chloek608's reviews
245 reviews

The Exception to the Rule by Christina Lauren

hopeful lighthearted fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

I recommend this book if you like:
-short novella
-YA romance
-email layout

This short story of 100 pages was exactly what I needed. It was a breath of fresh air. It has email layout back and forth between strangers who accidently emailed on Valentine’s Day and have continued the tradition ever since. The email layout continues for 50 pages and then we transition to normal chapters.

Very heartwarming story and likeable characters. Predictable but would recommend. This is my first 5 star read of 2024.

Terra and Callum have emailed since high school and finally decide to meet years later when they are at Uni. Little did they know they had already crossed paths. It was meant to be. They fell for each other and a lovely HEA story with a marriage at the end.

The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman

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adventurous mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

I recommend this book if you like:

-murder mystery

-short chapters

-multiple POV

This book is set in a retirement village. I liked the short chapters and the mystery element of trying to solve two murders. Overall, I didn’t enjoy this book as much as I thought I would. I think my main downfall was reading it over a prolonged period, so I had forgotten parts, for example, there are far too many characters to keep track of. I wish I had made notes or read this book in a shorter space of time.

Content Warnings

A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas

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adventurous challenging dark tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I recommend this book if you like:
-high fantasy
-new adult
-strong female lead

This book starts off slow as it introduces readers to its world, characters and the faerie creatures. The book started to get exciting at around 80%.

Feyre kills a wolf hunting to feed her family but she didn't realise the wolf was a faerie. She has to pay for what she has done and go to live in the faerie lands.

She ends up developing feelings for her capture. Her love develops and trouble is afoot. A lady Amarantha is running the land and she is evil. She captures Tamlin and then to torture him, she captures Feyre. Feyre has to complete 3 tasks or solve a riddle to be let free.

Task 1 - escape from a giant worm
Task 2 - pick the correct lever to escape impending doom for her and Lucien
Task 3 - kill 3 faeries including the one she loves

She completes all 3 tasks, with some help from Rhysand. Yet Amarantha does not stick to her word, even when Feyre solves the riddle. But Feyre broke the curse and restored powers to all high fae. In doing so Amarantha killed her. Thankfully all high fae joined together and brought Feyre back to life as a fae herself.

The Perfect Marriage by Jeneva Rose

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dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I recommend this book if you like:
-murder mystery
-law and court cases
-adult genre

I thought I knew who committed the murder at the start. The more I read I became unsure. The ending was predictable and would have been better if it was someone else.

The wife killed the mistress and tried hard to clear her husband’s name for the murder but didn’t succeed which meant he was executed and that was her plan all along.

Content Warnings

So Lucky by Dawn O'Porter

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funny slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I recommend if you like:
-adult contemporary
-multiple points of view
-realness

This book follows three women and unveils their true lives and the mundane day to day life. It shows struggles, complications and how life isn’t all as it seems, even for those influencer types.

In the end it shows that women camaraderie can help get you through those difficult circumstances.

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Below the Big Blue Sky by Anna McPartlin

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emotional funny lighthearted sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I recommend this book if you like:
-hard hitting topics
-lighthearted Irish humour
-multiple points of view

This book was recommended to me by my granny. This book covers many hard hitting topics from all angles of different family members. It's hard to explain the writing style but it tackles the topics in a lighthearted way with some humour but conveys the emotional depth really well from all sides.

The book centres around a family loss. Bunny dies from cancer and the story follows five different family members (mum, dad, sister, brother and daughter) and a friend. They all deal with their grief in different ways.

Content Warnings

The Fill-In Boyfriend by Kasie West

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lighthearted slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I recommend this book if you like:
-YA high school
-light read
-light romance

Gia’s boyfriend dumps her in the carpark right before prom and her friend group already had doubts that Bradley existed, she couldn’t walk into prom alone. She spots Hayden in the car park and asks him for a huge favour; accompany her to prom and pretend to be Bradley.

Gia’s web of lies just gets bigger and more complicated when she actually ends up liking her fill-in boyfriend and his sister.

Gia learns throughout the book that friendships that are only on the surface aren’t real. She seeks a real, deeper friendship from Bec and a real relationship from Hayden.
Although it was a long book, I feel that not much happened. It was an easy, nice read all the same.

Lies by T.M. Logan

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adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I recommend this book if you like:
-thriller with an untrustworthy narrator
-short chapters
-brilliant clues and twists

Wow, T.M. Logan fast becoming an auto-read author for me. This is my third read from him and every one I am left shocked and cannot believe the twists. This thriller was a fast paced read for me and I love the fact that it had short chapters.

Joe is a high school teacher, he has a wife and a young son. He lives a rule-abiding life and is happy with his day to day routines. One day on the school run, his son spies his mother’s car going into an underground carpark for the Premier Inn. The son wanted to see his mummy and show her his latest certificate from school. Joe went along with it thinking that would be a nice surprise. He didn’t expect to see her having an argument with their friend Beth’s husband. Joe left without being spotted and waited in the carpark. One thing led to another and Joe and Ben were in a scuffle and Ben falls and hits his head. Joe can’t help Ben as his son has an asthma attack. Joe returns later to check on Ben but he is gone and so is his car.

Strange things start to happen to Joe. Ben’s missing and Joe’s the last person to see him alive and he finds out his wife had an affair with Ben. All fingers point to Joe. He is suspended from work, he is a police suspect and no-one believes his innocence. It is down to Joe and Joe alone to find Ben and prove that he is not a murderer.

So many twists and turns kept me reading this book at lightning speed. I was gobsmacked to uncover the truth.

Ben was a victim in all of this, much like Joe. The two wives were actually the ones having an affair and their plan was to kill one and set the other husband up for the murder. They nearly got away with it too had it not been for the loyal daughter of Ben.

Content Warnings

Her Last Holiday by C.L. Taylor

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dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I recommend this book if you like:
-Adult mystery
-Holiday setting
-Multiple points of view and goes between past and present

Fran is on the search to find out what really happened to her sister Jenna on Gozo island. Her sister was on a mental health retreat and she never returns. The family have been told it was a suicide but they want to do their own research to get answers as to why their Jenna would do such a thing.

Fran signs up for the next mental health retreat happening in Wales which is ran by Tom and Kate the owners of SoulShrink. Fran doesn’t anticipate running in to three previous members of the retreat, they knew her sister and she feels they all know something which they are keeping secret.

Jenna had slept with Tom the owner without realising that he was married to Kate. Tom was in love with Jenna and wanted to leave Kate and start a new life. Kate found out about the cheating due to recording the 1 on 1 sessions and she threatened Jenna to leave her husband alone or else all her secrets she shared in her therapy sessions would be exposed. A girl on the retreat, Renata, was very protective of Kate and her relationship and so she hit Jenna on the head with a rock and warned her away from Tom. What we later find out is that she is still alive and Damian had helped her escape the retreat and start a new life in Valetta, Malta. The family all reconnect and Jenna even has a partner and baby.

Content Warnings

Letters to the Lost by Brigid Kemmerer

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adventurous challenging dark emotional informative mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I recommend this book if you like:
-Young Adult high school setting
-covering hard issues like bereavement and family problems
-unlikely friends

I loved how easy this book was to read. Chapters are short and at the start of each chapter is a letter or email to read which made it very hard to set down as I kept wanting to read more. I love books that include note type parts, texts and letters etc.

There was a lot of character development and we dive head first into Juliet living with grief from her mum’s death.

Declan has a lot going on in his life and his family have never been a supportive unit which has led to some bad decision making landing him in community service, mowing grass at the cemetery.
Declan starts anonymously writing letters to Juliet and they confide in each other like no-one else before. But they come close to figuring out who each other is.

The mystery with the possibility Declan was involved in Juliet’s mum’s death was intense and I was glad that the two incidents were separate. Juliet uncovered that her mum actually flew home days earlier, was involved in a long term cheating scandal all discovered by developing her mother’s film camera.

I wish there was more of a romance and that they had discovered each other earlier in the book.

Content Warnings

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chloek608's reviews 245 reviews

chloek608's reviews
245 reviews