Take a photo of a barcode or cover
twiinklex 's review for:
The Kind Worth Saving
by Peter Swanson
"It sounded ludicrous, I realized." — Chapter 26, aka how I feel about this book.
The Kind Worth Killing remains my favorite Peter Swanson novel so you can imagine how stoked I was about a sequel! Sad to say The Kind Worth Saving didn't quite hit the same...
The author also tried to follow the same template where a main characters gets killed very early into the book vis-à-vis Dream Barrymore in Scream but hey, guess what. It's no longer shocking when you do it a second or third time!
The characters arcs of Joan and Richard Seddon were terribly inconsistent, going from sociopathic to cold and calculated to fumbling fools who make careless mistakes. I would have loved a girlboss read where Lily and Joan try to one-up each other but noooo.
So while entertaining, this was a disappointment for me overall.
2.5⭐ rounded up because solid last scene. I loved that final conversation.
Note: Yes, you should read the first book before this as it contains multiple references to the events of The Kind Worth Killing and major spoilers.
Thank you William Morrow for the gifted hardcover and Netgalley ARC.
Favourite quotes:
✨ "Some people fall in love because they are excellent observers and they can see what is in front of them. And some people fall in love because they only imagine what is in front of them. They construct something that isn't there."
✨ "I think that romantic love, not family love, is the most destructive force on earth. It's the only thing that makes otherwise good people hurt one another."
✨ "I'm not talking about what people will do for love. I'm talking about what people do to the ones they love. They break each other's hearts."
✨ "And even with the happiest couples, one of them will die first at the end. We all eventually wind up in a tragedy."
✨ "I actually think it's greedy that humans expect the ones they love to love them back. They don't expect it from books, or from movies, or from nature. Why do we expect it of people? Maybe my love is better because you don't love me in return?"
The Kind Worth Killing remains my favorite Peter Swanson novel so you can imagine how stoked I was about a sequel! Sad to say The Kind Worth Saving didn't quite hit the same...
Spoiler
It was a page-turner for sure but the quality of the plot declines around the halfway mark. And while I loved the return of familiar characters (especially Lily), this just felt like an unnecessary sequel and a total cop-out. Like come on, you call that a twist? Two Richards, really?The author also tried to follow the same template where a main characters gets killed very early into the book vis-à-vis Dream Barrymore in Scream but hey, guess what. It's no longer shocking when you do it a second or third time!
The characters arcs of Joan and Richard Seddon were terribly inconsistent, going from sociopathic to cold and calculated to fumbling fools who make careless mistakes. I would have loved a girlboss read where Lily and Joan try to one-up each other but noooo.
So while entertaining, this was a disappointment for me overall.
2.5⭐ rounded up because solid last scene. I loved that final conversation.
Note: Yes, you should read the first book before this as it contains multiple references to the events of The Kind Worth Killing and major spoilers.
Thank you William Morrow for the gifted hardcover and Netgalley ARC.
Favourite quotes:
✨ "Some people fall in love because they are excellent observers and they can see what is in front of them. And some people fall in love because they only imagine what is in front of them. They construct something that isn't there."
✨ "I think that romantic love, not family love, is the most destructive force on earth. It's the only thing that makes otherwise good people hurt one another."
✨ "I'm not talking about what people will do for love. I'm talking about what people do to the ones they love. They break each other's hearts."
✨ "And even with the happiest couples, one of them will die first at the end. We all eventually wind up in a tragedy."
✨ "I actually think it's greedy that humans expect the ones they love to love them back. They don't expect it from books, or from movies, or from nature. Why do we expect it of people? Maybe my love is better because you don't love me in return?"