_0_phoenix_0_ 's review for:

The Bookshop Sisterhood by Michelle Lindo-Rice
1.5
dark emotional tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

This book was sorely disappointing. I picked it up expecting a wholesome story about friendship, found family with some emotional stuff for sure but OH MY GOD. 

First of, these girls don't even seem to be friends. The author tries to play off the snarky comments and snide remarks as simply banter between friends but I have never seen less supportive friends in my life. In every emotional moment with one of the friends, one of the other girls would somehow make it about them. Also when they got into fights not one time were the things they said to each other discussed.  You can't just bring up your friends issues with her husband and then move on like nothing happen to 'keep the peace'.

I found all of the characters to be unlikeable and certain plots to be unrealistic. Some emotional outbursts made no sense to me and starting from around the middle of the book this became a hate read. A lot of the major conflicts were mountains out of molehills. 

Not one man in this book was redeemable except maybe Kent, Tonis fiance. 

The ending was rushed with all of the girls suddenly coming to a grand epiphany that pulled their arc to a close. 

Random nitpick but there were a lot of name drops of books almost constantly and I'm gonna be honest I was skimming. If the author wants this to be a cute recommending books thing she should provide a book list at the end. I'm not reading this book to take notes.

I hated that last scene where it was revealed that Celeste's husband only suggested divorce to get her attention and force her to pull herself together instead of being a lovely supportive husband the whole time. Many of the mean comments that Celeste recalled he made towards her and the looks he gave her were not resolved back at all. He flipped out at her after she had an outburst at an important work party of his and that was never talked about it either. Celeste also randomly got returns on an investment in a couple days which was very unrealistic. 

Leslie was such a jerk to her dad when it was revealed that she was adopted. I truly could not understand why she was hating on him so damn much. She acted like he had singlehandedly murdered her biological parents. 

Yasmeens boyfriend/Daryl was also very unrealistic in how suddenly he was the perfect man and was on the right side of the law again. Yasmeen's situation with her parents was also not talked about or resolved (they thought her winning the lottery was not good cause she didn't work for the money or something). 

Toni's big dark past was very underwhelming.