Flori

10 Reasons to Read The Rifter

1. You enjoy being dropped into the middle of a plot that's a little confusing but you trust the author to make it work.
2. You want slow-burn romance that features lots of conflict with the world around them but never with each other.
3. You like it when your faves get put through the absolute ringer - suffering abounds.
4. If you collect books, the first edition paperbacks are out of print and hard to find. It's a rewarding experience to snag one when they do occasionally go up for sale.
5. You enjoy super creative world building that includes a fictional language and marsupial weasels.
6. You'd like to support a wonderful lesbian indie author who's entire social media presence consists of beautiful pictures of nature.
7. You like reading survival stories with hyper-competent protagonists. John's not Bear Grylls, but he is a rugged outdoorsman and it helps him survive in the very crapsack world he ends up in.
8. If you enjoy a friendship-version of Grumpy/Sunshine, John and his best friends have that kind of vibe going.
9. The quality of the writing, especially given that this is basically self-published, is incredible. Ginn Hale is just so talented and criminally unknown.
10. The fandom is truly one of the nicest and most welcoming and fun I've ever been a part of. It's obviously very tiny, but it feels big because the fans are so lovely and passionate and have so much to say about this series. I've made my best fandom friends in this fandom and I really want more of us to have that same experience!

I had a lot of thoughts while reading this and I probably can't remember everything well enough at this point (the downside of not stopping to take notes while reading) but I do want to try and get at least some of my thoughts written down before I forget why I liked this book!

I went into this novel expecting an unlikeable protagonist because that's what I had read in a review before I picked it up, but I didn't actually find Natalie unlikeable. I found her mean and hypocritical, yes, but she was also sympathetic, funny, and sometimes even relatable. 

Overall, what I liked most about this book was how well it showcased the ugly truth that I often try to forget: America hates women. Natalie says it outright, but ultimately the book is a long series of examples of how, no matter what a woman does or when in history she lives, she is a prisoner in a society that is built around hating and oppressing women. Natalie and the women around her are all trying to mold themselves into the “perfect Christian woman” and none are even remotely succeeding. Even at the top of the Christian-woman-ladder, married to a rich and handsome heir to a fortune, Natalie is a prisoner. She owns nothing, not even the revenues from her own Instagram account, because a Christian woman would never try to have her own separate bank account. She has no freedom, and the more she tries to get some the more she digs herself into a hole (even saying at one point that her Instagram has fans around there world and there's nowhere she could go and be anonymous).

The 1805 Natalie is just as much a prisoner, even more so. As I was reading those sections I was struck with how religious past-Natalie was. It seemed like the author was trying to make a point of how religious beliefs might have been the only respite a woman would have had in such a situation. There was no escape for Natalie in the real world. Eventually her daughters would grow up and leave her, her sons would never respect her as a person, her husband would never love her, and all she really had at that point was devotion to god and hope for heaven, I guess?

Unfortunately, not much of this was new information to me at all SMS the section on how to fight against this movement was very short and vague. 

While I enjoyed  some of the characters, this book was kind of uneventful and overall quite boring. It was a nice summer palate cleanser after finishing the Liveship Traders but I don't plan on reading the rest of the series. 

I'm not a frequent reader of thrillers or crime books, so I did enjoy the fast-paced “beach read” quality of the writing. There's nothing to really think too hard about, definitely nothing you'd need to stop and look up in a dictionary. Basically, this is a junk food snack of a book, which is totally fine. However, I think it should still be believable and not full of plot holes. I had a lot of moments throughout this book that had me raising an eyebrow thinking that it was just too implausible. Burke, sorry Jace remembering exactly the name of his sister's dance teachers and her imaginary friend when they were both only 6 years old. I don't buy that, I barely remember the names of my OWN teachers from that age let alone my brother's. Also, Margot having already interviewed Wallace, who was supposed to be a murder suspect in an active investigation (no effing way his lawyer would let him do a press interview under those circumstances) years before the story started - too convenient. Everything was just so easy. No wrong turns. No dead ends. Very little suspense. 

I'm not as upset about the ending as a lot of readers seem to be. Unfortunately, I think it's because I just wasn't attached enough to Margot to really care that much. I was more interested in resolving the mystery, which we were completely spoonfed so no worries on that count.

I listened to this as an audiobook and I didn't like the performance very much, especially when the female narrators did male voices. They all sounded the same and none were very good.