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bookswithmazzy's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Graphic: Domestic abuse and Gun violence
snoopyfanclub's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.25
Graphic: Gun violence, Sexual content, Violence, Grief, and Murder
Moderate: Animal death, Domestic abuse, Miscarriage, Panic attacks/disorders, Blood, Stalking, and Pregnancy
Minor: Vomit
megwilli's review
3.75
Graphic: Gun violence, Sexual content, Sexual violence, and Violence
Moderate: Domestic abuse and Gaslighting
pookiee's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
Graphic: Death, Gun violence, Infidelity, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, and Blood
Moderate: Animal death, Drug use, Infertility, Pregnancy, and Alcohol
Minor: Abortion
an_library_stan's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.0
A word on the language.
While I sat in the cavernous belly of Thirtieth Street Station, the vibe was fearful, hushed, crackling with distrust.
The overuse of metaphors and similes annoyed me. Many of them were redundant and others contradictory. Eventually I started bookmarking my favorites. Here are a few:
I tap his name on my phone-no answer. Anxiety hops and swirls like chickadees.
Maybe he'll sit in that kennel of an apartment and realize how much he misses me, how much we love each other. I sit up and let hope roll around in me like wine dregs in a glass.
The tires crunch over gravel as we pull into the parking lot, a level point in this sea of crinkled land. The sky feels closer here, like someone lowered it with a pulley, the unbroken blue so rich and bright I could almost brush my fingers against it. In the woods, shards of sunlight pelt us like hail, trees and shrubs bow at our feet, and sculptural mushrooms blip out of logs.
As our lips touch, a million thoughts run through my mind at once, all in a microsecond, a computer's hyperthreading, a multitude of sparks charging out of a center point, a big bright-red firework that lights the whole night sky.
Hours later, as the sky is darkening, I watch the gate close behind their Lexus. My heart's already thumping like I've joined the line outside a haunted house. I let time pass in case they turn around. When I'm sure they're gone, I spring into action.
The voice is the flame that touches the end of the firecracker and makes the truth blaze: Elizabeth
We continue our sweep, making sure we're alone, checking for chinks in the security, looking for evidence that this was an outside job. I feel like we're Dickens characters wearing nightshirts and holding oil lamps and scurrying around a spooky mansion. We find nothing; the house is sealed up tight.
Deep breath in and shoom, we're off, moving fast like the sphere in a pinball machine. We walk through the whole day in detail, starting with the minute I drove home from the Ritz and encountered a surprising new houseguest. My confidence grows every time we move ahead in my recounting, like this is a board game and I'm inching closer, closer to the end.
Lets talk about chapters.
No. I have no idea what's about to come out of her mouth, but I know it's big and bad and it has the potential to turn this entire offer on its head. That means it's the last thing I want to hear. Stop there. She sighs. "Right now... she's missing."
(Chapter break)
I rock backward. "Missing?" They both nod gravely. "From the District," she says. "We heard it on the news. They still haven't found her." "That's terrible." My fingers fan against my breastbone. It's incomprehensible, something from a true-crime special. "What do they think happened to her?"
The chapter beginnings felt like a bad YA novel. E.g.
A gun fires, bang, and I startle awake. It's bright now, sun soaking through those filmy curtains. I don't hear it again. A truck back-firing, maybe.
Brooklyn-I love it, the bustle, the fat, fire-hued boughs forming tunnels over streets of sepia brownstones, the playgrounds bubbling with children and parks fizzing with groups of friends.
(this book is supposed to be in the lockdown days of covid, I'm not clear why Brooklyn and Philly were so crowded and bustling).
I thought the book might be smutty. Alas, she gave us plenty of room to read between the lines.
"Leave it," he says. "We'll get your presents later." "Aren't you Miss Popular?" Sabrina adds. She grabs Nathan's shoulder to jokingly push him out of the way. She kisses me too, and runs a hand along my side. When it's over and I'm flushed and breathless and floating in the stratosphere, I murmur, "Let's do that forever."
Nathan seals himself in his office that night, so Sabrina visits me in my room, nuzzling my neck and kissing my temple, my collarbone, my belly. When she's done, I try to return the favor, but after seeming close for an uncomfortably long time, she touches my cheek.
What the book lacks in smut, it does not make up through other forms of intimacy. For much of the book, Kelly mourns the great relationship she had with Mike. In which he remembered that she doesn’t like graveyards, and they crack jokes on long car rides. I wish Mike was just a foil to make her relationship with Nathan and Sabrina seem more exciting, but their dynamics aren’t much deeper.
"How's Virginia?" Mike's voice is reedy and weak. It cheers me, in a twisted way; him mourning my departure is a good sign. Okay so far. I'm trying to find the entrance to a graveyard now." "Why? You hate cemeteries." A tender nip to my heart-he really knows me.
Not like Mike. Before the pandemic locked us inside and brought out the worst in us, we could still delight each other with a goofy joke. Back in February, we passed the time on the thirteen-hour drive from Chi- cago with a game: pointing at things along the road and spinning out silly hypotheticals. We should buy that abandoned skating rink. We should move into that RV park. We should get jobs at the water park on that billboard. Imagined futures tied together by me. I jab my fork into a tortellini, piercing it like an eye. "Are most of your friends in DC.?"
Finally, some thoughts on the plot.
Moderate: Gun violence and Murder
Minor: Sexual assault
blackbookishbabe89's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Graphic: Gun violence and Violence
Moderate: Gaslighting