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mkbellin's reviews
722 reviews
Heavy Hitter by Katie Cotugno
2.5
Heavy Hitter by Katie Cotugno is a pop-star/athlete romance a la Taylor and Travis. In this book, it’s the story of Lacey Logan, pop superstar, and Jimmy Hodges, a catcher on the Baltimore Orioles. Their romance starts after meeting in a club one night and the story takes us through their relationship as they deal with insecurities, how fame impacts their ability to develop a relationship, and making a relationship work when they are rarely in the same place at the same time.
The premise of this book was absolutely made for me, but unfortunately the execution fell flat. I felt Lacey Logan too closely resembled Taylor Swift (leaving fans Easter eggs, a four hour show, surprise songs, etc.), which made it read too much like real-people fanfiction. I also felt like the book was too short and there were parts of the story that could have been way more fleshed out, especially in the part of the book where the relationship was developing. At 250 pages, I think an additional 50 pages could have substantially improved the quality of the story.
Margo's Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe
Did not finish book. Stopped at 13%.
Did not finish book. Stopped at 13%.
The constantly switching between 1st and 3rd person drove me insane.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Infidelity
Moderate: Pregnancy
Everything/Nothing/Someone: A Memoir by Alice Carrière
Did not finish book. Stopped at 35%.
Did not finish book. Stopped at 35%.
The extraordinarily graphic descriptions of the way the author committed self harm were too much for me to handle.
It felt like a chronology of her life with very little introspection or any real driving point.
It felt like a chronology of her life with very little introspection or any real driving point.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Cancer, Child abuse, Mental illness, Pedophilia, Self harm, Sexual content, Medical content, Medical trauma, and Injury/Injury detail
Scrap: A Novel by Calla Henkel
dark
emotional
mysterious
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
3.0
Scrap by Calla Henkel tells the story of Esther Ray, a lesbian artist living in Asheville, North Carolina, who was hired to create a series of scrapbooks by Naomi Duncan, a mysterious woman who she met at a friend’s art opening. While working on completing this less than traditional scrapbooking project Esther is working through the break up with her ex-girlfriend, listening to true crime podcasts at an alarming rate, and wondering what comes next for her in her life. When Esther finds out that Naomi was killed in a skiing accident, she becomes obsessed with figuring out what really happened to Naomi and what the real purpose of the scrapbook is.
Calla Henkel is excellent at writing the manic, obsessed, weird arty girl. I definitely enjoyed this novel more than her previous work, Other People’s Clothes, but there was something missing that was preventing this from being a truly gripping read. The middle felt like the pacing was off, and there were one too many tangents just info dumping on the true crime podcast that Esther was listening to, which I really wasn’t interested in. Ultimately less of the novel is focused on the mystery aspect and more of it is focused on usher and all of the trauma she has gone through in the past that has led her to today. Also, I thought the ending was too neatly wrapped up in a way that didn’t feel satisfying or really make for an emotionally compelling ending to the book.
If you are looking for a thriller, this is probably not the book for you. This is definitely more of a literary fiction with thriller elements than a true thriller/mystery novel. I would classify this as weird books for weird girls. If that’s your thing, you’re probably going to enjoy this at least a little bit.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Child death, Death, Gun violence, Infidelity, Grief, Mass/school shootings, and Death of parent