mae🐝
definitely could've been worse? I dunno, is that mean to say? Overall, I can't deny Rooney's talent for writing. it's a craft, and she has honed that skill, alright! There were some parts I was definitely jiving with the creative prose and captivating character beats, but overall I was distracted by the overly loud question ringing in my ears: why? Why was I reading this, why was I interested in these characters and their sad lives, why was it written. I will never have the answers to those questions, but what I do have is another book read this year, so I can't be fully-mad.
Rooney's books must be consumed by audiobook for me, I cannot withstand her puncuation choices. JUST PUT A COMMA IN THERE, I'M BEGGING YOU
Suspense Kick BOOK ONE!
definitely had a more simplistic writing style than some other books I've enjoyed, but it was what I wanted and fulfilled by reading wish! I wanted twisty, and easy to read, and that is what I got :) I think there were definitely some plot holes (i see you other negative reviews) but I think it was very fun to read and I'm glad I did!!
oh you best believe i CHEWED THIS ONE UPPPP and then suddenly i was just DONE! wow such a speed read!! definitely made me think “hmmm I should maybe be reading more mysteries!” i love a book that is just overflowing with british-ness, like the british-isms were practically bleeding from the pages, yes yes jolly good
Between the Covers Romance Book Club November Choice. Selected Trope: Enemies to Lovers
okay my review was GOING to be Gus and January I love you..... but ....... ugh the last fourth (or so) of the book was really not great IMO! I took a whole star away for the ending. like maybe when they got together it just wasn't FUN ANYMORE sorry does that make me basic? I don't know? I just felt the ending really soured Gus especially in my head. :(
had some interesting pieces, but I can't say it was anything revolutionary to me personally. I also found the amount of swearing detracted from the point and felt so painfully forced... it wasn't adding anything. I guess I should've assumed that from the title, but I had heard good things.
Also, it's been said before in these reviews, but the audiobook quality is literal trash and make it nearly unlistenable. If the book had been any longer, I probably would've given up, but it only took me two afternoons at work to power through this thing.
Suspense Kick BOOK TWO!
sped right through listening to this one! definitely not as enjoyable of a read as the previous Kubica I read. Maybe it just freaked me out more? Honestly I think it was more the writing, it just wasn't as snappy. I dunno, I don't really have anything else to say maybe I went too fast to digest it well enough :p
book & cook club November Mystery Books choice!!
I was hooked into this book, and it got its teeth around me! I had my gripes with it, mostly based on the pacing, but I really did like it. The payoff and twist were sufficiently shocking and tasty, yum yum yum I ate it UP! Maybe I'm just still a hater of popular things, but this just doesn't quite deserve all the hype it got when it came out..... tbh. ALSO just to add this as well, this threw me into a mystery/twisty suspense kick!
I think this book was a tad formulaic, but I don't think that was necessarily a bad thing! I really haven't read a lot of mysteries, and this was a pretty well written version of one. I want to watch some other folks and their opinion on it, especially those who are more into reading mysteries, because maybe they liked it less because it was less complicated? overall, though, I did enjoy my experience and I do not think it was a waste of time. That gives it at least 2.5 stars, in my opinion.
book & cook club September Banned Books choice!!
I definitely read this in middle school but forgot most of it- this read through was great!! my fellow book club peeps thought it was boring, but I just read through it so fast that I didn't get bored. I can understand why it's a classic, and think people should keep reading it!!
had some clunky bits, especially in descriptions of settings, but overall i did actually enjoy reading it :) I picked it up because the book was fuzzy, I'm not going to lie, and I got a cute little adventure story of magical tennis!!
the first chapter really struggled to give me anything which is why it took me..... 0h my goodness it took me a year to finish that's insane
I'm not entirely sure how I feel about the fact that the whole thing, i mean the ENTIRE thing is written from August's (A MAN'S) perspective....... HELLO IT'S WOMEN TALKING where are the women :( Someone I talked to about this book tried to argue that this is the point and some kind of meta-commentary but I just wanted women to write some pieces of this :/
an interesting read and an even better research topic to look into the real story!!
literally how did i do this twice- I once again read a sequel without reading the FIRST?!?! how did I even manage this and I feel as though I need to start looking up books in detail before reading them.
anywayyyyy a captivating read that took me a little while to get into, but definitely got me in the second half!
OOOOHHHH goodness that ending :,,,) I'm not scared anymore (crying)
sooooo this was my least favorite of the series!! but that does not mean I didn't enjoy it. I think the reason it was my least favorite is because the author kept doing this interesting thing that I'm not sure how to describe exactly.... I'm going to call it predictive emotion. A scene would happen, with the author very literally describing what was happening (think "I told Peeta I would see him the next day") and then the next sentence would be putting emotion behind whatever the action was (think "That made Peeta furious, because he could tell I was upset") and I was constantly thinking.... really? The predictive emotion I was supposed to gather from the happenings "on-screen", so to speak, felt inaccurate to me many many times. I was like.... is that the emotion I'm supposed to get from that conversation?? Am I.... stupid????
to give the author the benefit of the doubt, maybe that is the reason they were using so much predictive emotion, because most people wouldn't understand the emotional tones without the author specifying what we should understand/feel? Maybe that was their intention to make things more clear? It sort of just left me wondering if I was speaking and acting like an alien or if that was the characters in this story.
i thought this book was borderline unreadable and barely read half of it before giving up- it is a book i came across through no one's fault but my own (thank god none of my perfectly lovely friends recommended it to me) because i was innocently browsing the fiction section at my library and we all know by now that a book with interesting formatting, I am probably going to pick up! I love it when they are shaped funny or have weird quirks. Anyway, this book is written all through emails or texts and it is unbearably difficult to comprehend. Not to mention the fact that I'm pretty sure all of these women hate one another and yet they are supposed to be the best of friends... feels like a hate crime towards the idea of womanhood and the deep incredible love that can be held in female friendship.... all these women wanted to do was tear each other down and undercut one another's successes!! also it was the most millennial style of humor and "hey girlies" dialogue I've ever read!!!!! and as someone with a millennial sister, i know even THEY can be funnier and more self aware than this!!!! wow I am usually not so picky but this one was ROUGH
i wish she would stop talking about how this man smells.... like.... i get it, you get to smell this beautiful book-boyfriend but I DON'T so please stop talking about it!!!!
I wish I could give half stars here, because it was probably a 3.5.... I find it so difficult to rate books! so many parts of this were extremely enjoyable to me, and some parts were very.... not enjoyable, tbh. how do people just give books number ratings and FEEL CONFIDENT ABOUT THEM?!? I could never, honestly
somewhat inspiring and an enjoyable, short read! I think it could've been better if the timing was clearer, or the timeline was laid out easier for the reader to grasp, but I do understand that the not-doing-that was intentional... like it was obviously ambiguous on purpose, that just isn't usually my style. anyway, glad to call another book completed after this silly reading slump I've been in!