Lydia

Another I had not read previously. This may be my favorite of his poem compilations.

This is one I didn't read as a kid. I think Dahl had a phobia of being eaten by something.

If this was about a dog, I would be pretty pissed off, but I hate turtles.

Everybody is calling this heart-pounding, thrilling, and edge of your seat and I'm just confused. This book was dull. So very, very dull and repetitive. I'm starting to feel that people are only reviewing books to NetGalley positively to get more freebies and suck up to the publishers, WHICH DESTROYS THE POINT OF ARCS!
Anyway, back to No One Can Know.
I'm going to save you the time without explicitly telling you spoilers: everything is exactly what you think. There are no twists. If you have a suspicion about anything, yay! You are correct.
Rounding up from a 1.5 to a 2 because it wasn't offensively bad, just not very good.

As someone who HATES when people ask me about what I'm eating, this resonated with me.

I think the best pigeon books are the ones that do not follow the original “don't let the pigeon_____” format.

Another messy-rich-people drama book. I think I would enjoy these more if they weren't marketed as thrillers, because they definitely are not. These are domestic dramas with a very minimal mystery aspect.
Overall this was an enjoyable read, but not one I'll be thinking about in a few days (or even hours).
The cover, though? CHEF'S KISS. The best part of Rachel Hawkins' books are the covers.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

This was such a fun way to end the year

sigh. Listen, I LOVE crazy thrillers with unbelievable plots and premises, but this book was...I'll say it. It was just dumb. The writing was very poor, the characters were grinding, the romance was dull, the thriller aspect was boring as hell. I wish I could give a better review since I got this book for free as an ARC, but frankly, I want compensation for the time I wasted.
This was also not marketed as Christian Fiction on NetGalley and I didn't see that until looking on Goodreads after reading, but I feel like that might explain a lot of why I hated it so much. I grew up religious, I've read a lot of Christian Fiction, NONE of it is any good.
Anyway, sorry guys. I cannot in good faith recommend this to anybody.

WHAT?! Did we read the same book? I'm so confused, guys. I had so many issues with this that I'm having trouble even clearly listing them out. I found this review and it sums it all up very well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiPZfS8-tnc

First and foremost, thank you to NetGalley for this ARC/ALC copy!

I think there needs to be a new genre for this type of book. This is NOT a thriller, nor a suspense, and barely a mystery. I'd call this a slow burn Domestic Drama. Misrepresenting the genre of a book will only lead to disappointed readers and lower overall reviews, but I will not lay that blame on the author.

In any case, I thought The Guest was okay for what it was, and was planning on giving it a nice 4 stars...until the epilogue. The pacing was a little off throughout the story, but then we hit the end and it's like Paris had a deadline and was forced to write the final 50 pages under duress. Suddenly we were served the most egregious “tell didn't show” info dump I've ever read, and I was SO disappointed. I love twists in the epilogue, but when so little interesting happens in the book proper, and you are then told everything exciting in the last few pages it leaves you deflated. Such a shame, because I'm a fan of BA Paris' other works.

I wanted to love this, but I didn't and i'm sorry :/

The only reason I'm giving this two stars is because of the cute illustrations, but the story is horrible. How is this uplifting and heartwarming? Did anybody actually read this? I'm baffled.

I must address the elephant in the room: Rockwell? ROCKWELL?!?!?! I'm such a huge Name Nerd and his name took me out of the story every single time I heard it. Not only has Rockwell never appeared in the top 1,000 baby names since 1880, but if we look at the time Rockwell and Bree were supposed to be born, Rockwell was given to less than 5 boys per year. In years since it's gained a little bit of traction, but still there haven't been more than ~100 boys born in any given year EVER named Rockwell. That's out of about 4 million babies. Authors, I beg of you, do research before you choose names!

Off my name soapbox, this book itself was okay. It started out great, but I couldn't stand this couple together and wasn't able to root for them at all. Where was the chemistry? Not all romances need a second chance, sometimes the people are better off not together. The writing also felt very juveniles, but perhaps that was the narrators' deliveries. There were also some issues with my audiobook, but hopefully that has been fixed.

Thanks to netgalley

I love Christmas romances this time of year, and this was a very sweet one.
I think the holiday version of grumpy/sunshine is Grinch/Buddy The Elf. All I'm asking for is a holiday rom-com where both people are obsessed with Christmas. Is that too much to ask? I'm also not big on the miscommunication trope, or the travel catastrophes. Other than this gripes, I enjoyed it.

THE CHILLS I HAD AT THE END. This never happens. I read so many thrillers that I am desensitized to most twists, but this one was genuinely unexpected. I recently read Hemlock by Kiersten and loved it, although I didn't consider it a thriller, but this one is definitely a thriller. Heart pounding from start to finish. Bravo, very well done.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ALC.

This book is a second chance romance, crisis-based, holiday escapade that relies very heavily on miscommunication and hijinks. None of these are things I enjoy. I simply couldn't root for the main characters to be together as they stressed me out to the max just listening to them interact. I hate romanticizing toxic relationships, and this one very much felt toxic to me. I didn't like the characters on their own, either. The ending wrapped up way too quickly, and I ultimately was disappointed.

That being said, I know these are not tropes I enjoy, so I will rate it higher than I feel to be more objective. This will give you all of the holiday craziness feels. The story is predictable, but if you like all of the above tropes, this was a fun read.
My personal rating would be more of a 2.5, but I'll give it a 4 on netgalley because I think a lot of people will love it.

Thank you to netgalley for this ALC.

This is the kind of book I would hate any other time of year, but absolutely eat up during the holidays. I love the representation in this cute little book: demisexual, bisexual, self described butch lesbian, non-binary and, of course. Swiftie!

I have many thoughts on this. The first and foremost being that this is primarily a romance with a tinge of thriller towards the end, so if you are looking for your next great thriller novel, this is not it. That being said, this is an absolutely FANTASTIC book. A lot of the pop points are pretty predictable, but I was so invested that I didn't really care. You will hate some of these characters, you will love some of these characters, you will hate to love some of these characters, it's a great combination.

Thank you to NetGalley for this advanced copy.

You have got to be kidding me! This is the cutest book ever.

Anybody who knows me at all knows I am a thriller girl through and through. Usually romance doesn't do it for me, I need something that go-go-GOES. With all of that being said, I LOVED THIS BOOK!
The Second Chance Year was extremely predictable, but so cozy and charming that I didn't care at all. I just wanted to hang out with these characters for yet another year!

Oh, and I loved all of the dessert puns. I would very much like a full list of every pastry simile/metaphor Wiesner used (please, Melissa, please provide this for me).

If you love second chances, fuck the patriarchy, sweet, cozy, character-driven books, this is for you.

Thank you SO much to NetGalley for the ARC.

WOW! Why are more people not talking about this one? How did this get swept under the rug while, cough, other authors are being recommended every day?!

This book has two timelines and three pov's, which all work together much better than I expected them to. While some of the plot twists are easy to guess, it's still a great read.
My only disappointment is that it ended way too soon! Everything tied up in the epilogue in an epic “tell don't show” sprint. I really wish Murphy had fleshed out the ending with more care like throughout the rest of the story.

Thank you to netgalley for this copy!

Calling all dark academia + cozy mystery + drama club girlies!
While I loved the concept and usually enjoy multiple timelines, this one felt a little too convoluted and drug on for a bit too long. I would've been happier if it was edited down by about 100 pages. It was also a little too “cozy” of me. Ultimately, I prefer more thrilling thrillers.
My biggest complaint is petty- but the title trips me up every time I talk about this book. I always say “The Twelves Murders of Christmas”. IT WAS RIGHT THERE!

Thank you to NetGalley for the advanced audio of The Twelve Days of Murder.

Not for me

My Husband's Lies started out being fast-paced, griping, and fun. Unfortunately, as the story went on I started to lose interest. Perhaps it's because I'm a seasoned thriller reader, but I found it very predictable. My other main complaint was that the main protagonist made some of the dumbest decisions possible in the given circumstances.
Overall this wasn't bad, and I did enjoy it, but it definitely will not be topping my list of best reads of the year.

Thank you to Netgalley and Bookouture for this advanced copy.

On paper this sounds like everything I would enjoy- murder, messy rich people drama, confined setting, thriller. However, this was a major miss for me. Despite there being literal murders, everything in this book felt extremely low stakes. I was never very concerned for the wellbeing of any of the characters and ultimately found myself wanting to skip through the chapters. Kass acted like she was very in the know after meeting members of the family literally 24 hours prior. I couldn't handle her stupidity and unrealistic reactions.
I was bored, annoyed with our (extremely naive) main character, and overall ready to move on from this ridiculous storyline.

I hate giving a poor review given the generosity of the author and publisher, but honest reviews are what this is all about, right?

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.