This was nowhere near as strong as 'A good girl's guide to murder' in my opinion. I really struggled to keep reading at the beginning, becau2.5 stars
This was nowhere near as strong as 'A good girl's guide to murder' in my opinion. I really struggled to keep reading at the beginning, because I found Bel completely insufferable.
Her attitude didn't always make sense to me, not even in light of any past traumas. She was unfriendly and unkind to almost anyone, and it's hard to want to keep reading when you can't stand the main character.
The pacing was also all over the place. Incredibly slow in the middle and suddenly too fast towards the ending. The book could have easily been 100 pages shorter.
I did enjoy the mystery itself, and wanted to get to the bottom of it. It's pretty farfetched and you have to suspend your disbelief a good amount, but I was entertained so I'm rounding up to 3 stars....more
I'm not putting this behind a spoiler tag because, honestly, I wish someone had warned me or I wish I could've read aTrigger warning: death of a pet.
I'm not putting this behind a spoiler tag because, honestly, I wish someone had warned me or I wish I could've read a review that mentioned it. The family dog dies, and if it hadn't happened so late in the book, I would've called it quits after that. I hate animal deaths and it felt gratuitous here.
Other than that, this was fine, but I don't get why this book is so beloved by so many people. It has a good plot and a couple of fun red herrings, but you have to believe that a teenage girl is able to solve a murder case that the police never properly investigated and I was never convinced. Pippa is supposed to be a super clever girl, but she constantly did dumb things and I was annoyed.
I'm sticking with three stars since this was pretty compelling and I wanted to get to the bottom of the mystery....more
I am rounding up because this was still super compelling, even if I wasn't enjoying it all that much. I remembered almost all the details fro2.5 stars
I am rounding up because this was still super compelling, even if I wasn't enjoying it all that much. I remembered almost all the details from book 1, but had somehow forgotten nearly everything from book 2.
I don't choose how my brain works.
And I don't think the author did a particularly good job of recapping past events, as I was confused for the better half of the book. I didn't remember Orchid being quite so ... annoying and obnoxious, and of course everyone saw the very final reveal coming all along. If that had not been the case, I would've eaten my shoe.
The alternate endings were ... also there. They frustrated me because who thought that was a good idea? It just did not make any sense to throw that in there.
This was a trilogy I liked, but the lukewarm final installment is dragging my overall enjoyment down a bit. Think I'll stick to the board game from now on. ...more
Not as strong as the first installment but these books are SO MUCH FUN. It needed a better editor and there are plenty of things that will ma3.5 stars
Not as strong as the first installment but these books are SO MUCH FUN. It needed a better editor and there are plenty of things that will make you scratch your head because ... the execution isn't always great, but who cares?
I'm just along for the hilariously fun ride here.
I still like all of the characters and their distinct personalities and voices. I thought I'd figured out one part of the plot, but turned out I had the wrong guy so I actually liked being wrong. Wasn't wrong about the two characters I'd been shipping since early on in book 1, though, I am excited to see where that goes in the final book.
The spoiler thoughts below are more for my own benefit, so I'll remember stuff when book 3 is published.
(view spoiler)[I adore Mustard and Finn, obviously, and it'll be interesting to see how Mustard continues to handle things. I'm into Orchid and Vaughn, too, even if I don't understand why Vaughn hasn't confided in her about Oliver yet. He got interrupted at the hospital, sure, but he should've told her way sooner.
I am assuming that Oliver will have been the one that was actually in the car?? Can't imagine Vaughn will be dead (if either of them is actually dead, because I have so many questions tbh). But I didn't dislike Oliver as much in this book as in the first one. He's really growing on me, in his own way. (hide spoiler)]...more
This was fun! I'm a big fan of the board game and my family and I still play it every now and again so this had a definite nostalgic quality to it as This was fun! I'm a big fan of the board game and my family and I still play it every now and again so this had a definite nostalgic quality to it as well.
I thought the mystery part was pretty well done, but the characterisation is somewhat of a mess and the various reveals of different characters' secrets was ... weird. I get that the author wants to have suspense, but there was too much 'I have a secret and this is me thinking about it without revealing what it is' going on. That got old really fast.
Still, I'm looking forward to the remaining two books in the trilogy and I'm interested to see where some of the relationships go! ...more
I liked this slightly less than her debut novel last year, but it was still great fun. The eventual revealing of the mystery did let me down a little,I liked this slightly less than her debut novel last year, but it was still great fun. The eventual revealing of the mystery did let me down a little, because I felt like the book was ultimately less thrilling than advertised.
While reading, the tension gets racked up and even though it's a rather slow-paced book, you can't help but turn the pages faster and faster wanting to know who's at the heart of the mystery. But I wanted it to be someone else, I guess....more
It's been awhile since I've been this conflicted about the rating of a book. I didn't hate this, but then I don't think I actually fully like 2.5 stars
It's been awhile since I've been this conflicted about the rating of a book. I didn't hate this, but then I don't think I actually fully liked it either?
Fragments of the Lost deals mainly with Jessa's grief after her ex-boyfriend Caleb had an accident; his mom asks her to clean out his room even though they broke up a few days before the accident. As she's going through Caleb's things and finds dozens of memories from them together, she begins to realise that not everything was as it seems.
The story unravels rather slowly. You know there's going to be a mystery in there somewhere, but it takes quite a bit of time before it rears its head and that's when the book finally picks up a little. For a book that's being marketed as suspenseful, it sorely lacked suspense until at least 60 or 70% in. The author chose to tell Jessa and Caleb's story - their relationship - through flashbacks. This can work really well, except here it just didn't flow as smoothly as it was supposed to. As Jessa cleans out Caleb's room and is putting everything in boxes, whenever she encounters a certain object (which is all the time), she thinks back to the day or event associated with that object. The flashbacks are therefore not in any particular order, and I struggled to keep up with what month we were in, what time in their one-year relationship.
(There's also, very conveniently, a lot of hidden places and cracks in the walls in Caleb's bedroom, so Jessa can discover a lot of hidden and secret things.)
My main problem with the book was that I didn't care much about any of the characters. In most flashbacks, Caleb came across as a bit of a dick, to be honest, and I couldn't understand how their relationship had lasted even a year. He's never really painted in a favourable light and I failed to find him charming. Plus, you never have any idea of what went on in Caleb's mind because everything is filtered through Jessa's thoughts and memories of him and what she believes happened at any particular time. The side characters aren't given much depth either. Jessa's parents, for example, stay very superficial and even though you get hints that her home situation isn't ideal, none of it really gets explained or explore more.
Once the mystery part of the book starts kicking in, though, the pace picks up and I was suddenly a lot more interested so it definitely wasn't all bad. And I was into the dynamic between Jessa and Max.
I also keep picking up Megan Miranda's books whenever a new one is released, despite never loving them, so that's something.
2018 reading challenge: 04/40 - a book about death or grief...more
This was such an addictive read! I wish I could've read it in one sitting, it would've enhanced an already great reading experience.
I enjoyed this a This was such an addictive read! I wish I could've read it in one sitting, it would've enhanced an already great reading experience.
I enjoyed this a lot, and not just because of the mystery that's at the book's centre - who killed Simon and why - but mostly because of all the character dynamics. Here are these 4 people that are thrown together unwillingly because of something that happened to all of them. They couldn't be more different and yet, as the story progresses you can see a certain kind of bond begin to form between all of them and I loved that.
All of their individual character arcs were pretty great, too. Addy's and Cooper's in particular had my eyes glued to my Kindle to just keep on reading.
There were a few things I hadn't seen coming, but I figured out the whodunit of it all about halfway through the book, which was a shame but luckily didn't lessen my enjoyment all that much.
(view spoiler)[P.S. I was shipping Bronwyn/Nate pretty much from the get-go. A "bad boy" with a record falling hard and fast for the brainy, bookish girl who's 10 times smarter than him and will never be good enough for him? Of course I'm going to be all over that. Rory+Jess vibes all the way. (hide spoiler)]
2018 reading challenge: 10/40 - a book you meant to read in 2017 but didn't get to...more
So, that was quite the ride and I enjoyed it a lot.
I did go back-and-forth a few times, though, because (view spoiler)[it was just so blatantly obvioSo, that was quite the ride and I enjoyed it a lot.
I did go back-and-forth a few times, though, because (view spoiler)[it was just so blatantly obvious that Patrick and Lex knew that Danny wasn't actually Danny. I do think this was completely deliberate on the author's part, but because I was certain of this fact, it didn't take me long to figure out *why* they would continue to put on this charade if they knew the truth. I didn't know who would turn out to be the one who stood to lose the most, but I knew it was one of them and/or their mother. (hide spoiler)]
The story also dragged a tiny bit in the middle, but that didn't last long and the rest of it was honestly so compelling that it made me forget all about it.
The book doesn't have any chapters. It just has random section breaks, but it only adds to the compelling feeling when reading it, spurring you on to find out what happened. I was always loath to put the book down, and even though fake-Daniel obviously has less-than-stellar morals and motives, I couldn't help but root for him. I do love a good unreliable narrator. And I feel like Cristin Terrill did a pretty good job of writing and portraying such a damaged teenager.
I wish we had gotten more insight into the secondary characters as well. They lack a little depth; a character like Lex, for instance, could have had so much potential and could've been explored more instead of just staying on the surface for an entire book.
Regardless, this read like a train and has a pretty good mystery at its core. I liked her debut novel better, but this was really good!...more
Rounding up, because I had a hard time putting this down every single time. It's a fairly simple YA murder mystery and it kept me engaged; th3.5 stars
Rounding up, because I had a hard time putting this down every single time. It's a fairly simple YA murder mystery and it kept me engaged; the author does a few clever little reveals early on and leads you in various directions. You get pulled along for better or worse and she does a good job of making some things obvious to the book's reader before it becomes known in the story.
However, don't read this for anything other than the entertainment value. There's little to no characterisation and the book suffers for it. The River Point boys are an enigmatic group and it would've been so easy to explore their friendship more, to delve deeper into what made them such inseparable friends in the first place and why/how they started drifting apart. None of that, though, which is a shame.
The ending was a bit of a disappointment, too, because everything gets wrapped up rather neatly and in a truly unbelievable style. (view spoiler)[It also leaves a few loose ends, such as what really happened to Grant's watch and class ring. Am I, as a reader, supposed to assume Logan took it to pay off the guys from the pawn shop? Once Kate discovers the hidden wildlife camera, the lead about the watch and ring suddenly gets dropped like a hot potato. (hide spoiler)]
However, the road it took to get to that ending was entertaining and captivating and I enjoyed it for what it was....more
This was a far more enjoyable reading experience than the last two books combined. I loved it from start to finish.
I never wanted to put this down anThis was a far more enjoyable reading experience than the last two books combined. I loved it from start to finish.
I never wanted to put this down and I was sorely tempted - like I haven't been in a long time - to flick through to the end, for just a brief moment, to see how it would end. I restrained myself, but the temptation was always there, lingering underneath the intrigue and suspense.
The book follows a group of high school seniors (private school) who are on spring break in Aruba, but mainly focusses on three people in said group: best friends Elise and Anna + Anna's boyfriend Tate. Elise is found murdered at the beach house at the beginning of the book and Anna and Tate are the prime suspects for the crime. The rest of the story is told back and forth through flashbacks from when Anna and Elise first met, to when the rest of the group came along, to the beginning of the vacation, etc.
I think the pacing especially was well done, largely thanks to the flashbacks. It never dragged for me, because this book does a sort of low-level suspense so well. As its reader, you can almost predict where this is all going; the things that will probably come to light. Call it a gut feeling, but the story pulls you in and then you're forced along on the ride even if maybe you don't want to because you know there's only one way this will end. And at the same time, you realise you have no idea. I know that's contradictory, but this book does pull it off. At least it did with me.
This is a YA mystery/crime book, but for the most part it doesn't read all that much like YA. There's a lot more mention of sex, drugs and alcohol than in your average YA story. The main characters are layered and the book does a great job of showing us all those layers. Elise is the type of girl many people would love to hate, but we get to go back and see why Anna became friends with her, why they latched on to each other like a breath of much needed air in their teenage existence. Simultaneously, we get a glimpse of what we already know, too, which is that teenage girl friendships can sometimes be so very dark and almost poisonous.
The book is often nearly painful to read because it's terrifying to be reminded that anyone can look guilty if they analyse every single detail of your life hard enough and look at it in the wrong way. That if you like some of the darker Florence + the Machine lyrics you are obviously something of a psychopath. Everything can be spinned a certain way, both in a court of law and especially by the media.
(view spoiler)[The only thing that slightly bothered me is that we are never given much of an explanation for why Dekker hated Anna to such a degree that he would tamper with evidence to further his case against her. I can accept that he was convinced that she did it and wanted to see her locked up, and I think I'm supposed to accept that he was just a bad, slightly corrupt cop but ... I'd been hoping for an actual reason or reveal there. Still, this is not even a true complaint, more an observation. (hide spoiler)]
The ending...some people might love and some might hate. I largely thought it didn't even matter all that much anymore, because I'd been thoroughly entertained, and the book kept my eyes glued to the page all the way through....more
I wasn't all that impressed by this. The synopsis intrigued me immensely, but perhaps my expectations for this book were too high as a result, and ultI wasn't all that impressed by this. The synopsis intrigued me immensely, but perhaps my expectations for this book were too high as a result, and ultimately this was a letdown.
The story feels disjointed. The part where Julia was in the woods is told through flashbacks, as she slowly remembers her time in the woods. But because there are no flashbacks to the time Liv and Julia actually were best friends, it was hard for me to believe they'd ever been that close. Liv, as a character, was too one-dimensional and I never warmed up to her. It seemed like Julia and Liv's friendship was completely one-sided, and the author never managed to convince me that Liv had a passing interest at best in Julia.
Plus, I figured out pretty early on what the deal would be. (view spoiler)[As soon as the game "Prey" had been mentioned, combined with the fact that Liv used to play, it all just seemed glaringly obvious to me. I wasn't entirely sure what Liv's motivation would be, but that was sort of irrelevant at that point. I wish I hadn't known her motivation, to be honest, because I just found it too unbelievable. (hide spoiler)] And I ususally don't guess the mystery too often.
I don't know, this just didn't hit the mark for me and the ultimate explanation/motivation just made me roll my eyes for being too far-fetched. There were so many great things to explore in a novel like this, it could've been SO great, but I didn't get any of the things I wanted.
If you want to read a story about abusive relationships (both on a family and friendship level) and a somewhat contrived plot revolving around said relationships, then go for it. Otherwise, I'd skip this. Or read The Good Goodbye, which did it slightly better. ...more
Why are all these books so shooort? I WANT MORE. This series is just so completely delightful.
(view spoiler)[All of my expectations were definitely meWhy are all these books so shooort? I WANT MORE. This series is just so completely delightful.
(view spoiler)[All of my expectations were definitely met. Things I flailed about:
- the amount of Kat/Hale - the pyjamas!flashback of Kat 'stealing' Hale (although he's technically just what she left with) - the long con - uncle Eddie
Although, to be fair, there was a whole lot of flailing in general. I loved all of the interactions in this so much. Not just between Kat and Hale (although those were of course pretty great) but just the emphasis that seems to be put on everyone's ties to the family, and how they all just belong.
I enjoyed the villain as well, thought he was well done and really liked Kat's scenes with him in particular. I knew uncle Eddie wouldn't really be dead, but I didn't see the aunt Irina thing coming at all. I figured the woman would be an inside member, but for some reason it didn't occur to me that it would be Gabrielle's mom. I loved being surprised by that.
I still need to know what the W stands for though. I demand more books. (hide spoiler)]
In short, I just really enjoyed this a lot.
P.S. Grace, thank you for telling me to read books like these....more
Just. Yeah, I possibly enjoyed this even more than the first one. The heists in both of these are clever, the crew is excellent and Kat and4.5 stars.
Just. Yeah, I possibly enjoyed this even more than the first one. The heists in both of these are clever, the crew is excellent and Kat and Hale are...well, no explanation needed there.
I finished this one, and immediately grabbed the next one while realising that there weren't yet going to be enough books in thiTHIS WAS SO MUCH FUN.
I finished this one, and immediately grabbed the next one while realising that there weren't yet going to be enough books in this series to satisfy me.
And I was right. Because I want to know mooooore. But specifically, I want more backstory! Like a very detailed description of what exactly happened when Kat tried to steal the Monet at Hale's house. Or what Hale's name is. (please don't let it be Waldo, is all I'm saying)
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