Melissa

I am a little conflicted on this one.
I listened to the audio book while, still, recovering from eye surgery, and I think that is the best way to go with it. I was not a fan of the flash backs, but that usually is not my cup of tea anyway as the details of those flashbacks are kept clumsily vague until details are revealed to the audience, then are brought up in present day. But I might be getting ahead of myself.

There was a conflict between the mother and the daughter that never felt properly resolved. Miscommunication is all over the place, and certain threads I thought were going to be resolved were brought up and then never touched again. There are major scenes with SH that I personally feel like were not properly warned about, or I would have picked up this book at a different time. Also, the death of a character I really like was relegated to a paragraph.

With all that being said, the audiobook saves this from being a three-star read. Melanie Lee does an amazing job with giving each character their own voice throughout, the daughter being my favorite. I hear a little Kikkimora in there! She gives every word meaning and weight, and you just want to hang onto each of them

Maybe I'll reread/relisten while not recovering from surgery and might like it better.

I am not really a Memoir person. Maybe because I find reading about somebody else's life rather daunting; are they being truthful either in a negative way to make themselves look better or purposefully holding back information that may harm? And I usually only see memoirs from celebrities that I truly do not care about.* However,this was a whole experience in a roughly 2200-pagebook about emotional abuse in a same gender relationship. And it was harrowing, and heartbreaking, and sometimes a little funny ,ut dread seeped it's way in though some of the early chapters. And it is told in such a unique way.

Many of the chapters are told in second person, with us as the reader directly in the authors shoes, one time we were an squid. Each chapter is told, for a lack of a better way to phrase it, in a different lense or writing style or topic all starting Dream House as. One chapter is Dream House as Famous Last Words, the ex girlfriend asking for a physical relationship but wanting nothing more and is a scentence of dialouge, another is Dream House as Queer Villany going over the authors thoughts, as well as providing context through film, of queer coded villains, as well as the history of the term “gaslighting.” Another chapter handles the limited history that is currently available of court cases regarding queer women in abusive relationships.

Dream House as a Choose Your Own Adventure made me feel like I was drowning and hated every second of it.

Dream House as Unexpected Kindess made me cry.

Dream House felt very personal to me, but for different reasons I won't go into here. But having her voice the thoughts that sometimes to show people that hey it was real I have photos to prove it! But you can't do that with the emotional damage that she received is just crushing.

I would reccomend this to everyone to read, but please look Into any TW for this book before doing so.

I love any type of book that plays with the medium, such as epistolary novels that are diary entries, the Dear America books come to mind, told in letters, Ella Minnow Pea, or completely take apart what a book even is, House of Leaves which is on my tbr, and Daisy Jones is no exception.

Told through interviews between that band members of Daisy Jones & the Six, it goes through their forming of the band and their eventual breakup. This was a pretty quick read when I read it back in November and really enjoyed it! The ending absolutely shocked me.

I loved the interview style of the book that hooks you in right away, and the flawed characters were riveting, especially the two leads Daisy and Billy, and how they each battle their own demons and addictions.

With all that being said, I felt like I needed more of something, maybe lean into the interview style a little and include other pieces of media with the band in-between or have asides of the characters moving in their chairs or taking long pauses and having that being noted in the interview.

Maybe I am just incredibly dense or because it is revealed who the interviewer is, but I never got the explicit telling that Billy cheated on Camila with Daisy? The temptation was more than there, but with other comments I've seen online, I guess I must have missed it.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book, makes me want to go listen to some Fleetwood Mac, but I felt there was something missing.

3.5 rounded up to 4/5

I think this is now my favorite romance novel and favorite book I've read so far this year. The way that the characters are so clearly defined and feel real is something that I feel is missing from most romances. With that being said, the relationship that surprised me the most was not the main romantic pair of Delilah and Clair, which I will get to, but rather the relationship between Delilah and her step sister Astrid. I have at times been on either side of that sibling dynamic, the one not understanding and the one not being understood. I almost cried at then where instead of the expected romantic interest that shows up to the big event it was her, working to extend the olive branch.


Of course it is the relationship between Clair and Delilah that we are all here for and it was done wonderfully. Usually I am not a fan of the “sisters best friend” trope, but it works very well here. Their rough history with eachother is acknowledged throughout instead of being brushed aside. And the tender moments and other scenes are done very well, with emotion and tension between them a driving force.

Ruby was also a surprise to me, as it is extremely difficult to find well written children characters that act their age. There were even a few moments that I even sided with Josh, don't get me started on how Clair invited her friends to his and Ruby's camping trip!

The one thing that I didn't particularly care for was the ending with Josh and the house, as it didn't really make any sense to me.

Overall, I loved this book and the characters of Bright Falls! I have Astrids book on my shelf that I'm saving for the future, and am very excited for Iris' book!

Holy fu*k. Told in different characters persectives, and even different formats, with each chapter, every turn of the page, I felt the same thing: dread. As if I was held to the pages themselves by a chain, unable to be set free until I was done. I thought about this book the whole day I was at work, just thinking: “No, there is no way this could get worse.” But it did.

The only small thing, and it might just be I wanted to get it over and done with in the absolute best way a reader wants to finish a book because they MUST KNOW, is that it was a bit repetitive at times toward the end. But what an ending that was.