apa17th 's review for:

Small Pleasures by Clare Chambers

3.0

emotional mysterious medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

---

The afterword of this book saying the author was trying to combine two different historical events made a lot of things in this book make sense ... It felt like two different genres, but instead of merging them, it just changed halfway through the book. I really liked the starting point of the book, and then as it turned halfway I found it much less engaging. I cared so much for these characters and honestly I think they could have gotten a better story. And the ending just felt like a convenient way to not resolve anything?? I'm still just upset this became a strange sort of romance towards the end instead of a mystery with lesbian undertones (the pairings in this book were not who I excepted, if I'm being honest)

I genuinely thought Gretchen and Jean were going to end up together, and I'm upset they didn't. Also, what's about all the main men in this being too nice and the most dislikable character being one of the two lesbians? It just made the characters feel not evenly developed