rpweber15's reviews
273 reviews

Butcher & Blackbird by Brynne Weaver

4.0

This was something else.

Midnight at the Christmas Bookshop by Jenny Colgan

3.5

Cute sequel to the first book that included some fun characters and a happy ending. It was missing a little bit of the magic of the first book, lacked plot, and didn't have enough of the kids in it, but was still a nice little read.

Flowers in the Attic by V.C. Andrews

3.0

A bookseller I follow decided to reread this beginning 4/1 so I (and many others) joined her. I read this as a tween in the 80s (honestly, it’s not even close to the other adult stuff I read) as did most Gen X adolescents who were left to their own devices. Re-reading it more than 30 years later was a trip. It’s a gothic horror written like a soap opera; that’s all I can really say. Have I read worse? Oh yes. Have I read better? Oh yes, thankfully. I couldn’t put this down and I don’t think it was 100% due to nostalgia. Andrews did something right, even though it was all kinds of wrong in those pages!

The Other Valley by Scott Alexander Howard

4.0

The premise of this book is really cool and while it is speculative fiction with time travel, written by a guy with a PhD in philosophy, it’s not heavy on the science fiction or the philosophy. It’s almost the right amount of both. It’s also written very beautifully; it’s very quiet and contemplative. This isn’t a book you can rush through, partially because it’s almost a little too quiet, but also because it really promotes a “slow down” pace to the reader. I’m not generally a reader of time travel stories but this one was pretty good and I look forward to the author’s next book.

My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry by Fredrik Backman

4.5

I don't know how he does it, but Backman truly has a gift for writing complicated and real characters who imprint themselves on you, despite being somewhat unlikable at the start. Granny and Elsa, though, are immediately likeable...Granny being a wild firecracker and Elsa being the most precocious almost-eight year old ever. The characters sparkle with Backman's unique wit and sense of humor. I struggled a bit to get into the book, mostly because the fairy tale story within the story included a lot to keep track of without a ton of detail to make all the things stick. But as the residents of the house are brought to life when Elsa comes roaring into their lives, the fairy tale story within a story fades enough into the background so as to not be so distracting. This is a hard book to explain to folks. It's about love, grief, inter-generational relationships, and the joy of being different. 

I do feel the need, however, to point out that wurses should absolutely NOT be fed chocolate and mulled wine. This detail bothered the hell out of me!

The Husbands by Holly Gramazio

2.0

Though this story was centered around an insanely cool premise, it was executed terribly. This was literally a revolving door of uninteresting characters, including the main character, and there wasn't much to distinguish between the husbands who got names and the ones who didn't. I suppose that might be the point, but we didn't even have a good main character to fall back on. She was vapid and one-dimensional. Did she actually learn anything over the course of a couple hundred husbands? The side characters served absolutely no purpose in this book and were boring. This book was easily 100 pages too long because it was the same thing over and over and over again; they were essentially 200 slight variations of an NPC. The author spent the entire time telling, not showing, and that is usually a red flag as to the type of reading experience I'm going to have. As a married woman who has been out of the dating game a very long time, I feel like maybe I'm not the target audience for this book...but even if I was, I'm still not sure what the author was trying to accomplish. The main character went from kicking husbands to the curb nearly immediately for a lot of stupid reasons to

Spoiler

choosing/settling for a husband before she even meets him.

I just don't get it. I finished the book out of curiosity. Not sure if that was the right call or not...but had I DNFed, I would have had to choose carefully at which husband I would return the book to the library.

My Darling Dreadful Thing by Johanna van Veen

4.0

The gothic vibes are impeccable in this book. This sapphic tale of two women with histories of pretty awful abuse starts slow but ramps up considerably in Part 3. The author's writing is wonderfully descriptive; like I said, the vibes are perfect. Though the story takes place in the 50s in the Netherlands, the author wrote it to seem much older and spookier; it was almost out of this world because it was so isolating. I especially liked how the author wove transcripts between Roos, our protagonist, and Dr. Montague, a psychologist, throughout the story...it was a cool way to unveil the plot. However (and this is why this wasn't a 5-star read for me), I wish there had been more on the relationship between Roos and her spirit companion Ruth; likewise for the relationship between Agnes and her spirit companion Peter. Ruth played a pretty integral role in events throughout the book, but she seemed like more of a plot device. In some ways, I feel like she could be the protagonist of her own novel (or maybe this story told from her perspective). I wish some of the repetition as it related to the character traits of Roos and Agnes had been replaced with more on Ruth and Peter. This is a great novel where you are constantly wondering if the women in this book are battling severe mental health disorders or if the spirit companions are real...or, I suppose, both. It's definitely earned its place on lists of great gothic literature!

Patricia Wants to Cuddle by Samantha Allen

2.0

I hate reality television, especially The Bachelor type shows. Most of this book is that and while reading it was better than watching it, it was still nothing but loathsome people and stupid plot. Unfortunately, the interesting part of the story was rushed through at the end with very little detail, context, or explanation. This is the perfect example of don’t judge a book by its cover. The pages after the cover were a vapid mess rather than the smart, satirical commentary I was really hoping for.

The Story of the Hundred Promises by Neil Cochrane

3.5

It was really refreshing to read a queer book about being who you are and finding your joy rather than being a bunch of trauma dumping. I loved the characters in this book (and really wanted more of several of them), I liked the overall storyline, and I enjoyed the author's writing style.

However, the structure of this book did not do any of the above any favors. It was slow. I don't mind a character-driven book but there wasn't a huge amount of growth in the characters. There wasn't a huge amount of plot, either! The author took side quests in order to give context to the current story...but one of those side quests was like half the book. I appreciated what the author was trying to do but would have enjoyed it more had it been a bit more seamless...more integrated...less choppy.

Starling House by Alix E. Harrow

2.0

Tedious and half-baked with horrible pacing and one-note characters. The vibes were pretty good throughout a good bit of the book, but as I got to the ending, I got more and more annoyed by everything. This could have been an amazing story that matched the gorgeous cover but alas, it didn’t even come close. I should have DNFed this. I now know better than to continue based on vibes alone.

Also, the footnotes were dumb and also half-baked. This author committed to absolutely nothing in this book.