missstefani's reviews
404 reviews

Heartwood by Amity Gaige

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious tense medium-paced

4.0

This book was so good!

Told from multiple points of view, with chapters in interview form, letters, and narration. Valerie is hiking the Appalachian Trail. One day she doesn’t show up at a check point where she’s supposed to meet her husband, and once they determine she’s missing, a massive search begins. We get the POV of Valerie, slowly deteriorating as she waits to be found, her food supply dwindling, and we learn about why she started her hike in the first place and how she ended up off the trail. Also POV from Lt. Bev leading the search, and Lena, a woman in a retirement community that for a while I couldn’t figure out how she was connected, BUT I noticed a clue and caught on. 

This novel has mystery and suspense, not so much a thriller in my opinion. 

The middle felt a little slow, and the ending felt so fast after that slower pace, but overall I really enjoyed reading it! This is out April 1. 📖 

Thank you @netgalley and @simonbooks for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

Goddess Complex by Sanjena Sathian

emotional funny mysterious fast-paced

4.0

This was interesting, and then the end got really weird 😂.

Sanjana is dealing with a lot. She has dropped out of her masters program, gets married to an aspiring actor who then gets her pregnant, she runs away, has an abortion, and her husband ghosts her after she leaves when she tries to reach out for a divorce. Her family and friends think she’s a mess. Suddenly she starts getting strange messages and phone calls, people reaching out to congratulate her on her pregnancy when no one knew she’d been pregnant, and then someone sends her a photo of her ex that reveals a woman who seems to be trying to take over her former life and live has Sanjana. 

I was pretty into this book, and then the like last third turned into a psychological thriller? Which, it says that in the description so I should have known in advance, but it felt like two different books. It was sort of culty in various sections, very messy, I thought the ending was going to be even darker than it was. 

Overall, I thought this was fine. I think it would make a good book club book cause there’s a LOT to cover here. 

Thank you @netgalley and @penguinpress for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

Reel by Kennedy Ryan

emotional slow-paced

5.0

The Co-op by Tarah DeWitt

funny lighthearted medium-paced

4.0

Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall

emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

5.0

I read this SO FAST! 

Beth, girl, making so many not great decisions due to grief and loss, and hurting her husband Frank who is literally the nicest guy ever and he’s also suffering through grief and loss and guilt, and her old flame shows up and they realize they broke up over a bunch of misunderstandings back before college and made bad decisions back then and just a series of unfortunate events and Gabriel’s mom is the worst and Beth wasn’t good enough for him to you know how it is 🙄. 

I did NOT see the twists at the end coming, it was one after the other, after the other, I was like what no, WHAT NO?! WHAAAAAT 😱. 

The scene where Bobby dies was absolutely tragic, like truly heartbreaking to listen to. 

Overall this novel had me hooked from start to finish, family drama, loss, grief, guilt, an affair. A tense trial, you’re trying to guess what happened and you will NOT guess correctly. 

Definitely recommend picking this one up. 

Thank you @netgalley and @simonbooks for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

The Griffin Sisters' Greatest Hits by Jennifer Weiner

emotional reflective medium-paced

4.0

✨The Griffin Sisters Greatest Hits by Jennifer Weiner✨

THE DRAMAAAAA.

This was like a pop star fanfic/family drama/soap opera/VH1 Behind the Music mashup. Everybody is cheating on everybody in this book 😂. 

It’s the early 2000’s. Cassie is a music prodigy, hates performing in front of anyone, is uncomfortable around people in general (it’s hinted later in the novel and may have autism). Her sister Zoe dreams of being a famous pop star. When a record label’s nephew sees them perform one night at a battle of the bands and his uncle is in town, they perform for him and he immediately sees dollar signs, but with Cassie at the forefront. Their story takes off, and we get a novel with Cassie/Zoe’s POV from past and present, and Zoe’s daughter Cherry in the present, who has musical talent and is trying to win a singing competition. We learn tragedy tore the sisters apart before their career even really reached its peak, and all the secrets unravel throughout the novel (mostly at the end).

I was INVESTED. At first, I felt bad for both the sisters. Cassie is overweight, and it’s the early 2000’s, no one knows how to dress her, she’s constantly put in baggy suits with shoulder pads, hiding her body behind the piano, when she’s actually the most talented. 

Zoe isn’t that talented, is used as the eye candy of the band, and is the pretty one. 

And that’s what sort of gets shoved in your face. Cassie is “ungainly” overweight, unkempt, and Zoe is like SO pretty, and after awhile it was like okay we get it. Zoe was a terrible person, I think near the end of the novel when everything comes out, she’s forgiven WAY too quickly for everything she’d done, simply because it’d been so long ago. And like, no, you can hold the grudge, Zoe was garbage. She did terrible things to Cassie, didn’t see her as a person, couldn’t imagine anyone loving Cassie over her because Cassie was awkward and overweight. Like it was cringe. Also Zoe was always calculating, manipulating, looking for ways to get what she wanted and how things would benefit her. And at the end it was like “let’s all sing together!” And like no, Zoe is out. Sorry not sorry. 

Also there was a weird thing with Cherry’s step brother that could have been completely removed. It was a weirdly added thing and while I sort of got where the author was going, but there was PLENTY here to keep it going we didn’t need the creeper step brother aspect. 

Overall, this book has my attention once I got into it, I wanted to know what happened and where it was going and the mystery behind why Cassie disappeared and what’s happened with Russell, but there were just a few things that kept it from being a 5 star read. 

This comes out April 8! 📚 

Thank you @williammorrowbooks for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

The Lodge by Kayla Olson

funny lighthearted medium-paced

5.0

Dream State by Eric Puchner

challenging emotional reflective sad medium-paced

4.0

WHEW this was a heavy one. 

This novel was like one of those quiet, low budget indie movies. Where they couldn’t afford music and play the same recognizable piano tune throughout the film while people walk from one place to the next, or as time passes and people age and the wife ends up with Alzheimer’s and makes a scene in a pharmacy and it’s completely silent aside from her shouting and everyone feels tense and uncomfortable. 

It has everything, a husband that leaves his wife for a man, sons from different generations with drug addictions and parent issues and grief and trauma, a woman who leaves her husband a week after they get married for his best friend, a daughter who grows up to move to LA to be a movie star. 

We start at the beginning with our characters, and we travel with them through life, the chapters flowing together with the fast forward in time pretty seamlessly. 

Everyone is flawed and troubled and no one is truly happy and they’re constantly chasing something better instead of appreciating what they have, and wondering “what if…” 

The scenery is a huge part of this novel, with a focus on climate, climate change, and the California wildfires. 

The book was well written, really lovely writing, it was just a rough listen. Like, no one is ever really happy, and that’s addressed near the end of the novel so it’s pretty self aware. 

I’d recommend this, just make sure you’re in a the right moody mood to read it. Like in your feelings, ready to feel more things. Sad, griefy things. I feel like this would also make a good book club book, lots to chat about. 

Thank you @netgalley and @doubledaybooks for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

You Are Fatally Invited by Ande Pliego

dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

4.0

This book was WILD.

A bunch of thriller writers are invited to an island by an author for a writers retreat/mystery party weekend thing. 

BUT THEN. Authors start 💀 the same ways as the characters in their books, there’s no way off the island, the host mysteriously never shows up, and there’s another serial 🔪 on the loose! The remaining guests are forced to keep playing the games each night, and reflecting on their biggest mistakes and flaws to stay alive. 😱

This book had a LOT of of characters and quite a few POV. I was never sure about unreliable narrators, who was innocent (no one), and there were SO MANY twists near the end I was like WHAT?! 

I will say, do this in physical copy, cause there’s different narrators for each POV, and then a couple mystery chapters where even more narrators voices are used to keep us from guessing the character, that I would occasionally get lost and have to double check the chapter title. 

Overall though this was a great read and it had me hooked from start to finish. Definitely recommend picking it up if you love mystery/thrillers/slashers. 

Thank you @netgalley and @ballantinebooks for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

The Romantic Tragedies of a Drama King by Harry Trevaldwyn

funny lighthearted fast-paced

5.0

This book was a delight! I laughed so hard. 

Patch is such a drama king, I loved how just himself he was. Like this reminded me a little of the short story The Drama Bug by David Sedaris, but in full length YA novel form. 

There’s high school drama, theater drama, boy drama, best friend drama, but like so heartfelt and fun. The dialogue was so quick and funny. 

This was just overall such a fun novel to listen. I recommend picking it up if you need a light read. 

Thank you @netgalley and @wednesdaybooks for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.