Scan barcode
_chelseachelsea's reviews
99 reviews
One by One by Ruth Ware
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
One by One has a claustrophobic premise and a pleasantly diverse cast of characters, but veteran thriller readers will likely unravel the whodunnit mystery long before the killer is revealed.
I really, really like Ruth Ware’s writing style - she’s great at layering meaning behind dialogue and spreading exposition so her books don’t feel like a dumping ground. So when I started One by One, I was expecting a little more than what I got, which is a basic Orient Express-style story with characters who, while certainly more diverse than your typical thriller, were also pretty predictable.
I want to start with what’s good, because this is a perfectly good book. Ware has clearly spent time researching the history and language of her chosen setting, and it shows in both her descriptions and the dialogue between characters. The novel is quite immersive, so that by the end I nearly felt chilly myself.
The pace is just medium enough that I couldn’t rush through, but it rarely felt like it was dragging. Just when you think the pace is slowing, Ware gives a much-needed push to the next piece of action.
The other thing I liked was the setup of a young tech company grappling with financing, privacy, and morality against the backdrop of a luxurious ski resort. The best thrillers, in my opinion, provide stakes beyond the murder mystery. Our characters aren’t just threatened by a killer, or even the avalanche that’s trapped them - they are also threatened by the pressure of what waits for them back in the real world. These are people who just want to live the millennial dream and were clearly unprepared for the reality of running a business, and as their pristine, curated identities begin to crack, there are real people underneath. This, I think, sets Ware’s writing apart from other thriller authors. It’s hard to write likable jerks, but she manages to create humanity in even her most intolerable characters.
I think my dislikes really just boil down to narration problems. Ware writes this novel from only two POV’s. In a whodunnit, I think that’s a mistake. You know that your readers (especially those well-versed in thrillers) are going to cross examine every interaction, every internal piece of narration, looking for double-meaning and misdirects everywhere. With only two narrators, the magnifying glass is placed squarely on everything they say and do. This, I’m afraid, makes the killer’s identity glaringly obvious and the plot unpleasantly easy to predict.
I was about halfway through the novel when I figured it out - a single line of narration from one of the POV’s made it clear. If there had been more POV’s to get lost in, I might not have identified the “twist” so easily. I think thrillers with this kind of plot really need either ONE narrator (which Ware does very well in her first novel, In A Dark, Dark Wood) or they need several POV’s so you’re not inside the head of a single character for too long (Lucy Foley’s The Guest List is a recent read that achieves that goal in a really fun way).
Plot twist issues aside, I think this is a nice, moody read for those who like a mystery without too much gore or violence. And even though I knew who the killer was with over half the book left to go, trying to figure out the how and why was significantly harder and enough to keep me reading.
I really, really like Ruth Ware’s writing style - she’s great at layering meaning behind dialogue and spreading exposition so her books don’t feel like a dumping ground. So when I started One by One, I was expecting a little more than what I got, which is a basic Orient Express-style story with characters who, while certainly more diverse than your typical thriller, were also pretty predictable.
I want to start with what’s good, because this is a perfectly good book. Ware has clearly spent time researching the history and language of her chosen setting, and it shows in both her descriptions and the dialogue between characters. The novel is quite immersive, so that by the end I nearly felt chilly myself.
The pace is just medium enough that I couldn’t rush through, but it rarely felt like it was dragging. Just when you think the pace is slowing, Ware gives a much-needed push to the next piece of action.
The other thing I liked was the setup of a young tech company grappling with financing, privacy, and morality against the backdrop of a luxurious ski resort. The best thrillers, in my opinion, provide stakes beyond the murder mystery. Our characters aren’t just threatened by a killer, or even the avalanche that’s trapped them - they are also threatened by the pressure of what waits for them back in the real world. These are people who just want to live the millennial dream and were clearly unprepared for the reality of running a business, and as their pristine, curated identities begin to crack, there are real people underneath. This, I think, sets Ware’s writing apart from other thriller authors. It’s hard to write likable jerks, but she manages to create humanity in even her most intolerable characters.
I think my dislikes really just boil down to narration problems. Ware writes this novel from only two POV’s. In a whodunnit, I think that’s a mistake. You know that your readers (especially those well-versed in thrillers) are going to cross examine every interaction, every internal piece of narration, looking for double-meaning and misdirects everywhere. With only two narrators, the magnifying glass is placed squarely on everything they say and do. This, I’m afraid, makes the killer’s identity glaringly obvious and the plot unpleasantly easy to predict.
I was about halfway through the novel when I figured it out - a single line of narration from one of the POV’s made it clear. If there had been more POV’s to get lost in, I might not have identified the “twist” so easily. I think thrillers with this kind of plot really need either ONE narrator (which Ware does very well in her first novel, In A Dark, Dark Wood) or they need several POV’s so you’re not inside the head of a single character for too long (Lucy Foley’s The Guest List is a recent read that achieves that goal in a really fun way).
Plot twist issues aside, I think this is a nice, moody read for those who like a mystery without too much gore or violence. And even though I knew who the killer was with over half the book left to go, trying to figure out the how and why was significantly harder and enough to keep me reading.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Injury/Injury detail, Cursing, and Murder
Moderate: Alcohol, Violence, Grief, Toxic friendship, Blood, Sexual assault, and Gore
Verity by Colleen Hoover
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
I had a hard time getting into the story on this one initially, but once Lowen gets to the house and starts digging through Verity’s office - and by extension, her past - things pick up pretty fast.
The most interesting parts of the novel are Verity’s writings. I found Lowen to be a bland and boring protagonist, especially compared to Verity. Thankfully, the suspense and eeriness of the Crawford home and some genuinely scary moments are enough to carry through Lowen’s “I’m not like other people because I’m an introvert and that’s my defining characteristic” meandering stream of consciousness.
This was a 3.5 read for me until the third act. The climactic reveals and jaw-dropper of an ending catapulted it to a 4-star rating. It’s a quick, scary read well-suited for romance readers who want to dip a toe into thrillers without committing to bloodshed and gore.
The most interesting parts of the novel are Verity’s writings. I found Lowen to be a bland and boring protagonist, especially compared to Verity. Thankfully, the suspense and eeriness of the Crawford home and some genuinely scary moments are enough to carry through Lowen’s “I’m not like other people because I’m an introvert and that’s my defining characteristic” meandering stream of consciousness.
This was a 3.5 read for me until the third act. The climactic reveals and jaw-dropper of an ending catapulted it to a 4-star rating. It’s a quick, scary read well-suited for romance readers who want to dip a toe into thrillers without committing to bloodshed and gore.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body shaming, Child death, Child abuse, Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Grief, Medical trauma, Miscarriage, Murder, Physical abuse, Pregnancy, Self harm, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, and Abortion
Moderate: Blood, Cancer, Car accident, Vomit, and Confinement
This book contains graphic descriptions of attempted self-abortion, child murder/death, and domestic abuse.
The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix
dark
hopeful
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.75
Pacing issues, too many characters, a boring narrator, and some deeply unnecessary scenes keep this story from being the great thriller it wants to be. It’s clear that Hendrix set out to make a deep commentary on horror tropes and feminism, but it simply falls flat. In short, The Final Girl Support Group falls victim to its own hype.
First some basic complaints, spoiler-free. For one, there’s very little gore or true horror. This is surprising for a book that is, supposedly, a love letter to slashers. Any intensity Hendrix attempts to build is quickly dissolved by yet another change of location, annoyed conversation between the protagonists, long drive across California, or exposition dump by the narrator. One scene manages to come close to horror, but it’s still bogged down by unbearably slow timing, and comes at a moment when we’ve already been dragged around for what feels like days.
But my real complaint (and there is a bit of spoiler here so proceed with caution) is that, for all the inside jokes and slasher references and unique character backstories Hendrix builds this novel around, there is a shocking lack of originality in the actual unfurling of the plot.
(SPOILERS BEGIN HERE)
I’ll give TFGSG one thing: the cast of characters is more diverse than what we normally see in a thriller. We have some LGBTQ+ representation in Dani, a physically disabled final girl in Julia, a black final girl in Adrienne (though she’s not so much a character as she is the memory of a character who is now dead), which is a nice change of pace.
Unfortunately, we barely get development for these women, in part because Hendrix has tried to write too many final girls into one story, and then picked the worst one to be narrator. By focusing all of our time on Lynette, who is (in my opinion) one of the LEAST interesting FG’s of the group, he robs us of what could have been a very interesting narrative.
Why not write from Heather’s perspective - an addict who survived a trauma apparently so twisted that Hendricks couldn’t even be bothered to give us any details about it - and tell the story of her being dragged into a movie she doesn’t want to be part of?
Why not give the story to Adrienne - the black woman who rises from the ashes of a massacre and builds her life around empowering other survivors to advocate for each other?
Why not tell us more from Dani - the tough as nails queer survivor who will do anything to protect her fellow Final Girls?
By stripping away the deeply fascinating layers of his most intriguing characters, by boiling the script down to a standard “red herring meets plot twist meets second plot twist,” by cramming so many slasher references into the story that it becomes distracting and confusing, Hendrix doesn’t make nearly the statement he wants to. He doesn’t say anything different than what Wes Craven or John Carpenter have already covered.
And, like the final villain in this stop-and-go, overly drawn out novel, he’s not as smart as he thinks he is.
First some basic complaints, spoiler-free. For one, there’s very little gore or true horror. This is surprising for a book that is, supposedly, a love letter to slashers. Any intensity Hendrix attempts to build is quickly dissolved by yet another change of location, annoyed conversation between the protagonists, long drive across California, or exposition dump by the narrator. One scene manages to come close to horror, but it’s still bogged down by unbearably slow timing, and comes at a moment when we’ve already been dragged around for what feels like days.
But my real complaint (and there is a bit of spoiler here so proceed with caution) is that, for all the inside jokes and slasher references and unique character backstories Hendrix builds this novel around, there is a shocking lack of originality in the actual unfurling of the plot.
(SPOILERS BEGIN HERE)
I’ll give TFGSG one thing: the cast of characters is more diverse than what we normally see in a thriller. We have some LGBTQ+ representation in Dani, a physically disabled final girl in Julia, a black final girl in Adrienne (though she’s not so much a character as she is the memory of a character who is now dead), which is a nice change of pace.
Unfortunately, we barely get development for these women, in part because Hendrix has tried to write too many final girls into one story, and then picked the worst one to be narrator. By focusing all of our time on Lynette, who is (in my opinion) one of the LEAST interesting FG’s of the group, he robs us of what could have been a very interesting narrative.
Why not write from Heather’s perspective - an addict who survived a trauma apparently so twisted that Hendricks couldn’t even be bothered to give us any details about it - and tell the story of her being dragged into a movie she doesn’t want to be part of?
Why not give the story to Adrienne - the black woman who rises from the ashes of a massacre and builds her life around empowering other survivors to advocate for each other?
Why not tell us more from Dani - the tough as nails queer survivor who will do anything to protect her fellow Final Girls?
By stripping away the deeply fascinating layers of his most intriguing characters, by boiling the script down to a standard “red herring meets plot twist meets second plot twist,” by cramming so many slasher references into the story that it becomes distracting and confusing, Hendrix doesn’t make nearly the statement he wants to. He doesn’t say anything different than what Wes Craven or John Carpenter have already covered.
And, like the final villain in this stop-and-go, overly drawn out novel, he’s not as smart as he thinks he is.
Survive the Night by Riley Sager
adventurous
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
I’m trying really hard to figure out how to describe this book, but it’s tough because the twists and narrative devices feel like both its greatest strengths and biggest weaknesses.
To review it properly makes spoilers inevitable, so if you’re reading this BEFORE you’ve read STN, I’ll leave you with this: nothing about this book is what you expect; that means you are going to be both delightfully engaged and incredibly frustrated.
Spoilers begin below.
I want to start with a shortlist of general plot dislikes. My first (and biggest) plot complaint is about the character of Robbie. When Marge is revealed to be the villain (?) who orchestrated Charlie’s fateful ride, I thought “well, that’s a clever move.” Josh/Jake being revealed as a simple bounty hunter and NOT the Campus Killer was a cool bait-and-switch that, if a bit difficult to believe, still provided a much-needed breath of life in the second-to-third-act bridge.
And when Marge, desperate and angry, asked Charlie to kill her, I was totally bought-in on the drama. I even thought to myself, “It’s good that the true identity of the Campus Killer is still a mystery. That’s realistic. In real life people often don’t find out who killed their loved ones.”
Then Sager fucked it up.
The big “Robbie is the killer” twist felt forced, rushed, and ridiculous. Charlie dated this man for a year and didn’t recognize him from behind when he approached Maddy? Maddy herself didn’t yell out “Charlie wait, Robbie’s here!” when she saw him? Robbie, the ruthless killer, didn’t overpower Marge the second he realized she was lying about Charlie in the diner? It just didn’t line up for me. There’s nothing I hate more in a thriller than a forced last-minute twist, and leaving the CK a mystery would have paid off so much better. Charlie could have parted ways with Robbie as friends and still ended up with Josh/Jake.
Speaking of, that’s my second plot beef. Why does Charlie need to end up with Josh/Jake? In what world would that relationship be healthy? Trauma-bond romances in thrillers are getting very old.
But here’s the real conflict for me as a reader. Sager does some things with the narrative in this novel that are, as I said above, both the greatest strengths and biggest weaknesses of the book.
Let’s start with the use of unreliable narrators. Sager really impressed me on this one. Typically a book is able to pull off one, maybe two UN’s in a single story, but every single narrator in STN novel turns out to be one, right down to “Charlie” herself (who, I guess, was actually Movie Charlie?)
But the problem with the main line of narration being a movie version of what actually happened is that a) we’re left with no idea if we ever got any real insight into our protagonist and what her actual experiences were, and b) we’re left deeply confused about what actually happened. If there was no fire, for example, then how did the climax actually play out? Were the scenes between Charlie and Maddy genuine, or were they made up to add emotional depth to the “movie”?
And therein lies my biggest frustration. I think the “you’ve secretly been reading the Hollywood version of events this whole time” twist was creative and well-executed - it certainly took a lot of literary gymnastics to pull off - but I also feel robbed of Charlie’s story. The tears I shed over the surprisingly poignant moments when she’s lost in a memory of Maddy feel cheap, like Sager wanted me to be caught up in the emotion only to yank it out from under me. The thrill of the big climax and the plot twists and the gasps I let out feel even cheaper, because I (like Charlie) don’t know what was real and what wasn’t.
And all of this begs the question - did Sager trick us out of love, or spite? By feeding us a thriller that hits many familiar notes and leans into film tropes, is he trying to say he’s smarter than us? Does he want us to feel duped and stupid for buying into it? Or is he simply making a general statement about the dramatization of reality?
Sager’s author’s note explains that this novel is a love letter to cinema, but to me the final twist felt like a middle finger to us: the audience members who ate up the bullshit he was feeding us without thinking twice; the morons who trusted every narrator he presented, believed his version of events, and fell for his big trick.
No matter how clever that trick was, it still feels like antagonization.
To review it properly makes spoilers inevitable, so if you’re reading this BEFORE you’ve read STN, I’ll leave you with this: nothing about this book is what you expect; that means you are going to be both delightfully engaged and incredibly frustrated.
Spoilers begin below.
And when Marge, desperate and angry, asked Charlie to kill her, I was totally bought-in on the drama. I even thought to myself, “It’s good that the true identity of the Campus Killer is still a mystery. That’s realistic. In real life people often don’t find out who killed their loved ones.”
Then Sager fucked it up.
The big “Robbie is the killer” twist felt forced, rushed, and ridiculous. Charlie dated this man for a year and didn’t recognize him from behind when he approached Maddy? Maddy herself didn’t yell out “Charlie wait, Robbie’s here!” when she saw him? Robbie, the ruthless killer, didn’t overpower Marge the second he realized she was lying about Charlie in the diner? It just didn’t line up for me. There’s nothing I hate more in a thriller than a forced last-minute twist, and leaving the CK a mystery would have paid off so much better. Charlie could have parted ways with Robbie as friends and still ended up with Josh/Jake.
Speaking of, that’s my second plot beef. Why does Charlie need to end up with Josh/Jake? In what world would that relationship be healthy? Trauma-bond romances in thrillers are getting very old.
But here’s the real conflict for me as a reader. Sager does some things with the narrative in this novel that are, as I said above, both the greatest strengths and biggest weaknesses of the book.
Let’s start with the use of unreliable narrators. Sager really impressed me on this one. Typically a book is able to pull off one, maybe two UN’s in a single story, but every single narrator in STN novel turns out to be one, right down to “Charlie” herself (who, I guess, was actually Movie Charlie?)
But the problem with the main line of narration being a movie version of what actually happened is that a) we’re left with no idea if we ever got any real insight into our protagonist and what her actual experiences were, and b) we’re left deeply confused about what actually happened. If there was no fire, for example, then how did the climax actually play out? Were the scenes between Charlie and Maddy genuine, or were they made up to add emotional depth to the “movie”?
And therein lies my biggest frustration. I think the “you’ve secretly been reading the Hollywood version of events this whole time” twist was creative and well-executed - it certainly took a lot of literary gymnastics to pull off - but I also feel robbed of Charlie’s story. The tears I shed over the surprisingly poignant moments when she’s lost in a memory of Maddy feel cheap, like Sager wanted me to be caught up in the emotion only to yank it out from under me. The thrill of the big climax and the plot twists and the gasps I let out feel even cheaper, because I (like Charlie) don’t know what was real and what wasn’t.
And all of this begs the question - did Sager trick us out of love, or spite? By feeding us a thriller that hits many familiar notes and leans into film tropes, is he trying to say he’s smarter than us? Does he want us to feel duped and stupid for buying into it? Or is he simply making a general statement about the dramatization of reality?
Sager’s author’s note explains that this novel is a love letter to cinema, but to me the final twist felt like a middle finger to us: the audience members who ate up the bullshit he was feeding us without thinking twice; the morons who trusted every narrator he presented, believed his version of events, and fell for his big trick.
No matter how clever that trick was, it still feels like antagonization.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Grief, Kidnapping, Mental illness, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Stalking, Suicide attempt, Violence, and Vomit
Moderate: Cancer, Car accident, Gore, and Gun violence
Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo
Did not finish book. Stopped at 12%.
Did not finish book. Stopped at 12%.
Just not my genre. 56 pages in and still had no idea what was going on!
Clown in a Cornfield by Adam Cesare
dark
funny
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Did you guys know it’s possible for a book to pull off a jump scare??
I finished Clown in a Cornfield in one night. Cesare is smart - he knows you picked up this book because you want to see some clowns, some corn, and some gore, so he doesn’t waste much time. Even though the fast pace makes the characters’ motivations a bit of a stretch in terms of believability, it ultimately works in the story’s favor. You get what you came for, and the book truly delivers on creepiness and slashing.
I preferred the smaller moments of horror (one person being stalked by the killer) over the chaotic, large-scale action that dominates most of the last 2/3 of the book, but again, Cesare knows what he’s trying to deliver. This isn’t a slow-burn slasher, it’s CLOWN IN A CORNFIELD, baby.
There’s a message to the violence of CIAC that’s not very subtle and a little too spelled-out, but given the book’s YA themes, I’m going to be forgiving there. This is a scary story about rebellion, revenge, and rage, and even when the plot’s pacing is somewhat uneven, it never loses sight of those ideas.
I finished Clown in a Cornfield in one night. Cesare is smart - he knows you picked up this book because you want to see some clowns, some corn, and some gore, so he doesn’t waste much time. Even though the fast pace makes the characters’ motivations a bit of a stretch in terms of believability, it ultimately works in the story’s favor. You get what you came for, and the book truly delivers on creepiness and slashing.
I preferred the smaller moments of horror (one person being stalked by the killer) over the chaotic, large-scale action that dominates most of the last 2/3 of the book, but again, Cesare knows what he’s trying to deliver. This isn’t a slow-burn slasher, it’s CLOWN IN A CORNFIELD, baby.
There’s a message to the violence of CIAC that’s not very subtle and a little too spelled-out, but given the book’s YA themes, I’m going to be forgiving there. This is a scary story about rebellion, revenge, and rage, and even when the plot’s pacing is somewhat uneven, it never loses sight of those ideas.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Gun violence, Mass/school shootings, Murder, Medical trauma, Police brutality, Suicide, and Violence
Moderate: Addiction, Bullying, Cancer, Car accident, Confinement, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Drug use, and Medical content
The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
I was only going to give this book 3.5 stars, but the ending earned it a 4. I had just been thinking to myself, “Well this is a bit of a let-down” when suddenly the other shoe dropped and that went right out the window.
This is a nice mystery that, if a bit slow-paced, is still unique and intriguing enough to hold attention.
This is a nice mystery that, if a bit slow-paced, is still unique and intriguing enough to hold attention.
They All Fall Down by Roxanne St Claire
adventurous
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
1.0
An incredibly ridiculous story that only a 7th grader could buy into. They All Fall Down starts with an intriguing premise and then proceeds to deliver on exactly none of its “thrills.” Anyone who claims it’s “like Final Destination meets Gossip Girl!” is lying to you. LYING.
Read on for specifics about why I nearly quit this book 4-5 times, but here’s the short version: nothing about the plot of this story is believable, and it’s not even unbelievable in a fun way. Don’t waste your time - just read The Cheerleaders instead.
The idea of an exclusive, mysterious clique of girls chosen by a secret process every year is interesting, to be sure. But our protagonist, Kenzie, is so busy being smarter than the rest of the sisters of the list that they’re barely characters, and merely cannon fodder for what is obviously not a series of accidents - accidents we only get to hear about in brief conversations.
The deaths could have at least been interesting if we’d been privy to them (maybe a third person omniscient narrator would have been a better choice than Kenzie’s stream of consciousness?) but instead we are doomed, much like the list, to suffer and die.
Kenzie spends at least 75% of her time thinking about Latin or describing the jawline of her love interest (who has a story MUCH more interesting than hers). The rest of the time is spent internally b*tching about how stupid the other girls are or thinking about her brother who, poor guy, gets the lamest death mystery ever.
And good god - the LATIN. No teenage girl thinks about Latin this much. No teenage girl thinks in Latin and in NO world does that language come up in conversation this frequently.
And as the final “mystery” “unravels” (read: explains itself to you in both English AND Latin) you’ll be rolling your eyes, not gasping. The Big Climax™ is crammed into about 20 pages that make very little sense.
How did the assassins orchestrate a girl’s HAIR being caught in the bathtub drain?
How did the girls who got stuck on the train tracks have their car stall out at exactly that moment?
How were the assassins always exactly where they needed to be even when their targets were stepping outside their usual routines?
Why were some of the women killed YEARS after they’d graduated?
What did the nurse have to do with anything?
What pill is capable of mimicking the effects of alcohol poisoning??
How did the assassins always know that the girls had told someone about the “curse”?
Why didn’t Conner go to the police after Jarvis tried to recruit him into his secret murder club?
WHY DIDN’T THE GIRLS LOCK THEMSELVES IN POLICE CUSTODY FOR PROTECTION?
They All Fall Down feels like St. Clair started with the list concept and had no idea where it was going, so the ending reads like it was taken from another book. A terrible book.
Read on for specifics about why I nearly quit this book 4-5 times, but here’s the short version: nothing about the plot of this story is believable, and it’s not even unbelievable in a fun way. Don’t waste your time - just read The Cheerleaders instead.
The idea of an exclusive, mysterious clique of girls chosen by a secret process every year is interesting, to be sure. But our protagonist, Kenzie, is so busy being smarter than the rest of the sisters of the list that they’re barely characters, and merely cannon fodder for what is obviously not a series of accidents - accidents we only get to hear about in brief conversations.
The deaths could have at least been interesting if we’d been privy to them (maybe a third person omniscient narrator would have been a better choice than Kenzie’s stream of consciousness?) but instead we are doomed, much like the list, to suffer and die.
Kenzie spends at least 75% of her time thinking about Latin or describing the jawline of her love interest (who has a story MUCH more interesting than hers). The rest of the time is spent internally b*tching about how stupid the other girls are or thinking about her brother who, poor guy, gets the lamest death mystery ever.
And good god - the LATIN. No teenage girl thinks about Latin this much. No teenage girl thinks in Latin and in NO world does that language come up in conversation this frequently.
And as the final “mystery” “unravels” (read: explains itself to you in both English AND Latin) you’ll be rolling your eyes, not gasping. The Big Climax™ is crammed into about 20 pages that make very little sense.
How did the assassins orchestrate a girl’s HAIR being caught in the bathtub drain?
How did the girls who got stuck on the train tracks have their car stall out at exactly that moment?
How were the assassins always exactly where they needed to be even when their targets were stepping outside their usual routines?
Why were some of the women killed YEARS after they’d graduated?
What did the nurse have to do with anything?
What pill is capable of mimicking the effects of alcohol poisoning??
How did the assassins always know that the girls had told someone about the “curse”?
Why didn’t Conner go to the police after Jarvis tried to recruit him into his secret murder club?
WHY DIDN’T THE GIRLS LOCK THEMSELVES IN POLICE CUSTODY FOR PROTECTION?
They All Fall Down feels like St. Clair started with the list concept and had no idea where it was going, so the ending reads like it was taken from another book. A terrible book.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Car accident and Kidnapping
Moderate: Child death and Murder
You Love Me by Caroline Kepnes
dark
funny
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Not the BEST in the Joe series, and certainly about 50 pages too long, but Kepnes is as sharp and darkly charming as ever.
SPOILERS
I would have liked this book to pick back up with Joe and Love together - her crazy and jealous, him crazy and jealous - it could’ve been great. But instead we get... pretty much the first book but with crazier side characters, a more mature Joe, and a less self-centered You. The convenience of these roadblocks being cleared was a bit much, and the ending takes sort of a bizarre turn, but I can’t deny it was entertaining.
SPOILERS
I would have liked this book to pick back up with Joe and Love together - her crazy and jealous, him crazy and jealous - it could’ve been great. But instead we get... pretty much the first book but with crazier side characters, a more mature Joe, and a less self-centered You. The convenience of these roadblocks being cleared was a bit much, and the ending takes sort of a bizarre turn, but I can’t deny it was entertaining.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Misogyny, Murder, Stalking, and Toxic relationship
Moderate: Antisemitism, Drug abuse, Pedophilia, Rape, and Suicide
Minor: Mass/school shootings
The Cheerleaders by Kara Thomas
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5