A review by sarahemhavens
The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller

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

2.0

this one was not for me, I struggled my way through. The writing was alright, some quotes did stand out to me - but overall, this book was very meh, and really off putting at some points.

“I wonder if he would love me if he could see inside my head”
(The other quote is an absolute spoiler so I will be refraining bc I like to keep these spoiler free)

I was hoping to be enveloped in this book the way I was with Malibu Rising, because it’s the same idea when it comes to writing timeframe and storytelling, but I don’t think it was done very well in this one. Though the focus of the book is supposed to be how one night changes everything, the primary focus, I felt, was more on the fifty year spread. This book gave me, personally, a whole lot of nothing. I wanted more out of it and at the same time, less of so many other things.

There was also a lot of trauma and triggering things (sa, csa/cse/csea) which left me feeling skeeved out and just unsettled.

 
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