Rita

I liked this book a lot. The style and flow of the prose feel intimately familiar to my brain in a way that reminds me I should probably go to therapy. The only thing that kept it from being a 5 for me is that the ending is a little abrupt for my taste and there are a couple of plot threads I would have liked more resolution to.

I've seen a lot of reviews label it as too serious to be a comedy, but I would disagree. While there are a few serious topics, even those are treated with a bit of lighthearted mania that made me laugh. Again, your mileage may vary if you aren't as neurodivergent and anxious as I am, but if you are - highly recommend it!

Started off a little slow but picked up and by the end I stayed up way too late to finish it, which is the mark of a good book for me. I did guess the who-dunnit very early and kept getting mad at the red herrings, but that's much more the fault of my autistic pattern recognition and less a problem of story telling. The reveal was well done.

I really wanted to like this more, but wow did I find the protagonist, Liza, absolutely insufferable. Even knowing that as the narrator of a cozy mystery she was highly unlikely to end up murdered, I still hoped she would be. The killer was easily spotted and I thought it would have been a lot more fun if somehow Hanna was Mr. B. Parts were still pretty fun which brought it up to a 3 for me.