Reviews with content warning for Adult/minor relationship - Our Little Secret

Reviews tagging 'Adult/minor relationship'

Our Little Secret by Kiersten Modglin

9 reviews

krystalframe's review against another edition

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4.0

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reading_warren's review

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mysterious tense medium-paced

Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

good god i could not like a single character in the book and just when i thought one was likeable they'd do something stupid and like. all of them are

evil

so why would i want any of them to get what they want instead of what they deserve? and only one or two of them does (get what they deserve)!! But

due to corruption of the police force and wrongful incarceration of two teen boys (even though they are certainly growing into bad people) a young (presumably) white girl gets to go free from TWO murders!! awful

if you're looking for a bunch of evil white (presumably, it's never stated otherwise) people fucking each other over, I guess this is your book, but i hope you don't plan on enjoying your time with any of them.
If you care about corruption in the police force and wrongful incarceration this book will probably only piss you off.
The first twist about

the missing husband

was satisfying, but I honestly was frustrated by anything else.

Also, at the end, the book started to feel like it was second person, like the characters were communicating inner dialogue to me directly, and it didn't feel right, but it was just more bad on top of everything else.

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kingrosereads's review

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

It’s pretty hard to get into. The characters aren’t likable at all. Stephanie let her sons walk all over her and they were clearly sociopaths that were hurting girls at their high school. I wanted to beat their faces in every time they popped up. Enzo was very possessive of Stephanie and also turned out to be a total creep. Michelle is a nosy hypocrite and Jude is a monster of a man doing horrible things to protect his family which turns out isn’t worth protecting! Caroline is crazier than everyone else.
The book was short yet it took me nearly a week to get through because it was just so hard to capture my attention. It wasn’t until around 70% that had my attention and I finished the book in one sitting. The twists were interesting but seemed to come out of nowhere logical. It being so short there wasn’t enough time to build the characters (and at least make one of them likable) and build the story and suspense. In the end, Stephanie grew a backbone and I hope she’s moving on trying to start over cause her boys are clearly lost causes.

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janjanjukebox's review against another edition

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mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0

Our Little Secret by Kiersten Modglin
300 pages
5 hours and 54 minutes narrated by Mandy Kaplan and Wyatt Baker

Genre: Suspense, Thriller > Mystery Thriller, Psychological Thriller; Contemporary, Mystery > Crime, Domestic

Featuring: Small Towns, Secrets, Teen Drama, Sex - off camera, Multiple POVs, Flashbacks, Cul-de-sac, Sheriff, Teachers, Mayor, Bad Parenting, Neighbors, Childhood Friends

Rating as a movie: PG-13

My rating: ⭐️⭐️

My thoughts: 38% - Confusion! 😕 There are too many characters. So far I'm more annoyed than hooked. 😒 I think it's obvious what's going on but I don't have enough evidence to jump on anything yet.
55% - More than halfway through this one without a real plot or solid character development. There is still time to fix it but so far it's just been random talking from neighbors, like Cul-de-sac without events.

Another dud. I have now read 11 books by Kiersten Modglin and this is the 5th to get less than 3 stars from me. Widow Falls came in this morning but I'm going to read 2 other books first. The first issue I had with Our Little Secret is it is very much domestic suspense with few thrilling moments. I am absolutely sick of publishers putting books in the wrong genre to get us to read them. If I want to read something slow I will pick it out, labeling your book as a thriller when it is a suspense is not doing your book any favors in the long run. Book was labeled as a psychological thriller which I don't feel like it is. Suspenses have tension, you fear whay may happen, as did the characters here for more than half the book. Thrillers are fast-paced and you feel danger and fear for the characters, not at all here. Psychological thrillers are supposed to take the external action and have the characters internalized it into deep emotions for the reader to analyze, not in this book, there is a lot of telling and almost no showing. The second issue I had with this story is the first 70% of it is a lot of anticipation, then there's an answer key ending. I hate answer keys, you're cheating! If your story is good write it, don't give me Cliff notes. His & Hers by Alice Feeny also used the answer key ending, she was going for Gone Girl and it doesn't have an answer key ending so I didn't understand. I could have used an answer key for Sometimes I Lie. Anyway I feel when authors use answer keys it's like they know how they want their story to end but they are tired of writing so they just feed you the answers, or they realize that they didn't reveal enough in the actual story so they tell you what happened. It's lazy writing to me and this story wasn't good so if that's how it was going to end she could have feed me the answers around 80%.

Recommend to others?: Nope. Kiersten Modglin writes 3-5 books a year so understandably not all of them are going to get the same amount of care. This one felt thrown together.

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beckyremillard's review

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dark mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25

The title of the book is only misleading as it mentions one secret.. but wow there’s a lot of secrets in this book. We find out right away that several people have secrets they don’t want getting out, although we don’t find out every secret until the end. This book held my attention from the very first chapter. It’s a quick read, but definitely interesting.

It’s so convoluted that it’s not realistic, but the way everything comes together it’s so interesting that I can forgive it not being realistic.

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chapkip's review

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

3.0

“Comfort was the enemy. It’s when you feel the safest that you’re most vulnerable.”

Our Little Secret follows a cast of characters living in the small, close-knit community of Cason Glen. The neighborhood has been rocked by the murder of one person and sudden disappearance of another, and it quickly becomes evident that just about everybody in town has something to hide.

I love stories about small towns, especially those focusing on a darker undercurrent, but I found this book to just be okay. It did a good job of keeping me on my toes, taking twists and turns that I expected at first and then never would have guessed. However, the dialogue and overarching conflict felt repetitive at times. None of the characters were particularly likable, but I found myself absolutely hating a handful of them. There are more compelling ways to convey an air of mystery and suspicion than having each character explicitly state that they’re keeping a secret, but alas.

Overall, too many POVs and some redundancy knocked this book down to 3-stars for me. That being said, I would absolutely give another thriller by this author a chance.

Thank you to NetGalley and OrangeSky Audio for access to this audiobook!

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garlinds's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

3.5

Not everything is as it seems in the perfect little town called Cason Glen. There are gossiping adults, unruly teenagers, unsolved murders, and missing people galore.

This story is told by multiple narrators, all unreliable at best, as the webs they've spun begin to unravel. Modglin had me asking questions from the beginning and masterfully trailed me along until the very end. The twist of the last chapter was chilling and something I did not see coming. Ultimately, this is a story about the lengths to which we will go to protect those that we love. And how quickly we will turn on them as well, given the right circumstances.

Thank you NetGalley and OrangeSky Audio for my audiobook.

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erikalaceyreads's review

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adventurous dark mysterious fast-paced

4.5

“The way I see it, we’re all part monster. Some of us just hide it better than others.”

Wow!! This book was a page turner with so many damn secrets. The title is no joke! Once again, Kiersten Modglin had me hooked from the very first page. The book switches between the POVs of Michelle, Enzo and Stephanie - all whom have their own secrets. I really can’t say much without giving the book away. I loved the multiple point of views. The chapters were short which I also loved. The ending did leave me with some questions that I wish were wrapped up but otherwise this was a great read!! Highly recommend!

⚠️TW: murder, adult/teenage relationship⚠️

Thank you to Kiersten Modglin for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

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kamin8882's review

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adventurous dark mysterious sad tense fast-paced

4.5

Wow!! This book was gripping from the very first chapter !!

It all started when Ted, a well loved high school teacher, goes missing and everyone is shocked.Since than , all the secrets that everyone is keeping are in danger of exposure. They are all willing to do whatever it take to protect their families and especially their secrets, including lie and hurt others close to them.

I loved everything about this book. The characters are all crazy and all keeping different secrets… which makes it super interesting trying to figure it out. The story is told from the POV of Stephanie, Michelle, and Enzo. They all have softener secrets to protect and they are are willing to do anything- which makes their decisions and thoughts all twisted!!!

The chapters were short so it was easy to just flip right though the pages!! I loved this so much and it kept me going and going. The only thing I wish was that the ending wasn’t all based off assumptions… I have questions haha !!!

Thank you so much to Kiersten Modglin for this advanced reading copy !! I can’t wait to read more !!

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