Valentina

3 stars

But it's actually two and a half. I enjoyed reading this book, and I read it in a little more than 24 hours. I just couldn't put it down, and that's what earned it an extra half star.

But this book had too many plots and too many plot twists. How many things happened in this woman's life? Awful childhood, dead husband, killer brother, the little girl who was killed in her church (by the way, how did she get blamed when she kept asking for help and calling social services?), everything that was happening in Chapel Croft. And it felt too much even before we found out the truth about her childhood and her best friend. It didn't feel realistic, and it stopped me from relating to Jack.

For such a small town, Chapel Croft had too many psychopaths and murderers, and I didn't find their motivations believable: Wrigley and Rosie were just plain evil without a good reason; Clara's motivations didn't make sense; Jacob was a completely pointless character, the story would have been the same without him, or if he had been a random psychopath seeking revenge on Jack.

I also hate when books make the characters too naive for the sake of the story. I know that Flo was just a 15-year-old girl, but it didn't really make sense that she would trust Wrigley despite the very obvious red flags.

Overall, it's not a terrible book, it was a fun read, but it had a lot of wasted potential.

EDIT: I just read my review for The Chalk Man again and I realised I had the same issues with it that I have with The Burning Girls. Interesting.

I liked the book, but I didn't love it and it makes me sad.

The beginning was great, fake dating is one of my favourite tropes but I think it was extremely underused. Oliver and Luc spent most of their time planning how to look like a believable couple, but everyone - and I mean EVERYONE - they spent time with knew that they were only fake dating, so what was the point of it? The only people who thought they were actually dating were Luc's father and Oliver's parents, but at that point of the story they were basically really dating, so I felt like the trope was a bit wasted.

The second half felt a bit too much, like the author was adding drama for the sake of drama, and most of the times it didn't make sense (when Oliver left Luc I first thought that Luc was having a nightmare because it was so sudden, and so was the resolution).

It's a nice story, I liked most of the character, I really liked Luc and Oliver and their struggles (though sometimes the way Oliver spoke didn't really sound believable, I know he had to sound posh and serious, but I felt it was too much, maybe it's just me), but I think it could have been better.

I don't usually listen to audiobooks. I've tried a few times, but it's hard for me to focus on the story without zoning out. However, I'm so glad I decided to give The Sandman a try.
I could go on for hours about how powerful the story is, and the whole cast is outstanding (James McAvoy is insanely talented, one of the greats of our generation). I had never felt like I was watching a play at the theatre while listening to an audiobook before, but listening to The Sandman was a magical experience.

I wish Goodreads would let us give half stars too because this book definitely deserves more than three stars but not quite four.

The plot really interesting, I assumed Jocelyn was the one who “killed” Hannah at the beginning so the ending didn't shock me, but I didn't mind as the rest of the book was really good. The ending was a bit rushed, maybe, everything came together too quickly and too easily.

I started the book ‘hating' Virginia, then ended up really ‘hating' Jo. I understand and empathize with what she had to go through, but it kind of irked that she would move back to her mother's house without giving her a chance, and it was painful to see how trying to be different from her mother turned her (almost) into her.

I read the first 60 pages of this book a couple of days ago and the rest of it last night, every chapter presented a new twist, I couldn't put it down.
The ending wasn't as good. I loved that the killer was a reverend, and I liked the story behind it, but he was the most likely culprit from the beginning. Maybe I was expecting another plot twist, and that's why it did feel underwhelming to me.
When I got to the epilogue, I was disappointed because I thought the missing head would be more central to the plot, but the ending felt even more disappointing. It's a good twist - though the whole story of how Eddie found it and then lied seemed unlikely to me - I felt like it was pointless at the end of the book and was put there just for shock value.

It was a good read nonetheless, and I'm looking forward to reading something else from C.J. Tudor.