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bluejayreads's review against another edition
I read 80% of this in the same way I used to read pretty far into mediocre audiobooks: it was fine enough while I was listening, but once I put it down, I couldn't think of a reason to pick it back up again. If you guessed this was a murder mystery from the back cover, I wouldn't blame you. Nor would I blame you for assuming it shone a withering spotlight on the pressure society puts on women to look a certain way and the potentially deadly lengths women feel they must go through to gain beauty, their only available source of power. However, this book is mostly about pretty women who work at a fashion magazine wearing interesting outfits and trying to make the fashion magazine interesting and profitable, with a hefty dose of "mutual pining but only because we're both SO bad at communication" between the protagonist and the cop investigating the death that started the story in the first place. I have a casual interest in fashion, so it kept me just engaged enough to not give up on reading while I was actively reading. But once I put the book down, I realized that there wasn't really much of a plot to speak of and I didn't really like any of the characters. I am actually curious about what actually happened to the character who died at the beginning, but it seems like the book is less invested in that question than in the questions of whether or not the protagonist and the cop get together or what happens to the fashion magazine. As much as it feels like a waste to stop reading this close to the end, I really have no desire to read the rest of it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Drug use and Eating disorder
Moderate: Confinement and Death
Minor: Infidelity, Sexual assault, and Grief
Being arrested, being drugged without consent