Chelsea

I have so much to say about this book, but I'll keep it short(ish) and spoiler-free. The best compliment I can give is that I wish one of my friends would read this book so we could discuss it. This leaves so much to dissect. I'll probably read this book again just to see how it was leading to the ending.

There are two main storylines: Victoria Ford and Avery's past. Each one is an interesting story and could probably be fleshed out into a full book, but putting them together makes each one better. My only complaint is that these two storylines meeting feels too coincidental. There's no real reason for them to both happen together and that bothered me a bit.

About 80% through the book I thought I had the ending figured out and wasn't too happy with that ending. Then both stories took an unexpected twist and I love the resolution in both cases.

First and foremost, I did like the storyline and the ending of this book. It was interesting and woven well. There was only one “convenient coincidence” that I found to be a bit of a stretch, but it was minor. Everything else came together and was explained by the end.

I dropped it to 4 stars because there were particular parts that seemed to drag on and almost felt added to lengthen the book. By the end, I saw how they were important and everything was relevant, but while reading those parts just felt unnecessary and made me a bit impatient. Again though, it all makes sense in retrospect and I now see how everything was important.

It's been a long time since I got so caught up in a book I finished it in two days. I didn't expect to get so invested. I had looked at it before and passed it over because the premise didn't seem that great to me and I only read it because of a book club. But this book really got ahold of me. I feel like I can't give a book so compelling that I can't stop reading any less than 4 stars. Especially when the payoff at the end is actually good. So often a compelling book is ruined by a subpar ending, but I feel like this book was equally strong all the way to the last page. I was tempted to give 5 stars, but, even though this was a great read, I don't feel like it was the most original story or a book that really sits above the rest equally to my other 5 star reads.

4.5/5 stars