plot twist." thank god it's was a fast read!

kahkmyers's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious fast-paced

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

4.25

I thought the format of this book was very interesting as it was made up of text messages, emails, diary entries, etc. instead of the typical novel format. I can’t say too much about the book because everything I want to say would be a spoiler, but I guess I can say that I definitely had strong feelings about the characters throughout the story That were flipped on its head at the end. Very interesting how the author put all the pieces together. At times it seemed a little complicated to follow with all the varying storylines, but it was not too complicated and it made it very enjoyable especially once you got to the last page. 

sierra_liv's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.0

carolinerosereads's review against another edition

adventurous funny mysterious tense fast-paced

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

2.0

vanhooked_on_reading's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.75

This book was a nonstop ride of "What are you doing now? Why are you doing this? What??" It was the perfect stuck in my house snow day read, which was so propulsive and went down so easy. It would also make a great summer read at the beach or by the pool. And that ending? Woah!