Reviews

Rhode Island Red by Charlotte Carter

steller0707's review against another edition

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dark funny mysterious fast-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

3.0

rachelle_reads's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

4.25

Nan is a scrappy street musician in 1990s New York whose overnight visitor ends up dead in her apartment the next morning. She becomes wrapped up in a mystery involving corrupt cops, multiple murdered, and the rumor of a saxophone worth its weight in gold.

I enjoyed the setting of this book, having grown up in the 90s. Nanette was unlucky in love but had one dear friend and some other interesting relationships along the way. This was a quick read. 

boothby738's review against another edition

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2.0

Disappointed at the end that I stuck it out and finished this one

lyrareadsbooks's review against another edition

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3.0

More a 3.5 - love the concept, and I have not encountered a main character like Nan before - a confident curvy girl who plays the saxophone. The mystery had me intrigued, but the last 1/3 of the story didn’t hand work as well as the rest. Will read the next in the series.

The cover sucked me in.

melohpa's review against another edition

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2.0

See my review at https://topplingbookpile.wordpress.com/2022/11/10/rhode-island-red-by-charlotte-carter/

arielamandah's review against another edition

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4.0

What a delight this slim little book was! Mystery/detective novels aren’t my go-to genre, but this was a total joy. Our protagonist, Nan, is such a great guide for this story - she’s funny, sarcastic, and just self-aware enough. Nothing feels dragged out about the story: in fact, it may move TOO quickly at times. From what I can tell, this was published in the late 90s, and was “discovered” again and republished. I’m glad it was.

meggy_lewis's review against another edition

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

3.5

It was a nice, quick and easy mystery novel. The pace was good and I loved that it is a historical fiction with a great focus on music. Towards the end the pace picked up loads and you really wanted to find out why all the events had happened. I will say I was slightly disappointed in the ending because I feel like it didn't match the intensity of Nanette or the story and left me with a lot of questions but I do look forward to reading the next one.

crescent_just's review against another edition

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3.0

I'm actually annoyed that a potentially great story was wasted.
First of all, for a book centered on the main character Nanette, and for it to even be in her point of view, there is actually very little Nanette in the story. The entire mystery has quite literally got nothing to do with her, and happens to be a case of being at the wrong place at the wrong time, all very circumstantial which I found unfortunate I mean what then is the point? Why am I looking on alongside the main character while the actual story is happening elsewhere?
Now as much as I was frustrated by this, there was not a bigger pet peeve than Nanette the character herself.
Which leads me to my second point: there is nothing concrete about Nanette. A lot of the information she gives about herself is greatly lacking at best and hazy at worst. Even if she's not directly involved in any of the mystery, the best thing would have been to give us something about the character to work with. Her inner monologue and dialogues were infuriating because I couldn't decide if they were meant to be funny or just a fault of the author's because I could not take her seriously at all. The only concrete aspects were her love for Henry ( which I was really invested in) and Aubrey (which would be debatable considering she only appeared when Nanette needed help).
Thirdly, the writing could have been better but I didn't dislike it although I do think the author seemed to have some knowledge about the jazz bit enough to make it Nanette's choice of career but while the little nuggets about jazz interspersed within the story did have a correlation with the overall story, Nanette's interest in it just seemed to be a point to justify the plot. Majority of the time I forgot it was even her job.

I might have loved the book better if Nanette was heavily involved in the story heck, I wouldn't have minded if she was also interested in the Rhode island red which made her get caught up in the mess lol because I thought that aspect of the book was quite interesting.
But then even if the author wasn't interested in involving Nanette, there could have been more effort put in Nanette's character to make her a bit more interesting than a mouthpiece for a far interesting aspect of the book.

annamuthalaly's review against another edition

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3.0

Great characterization/style, annoying mystery. The kind of serial book that won’t even slightly tie up ends book by book. I was so offended when the ending immediately tried to bait me into starting the next that I refused to read the next. Not worth it

bookherd's review against another edition

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4.0

A great little noir mystery set in New York in the 1990's. Nanette Hayes, the narrator and protagonist, has a no nonsense voice as she describes the mess of nonsense she finds herself in the middle of.