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3102 reviews
The Last Week of May by Roisin Meaney
5.0
Updated June 25, 2024: Great re-read. You can see my original review below. I was in the mood for some comfortish reads because I have a lot going on personally right now.
Updated review January 28, 2021: Just did a nice re-read of this one. Still really enjoyed this one and enjoyed it. Though as I said in another review I have noticed that most of Meaney's characters are kind of dealing with similar circumstances across books. We have May dealing with being cheated on which a lot of her characters deal with in her books. We have Marjorie who is similar to a lot of her older female characters that is dealing with an ungrateful child. It's not a bad thing, I just didn't see it until I did my re-reads.
Original review:
Wow. I can see why many are calling Roisin Meaney the new Maeve Binchy. I really enjoyed this one a lot.
We get to follow a cast of characters through one week taking place in the Kilpatrick, Ireland. Not everyone gets a happy ending, and some people still seem to be obtuse as hell at the end of the book, but I really enjoyed this one.
The main characters are:
May, dealing with heartbreak, moved to Kilpatrick and doing odd jobs to support herself and her father.
Pam, takes care of May's father while she is out at work and is dealing with some things with her husband Jack which are causing her to be worried about their future.
Bernard who is the local florist and scared that someone is out to get him and his live in lover are a couple who are dealing with someone who is focused on hurting them because they are gay.
Paddy who is in love with May though he's never formally met her.
Paul who is ready to throw away his life due to a fling.
Carmel who is obsessed with Paul.
Marjorie who doesn't know how to talk to her daughter anymore.
There are some other characters that we get to see in this one, but I don't want to spoil too much. I really did enjoy everyone (even the characters who were doing terrible things).
The writing was really good and I got a kick out of following these characters for a full week. I loved the ins and outs of everyone and how everything ends up being connected in the end around a single event.
The flow actually is good in this one even though we go back and forth between characters. Meaney does a good job with everyone's voices so no character sounds exactly like the other one. She also helpfully makes sure she calls out who is "speaking" when the passage switches between people. I didn't find that necessary though to include due to how different everyone sounds.
The setting of Kilpatrick felt small at times, but I think it was supposed to due to us following about 10 characters (here and there) throughout the book.
I loved how the ending we get leaves things up in the air, but we can guess what happens next. I would love to read about this group in a sequel someday.
Updated review January 28, 2021: Just did a nice re-read of this one. Still really enjoyed this one and enjoyed it. Though as I said in another review I have noticed that most of Meaney's characters are kind of dealing with similar circumstances across books. We have May dealing with being cheated on which a lot of her characters deal with in her books. We have Marjorie who is similar to a lot of her older female characters that is dealing with an ungrateful child. It's not a bad thing, I just didn't see it until I did my re-reads.
Original review:
Wow. I can see why many are calling Roisin Meaney the new Maeve Binchy. I really enjoyed this one a lot.
We get to follow a cast of characters through one week taking place in the Kilpatrick, Ireland. Not everyone gets a happy ending, and some people still seem to be obtuse as hell at the end of the book, but I really enjoyed this one.
The main characters are:
May, dealing with heartbreak, moved to Kilpatrick and doing odd jobs to support herself and her father.
Pam, takes care of May's father while she is out at work and is dealing with some things with her husband Jack which are causing her to be worried about their future.
Bernard who is the local florist and scared that someone is out to get him and his live in lover are a couple who are dealing with someone who is focused on hurting them because they are gay.
Paddy who is in love with May though he's never formally met her.
Paul who is ready to throw away his life due to a fling.
Carmel who is obsessed with Paul.
Marjorie who doesn't know how to talk to her daughter anymore.
There are some other characters that we get to see in this one, but I don't want to spoil too much. I really did enjoy everyone (even the characters who were doing terrible things).
The writing was really good and I got a kick out of following these characters for a full week. I loved the ins and outs of everyone and how everything ends up being connected in the end around a single event.
The flow actually is good in this one even though we go back and forth between characters. Meaney does a good job with everyone's voices so no character sounds exactly like the other one. She also helpfully makes sure she calls out who is "speaking" when the passage switches between people. I didn't find that necessary though to include due to how different everyone sounds.
The setting of Kilpatrick felt small at times, but I think it was supposed to due to us following about 10 characters (here and there) throughout the book.
I loved how the ending we get leaves things up in the air, but we can guess what happens next. I would love to read about this group in a sequel someday.
Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo
1.0
Did Not Finish-40 percent
I really could not get into this. I know it's because of how Evaristo chose to write the book. It just felt like a lot of words were coming at me with no end in sight. I really only got up to 40 percent before I just gave up.
I get that each chapter was supposed to follow a different woman, but I just had no sense of who anyone was. Once again, the wall of text didn't help. And then we were thrown into another character. I just feel badly that I did not like this at all. I do love to read Black authors and support their work, but the writing style and lack of development just was not a winning read to me.
I really could not get into this. I know it's because of how Evaristo chose to write the book. It just felt like a lot of words were coming at me with no end in sight. I really only got up to 40 percent before I just gave up.
I get that each chapter was supposed to follow a different woman, but I just had no sense of who anyone was. Once again, the wall of text didn't help. And then we were thrown into another character. I just feel badly that I did not like this at all. I do love to read Black authors and support their work, but the writing style and lack of development just was not a winning read to me.
Cruel Winter with You by Ali Hazelwood
1.0
orry no billionaire control freak romances for me in 2024 and beyond. The whole story icked me out. I didn’t feel like it even leaned into the Christmas aspect of the book as much as the hero was a terrible guy, but genius so it waved away the red flags.
Full review: a woman, Jamie, returns home to spend Christmas with her father. He tells her to walk (during a snowstorm) to their neighbors to borrow a freaking pan. There she meets her best friend's brother, Marc, who she hasn't seen in a while. The long and tedious story follows Jamie first meeting Marc, and her realizing he had feelings for her. But because of her own reasons (good ones honestly) she doesn't trust it.
Look Marc is not a good character. Too much is told about how he was just mean and nasty to his sister, but never to Jamie til she rightfully sided with his sister once, and then he just had a rude nickname for her. Everything is pretty much excused cause he was a secret genius and now a billionaire. The whole story was weird and I hated it.
Full review: a woman, Jamie, returns home to spend Christmas with her father. He tells her to walk (during a snowstorm) to their neighbors to borrow a freaking pan. There she meets her best friend's brother, Marc, who she hasn't seen in a while. The long and tedious story follows Jamie first meeting Marc, and her realizing he had feelings for her. But because of her own reasons (good ones honestly) she doesn't trust it.
Look Marc is not a good character. Too much is told about how he was just mean and nasty to his sister, but never to Jamie til she rightfully sided with his sister once, and then he just had a rude nickname for her. Everything is pretty much excused cause he was a secret genius and now a billionaire. The whole story was weird and I hated it.
The Blue Hour by Paula Hawkins
3.0
I liked that Hawkins tried a different direction on this, but ultimately the book dragged to the point I didn’t care what was happening to anyone. I guessed and was right, but ended up not really liking the characters we do get to see in this one.
Full review:
"The Blue Hour" follows Julian Becker. Julian is an art curator who is focused on deceased artist, Vanessa Chapman. Julian's boss, former/or weirdly still friend, Sebastian Fairburn is determined that his foundation which was bequeathed all of Vanessa's art works, gets everything owed to it. Vanessa's former companion Grace, won't speak to the lawyers that Sebastian has hired, and now he's ready to play hard ball when a human bone is found to be part of one of the works that Vanessa created. Julian is ordered to go visit Grace on Eris, off the coast of Scotland.
Long story short, there's not a lot of people to like in this one. I know like or dislike doesn't really matter if the book is good, but since the book dragged, it was a chore to keep going to find out what would happen to people I either disliked or was not invested.
First, Julian, I think Hawkins was smart to make him one of the anchors of the story. His obsession with Vanessa Chapman comes shining through, he's pretty similar in fact (somewhat) to Grace when it comes to that.
Speaking of Grace and her story, it takes a long time to get going and I didn't think it fit with what we know of Vanessa. What I mean is that Hawkins sets up Vanessa as a person that does not form relationships, does not really need anything but her art, so the whole meet up with Grace and becoming bosom buddies did not work at all. It felt off. And then Hawkins ties herself into knots I think trying to over explain every little thing.
The book jumps back and forth between Julian in the present, Grace in the present, and then her remembering the past, and the diary entries of Vanessa Chapman.
The flow was up and down. Maybe because every time we got to Grace, it felt like the book came to a brutal stop and you were just forced to read about someone who reminded me of Hans Christian Anderson and his relationship/friendship with Charles Dickens. If you don't know about it, look it up, it's funny and messy and yeah, I was on Dickens side there. The other characters we hear about don't really get developed. We get to see Vanessa's estranged husband via Grace's point of view, and also Vanessa's writing, but he felt like a cartoon character to me.
The setting of Eris should have worked, but it didn't, probably because it just felt like one big room after a while. I didn't get a Gothic setting at all from the book and or any vibes from Shirley Jackson's works at all.
The ending was pretty bad. I just didn't believe it and it leaves so many issues that I just went bah. I think Hawkins was going for too many "twists" but at least with this book, you could see them coming. I just didn't think that Hawkins did a great enough job of selling us on the friendship between Vanessa and Grace. And there's a whole spoiler I won't get into now, but once that was revealed I went, okay I definitely don't buy it now.
Full review:
"The Blue Hour" follows Julian Becker. Julian is an art curator who is focused on deceased artist, Vanessa Chapman. Julian's boss, former/or weirdly still friend, Sebastian Fairburn is determined that his foundation which was bequeathed all of Vanessa's art works, gets everything owed to it. Vanessa's former companion Grace, won't speak to the lawyers that Sebastian has hired, and now he's ready to play hard ball when a human bone is found to be part of one of the works that Vanessa created. Julian is ordered to go visit Grace on Eris, off the coast of Scotland.
Long story short, there's not a lot of people to like in this one. I know like or dislike doesn't really matter if the book is good, but since the book dragged, it was a chore to keep going to find out what would happen to people I either disliked or was not invested.
First, Julian, I think Hawkins was smart to make him one of the anchors of the story. His obsession with Vanessa Chapman comes shining through, he's pretty similar in fact (somewhat) to Grace when it comes to that.
Speaking of Grace and her story, it takes a long time to get going and I didn't think it fit with what we know of Vanessa. What I mean is that Hawkins sets up Vanessa as a person that does not form relationships, does not really need anything but her art, so the whole meet up with Grace and becoming bosom buddies did not work at all. It felt off. And then Hawkins ties herself into knots I think trying to over explain every little thing.
The book jumps back and forth between Julian in the present, Grace in the present, and then her remembering the past, and the diary entries of Vanessa Chapman.
The flow was up and down. Maybe because every time we got to Grace, it felt like the book came to a brutal stop and you were just forced to read about someone who reminded me of Hans Christian Anderson and his relationship/friendship with Charles Dickens. If you don't know about it, look it up, it's funny and messy and yeah, I was on Dickens side there. The other characters we hear about don't really get developed. We get to see Vanessa's estranged husband via Grace's point of view, and also Vanessa's writing, but he felt like a cartoon character to me.
The setting of Eris should have worked, but it didn't, probably because it just felt like one big room after a while. I didn't get a Gothic setting at all from the book and or any vibes from Shirley Jackson's works at all.
The ending was pretty bad. I just didn't believe it and it leaves so many issues that I just went bah. I think Hawkins was going for too many "twists" but at least with this book, you could see them coming. I just didn't think that Hawkins did a great enough job of selling us on the friendship between Vanessa and Grace. And there's a whole spoiler I won't get into now, but once that was revealed I went, okay I definitely don't buy it now.
The Mirror by Nora Roberts
1.0
<b>Please note that I received this book via NetGalley. This did not affect my rating or review.</b>
I am a glutton for punishment. I was curious if book #2 would be better than book #1 and I am sorry to say not even a little. This is filler. This was not necessary. I think Roberts could have done a duology and been done with it because nothing about this series is remotely exciting. I love romantic paranormal suspense when done the right way, but from the beginning this series had lackluster leads and a random woman popping up to murder brides.
"The Mirror" is the second book in the Lost Bride Trilogy that follows Sonya as she travels back to the past to see a bride murdered. Recommend that readers read book #1, otherwise you are going to be lost. Sonya is not the only one who can go through the mirror, her cousin Owen can too and they go back in time to witness the wedding receptions which left the brides dead.
Sonya's main goal is to just figure out how to rid her home of the ghost and avenge the brides who were murdered, but honestly most of the book is about super mundane stuff. I do think that the problem in this book and like in many of her others is that she's stopped developing characters in order to describe shit we don't care about. It's bleeding over into her JD Robb works too. I get she loves renovating and talking about colors, and whatever it is, but I do not freaking care. Just like book #1, there's zero chemistry at all between Sonya and her love interest, Trey. They suck. So does Chloe and Owen.
I honestly at times thought about some of Roberts earlier works and it felt like this was an old old draft she polished off because it just does not work at all. I was over the men being protective. Sonya being stubborn, the jumping back and forth showing us Hester Dobs, and even more backstories on the murdered brides.
I am a glutton for punishment. I was curious if book #2 would be better than book #1 and I am sorry to say not even a little. This is filler. This was not necessary. I think Roberts could have done a duology and been done with it because nothing about this series is remotely exciting. I love romantic paranormal suspense when done the right way, but from the beginning this series had lackluster leads and a random woman popping up to murder brides.
"The Mirror" is the second book in the Lost Bride Trilogy that follows Sonya as she travels back to the past to see a bride murdered. Recommend that readers read book #1, otherwise you are going to be lost. Sonya is not the only one who can go through the mirror, her cousin Owen can too and they go back in time to witness the wedding receptions which left the brides dead.
Sonya's main goal is to just figure out how to rid her home of the ghost and avenge the brides who were murdered, but honestly most of the book is about super mundane stuff. I do think that the problem in this book and like in many of her others is that she's stopped developing characters in order to describe shit we don't care about. It's bleeding over into her JD Robb works too. I get she loves renovating and talking about colors, and whatever it is, but I do not freaking care. Just like book #1, there's zero chemistry at all between Sonya and her love interest, Trey. They suck. So does Chloe and Owen.
I honestly at times thought about some of Roberts earlier works and it felt like this was an old old draft she polished off because it just does not work at all. I was over the men being protective. Sonya being stubborn, the jumping back and forth showing us Hester Dobs, and even more backstories on the murdered brides.
The Co-op by Tarah DeWitt
2.0
<b>Please note that I received this book via NetGalley. This did not affect my rating or review.</b>
Apologies all, work is crazy and I had reviews sitting in a document that I posted while I had some time to myself. This wasn't that great. Give me a second chance romance and marriage of convenience and I can usually get into it. But, I started this book in July and it took me until November to get back to because it was not very good unfortunately. I think that Rainbow Rowell recently did a second chance romance better in my eyes because you have the two adults actually talk about what happened. I just can't with these books that have people acting as if they are teenagers when they are not.
"The Co-op" follows two friends (teen years) whose grandmothers left them shared ownership of a building. The two leads, LaRynn (which I won't lie I kept messing up her name) and Deacon were just boring and I didn't get any sense of chemistry from the two of them. Long story short, LaRynn has a trust she can't touch until she's married [we are still doing this shit? I guess with Trump 2.0 though it may become a reality that women can't have bank accounts again] and Deacon needs money for his business.
I think that this book was a very rough first draft but there were not enough pieces for this to be an enjoyable romance novel.
Apologies all, work is crazy and I had reviews sitting in a document that I posted while I had some time to myself. This wasn't that great. Give me a second chance romance and marriage of convenience and I can usually get into it. But, I started this book in July and it took me until November to get back to because it was not very good unfortunately. I think that Rainbow Rowell recently did a second chance romance better in my eyes because you have the two adults actually talk about what happened. I just can't with these books that have people acting as if they are teenagers when they are not.
"The Co-op" follows two friends (teen years) whose grandmothers left them shared ownership of a building. The two leads, LaRynn (which I won't lie I kept messing up her name) and Deacon were just boring and I didn't get any sense of chemistry from the two of them. Long story short, LaRynn has a trust she can't touch until she's married [we are still doing this shit? I guess with Trump 2.0 though it may become a reality that women can't have bank accounts again] and Deacon needs money for his business.
I think that this book was a very rough first draft but there were not enough pieces for this to be an enjoyable romance novel.
A Not So Meet Cute by Meghan Quinn
1.0
<b>Did Not Finish--10 percent<b>
Sorry, not sorry, throwing the white flag of DNF.
The character of Lottie was not very developed and I found myself just cringing while reading this. The dialogue and the entire premise was not realistic.
Sorry, not sorry, throwing the white flag of DNF.
The character of Lottie was not very developed and I found myself just cringing while reading this. The dialogue and the entire premise was not realistic.
We Are the Goldens by Dana Reinhardt
4.0
I have never read a book by Dana Reinhardt before but after reading We Are the Goldens I plan on checking out her other books. Told in the first person from Nell's point of view you get to see a young woman trying her best to step out of her older sister's shadow. Nell loves and in equal measure is jealous and at times hates her sister. I thought Ms. Reinhardt did a great job with Nell's voice and the confusion that she feels at falling for a boy and being jealous that this boy may like her sister more than her. I did feel at times that Nell's voice was a bit too old in certain parts. It only happened a few times, but other than that I thought Ms. Reinhardt did a great job capturing a teenager's voice.
I also thought it was very good that Ms. Reinhardt wrote the book in such a way that it seemed that Nell had written a letter to her sister to explain why she did what she did. You know in the beginning that something horrible is or did happen so that leaves the book with a very good deal of tension while you read.
I will say that though I liked the book I did not care for Nell. You don't have to love the narrator in a story you are reading and the fact that Ms. Reinhardt writes this book in such a way that you can sympathize with Nell, feel pity for her, and also realize that a part of her is happy that her sister is not so 'golden' anymore. I wish that part of the book had shown Nell being self aware enough to love her sister's downfall instead of her having her feelings of righteousness throughout her letter to her sister.
I would like to read a follow-up to see what happens at the conclusion of this book. Or to see a book written by Layla's point of view.
Please note that I received this book via the Amazon Vine Program.
I also thought it was very good that Ms. Reinhardt wrote the book in such a way that it seemed that Nell had written a letter to her sister to explain why she did what she did. You know in the beginning that something horrible is or did happen so that leaves the book with a very good deal of tension while you read.
I will say that though I liked the book I did not care for Nell. You don't have to love the narrator in a story you are reading and the fact that Ms. Reinhardt writes this book in such a way that you can sympathize with Nell, feel pity for her, and also realize that a part of her is happy that her sister is not so 'golden' anymore. I wish that part of the book had shown Nell being self aware enough to love her sister's downfall instead of her having her feelings of righteousness throughout her letter to her sister.
I would like to read a follow-up to see what happens at the conclusion of this book. Or to see a book written by Layla's point of view.
Please note that I received this book via the Amazon Vine Program.
Girl Before a Mirror by Liza Palmer
4.0
I have loved previous Liza Palmer books, seriously go out and read Conversations with the Fat Girl and Seeing Me Naked. Some of her books I could not get into fully, see A Field Guide to Burying Your Parents and others I just didn't care for at all, see More Like Her.
I thought that Girl Before a Mirror was at times brilliant and other times frustrating. I really did love reading how Anna came to see romance novels as not something to be ashamed of, but something to celebrate and that the whole concept of "be your own heroine" is something that many women need to be in their day to day lives.
I did find the first few chapters a bit stilted at first, but after Anna meets Sasha and they begin their campaign idea together the book started flowing much better. Sadly, the times that Anna is with Lincoln the book seemed to turn itself into another book entirely so I often found those passages to also be super slow and they did not flow very well in my eyes.
There was another side plot going on with Anna having a very popular romance writer becoming her mentor but it seemed to fizzle out. I still can't understand how this woman was Anna's mentor. She seemed to just be a person that Ms. Palmer inserted to be Anna's fairy godmother.
I think the book would have worked much better without that being indulged in since the whole concept of this character coming along and doing what she does in the end took me completely out of the book. Everything else in the book I found to be very realistic except this part.
The idea that many women do sit and wait for that guy to come along and be our white knight instead of sitting up and being their own knight and then finding the guy was very thought provoking.
I at times read a passage in this book and would just find myself nodding along. Anna in a way is a perfect stand in for many women who have been through a marriage and divorce in their early 40s still trying to figure out what do they want. I thought her getting her eyes opened during a romance writer's conference was great and I loved that many people talked about how they were treated differently be people when they found out that they read romance novels. Also the parts dealing with women who are afraid to admit that they like the things that they do since they want to be thought of as smart as intelligent and not less than other people was a very good discussion.
However, to go from that aspect of this book to one in which Anna is trying to decide to just take a chance on Lincoln was in my eyes aggravating.
There was no real obstacle between Anna and Lincoln being together besides Anna's own self imposed obstacles she threw up so I was pretty much over the 'what are we going to do dance' she kept indulging in. One thing that always bugs me in romance novels is when the heroine and hero have no real reason to be kept apart, but the author keeps them apart to just lengthen the book. If the Anna/Lincoln relationship had been the only thing going on with this book I would have marked it down to 2 stars. However, besides Anna taking a hard look at her life and how to be her own heroine, I loved her friendship with Sasha and her finally acknowledging that her brother needs help. I did tear up at one key scene with Anna and her brother and I know exactly how she feels when you want to fix everything for your sibling, but know that you cannot.
In summary, I liked the writing, the character of Anna, and thought her romance with Lincoln actually took away from the overall book.
I also really love the idea of "be the heroine, find your hero".
Please note that I received this book via the Amazon Vine Program and this book will be released on January 27, 2015.
I thought that Girl Before a Mirror was at times brilliant and other times frustrating. I really did love reading how Anna came to see romance novels as not something to be ashamed of, but something to celebrate and that the whole concept of "be your own heroine" is something that many women need to be in their day to day lives.
I did find the first few chapters a bit stilted at first, but after Anna meets Sasha and they begin their campaign idea together the book started flowing much better. Sadly, the times that Anna is with Lincoln the book seemed to turn itself into another book entirely so I often found those passages to also be super slow and they did not flow very well in my eyes.
There was another side plot going on with Anna having a very popular romance writer becoming her mentor but it seemed to fizzle out. I still can't understand how this woman was Anna's mentor. She seemed to just be a person that Ms. Palmer inserted to be Anna's fairy godmother.
I think the book would have worked much better without that being indulged in since the whole concept of this character coming along and doing what she does in the end took me completely out of the book. Everything else in the book I found to be very realistic except this part.
The idea that many women do sit and wait for that guy to come along and be our white knight instead of sitting up and being their own knight and then finding the guy was very thought provoking.
I at times read a passage in this book and would just find myself nodding along. Anna in a way is a perfect stand in for many women who have been through a marriage and divorce in their early 40s still trying to figure out what do they want. I thought her getting her eyes opened during a romance writer's conference was great and I loved that many people talked about how they were treated differently be people when they found out that they read romance novels. Also the parts dealing with women who are afraid to admit that they like the things that they do since they want to be thought of as smart as intelligent and not less than other people was a very good discussion.
However, to go from that aspect of this book to one in which Anna is trying to decide to just take a chance on Lincoln was in my eyes aggravating.
There was no real obstacle between Anna and Lincoln being together besides Anna's own self imposed obstacles she threw up so I was pretty much over the 'what are we going to do dance' she kept indulging in. One thing that always bugs me in romance novels is when the heroine and hero have no real reason to be kept apart, but the author keeps them apart to just lengthen the book. If the Anna/Lincoln relationship had been the only thing going on with this book I would have marked it down to 2 stars. However, besides Anna taking a hard look at her life and how to be her own heroine, I loved her friendship with Sasha and her finally acknowledging that her brother needs help. I did tear up at one key scene with Anna and her brother and I know exactly how she feels when you want to fix everything for your sibling, but know that you cannot.
In summary, I liked the writing, the character of Anna, and thought her romance with Lincoln actually took away from the overall book.
I also really love the idea of "be the heroine, find your hero".
Please note that I received this book via the Amazon Vine Program and this book will be released on January 27, 2015.