A review by pinkhydroflask
Close Up by Amanda Quick
1.0
rating: 1/10
you'd think that for novel as highly rated as this, it would be significantly less cringey and embarrassing to read. if you're looking for a totally irrelevant and unnecessary romance that came with the added bonus of a sex scene that sounded like a 15 year old virgin wrote it, then this book is for you. not only was it badly developed, the romance was badly written, seemed forced at times and made me generally uncomfortable to read. i don't want to go into the details about language use but take it from me. it makes you wish you were illiterate.
my experiences with murder mysteries are almost exclusively agatha christie, and so that was the benchmark i judged this novel on. i saw that the author has published a lot of novels, which made it easy for me to understand why this one gave me the same feeling of rereading one of my own university essays that i rushed out 2 hours before the deadline. this was just... a bad novel. it was laughable and humiliating to read.
there were some attempts to spice things up, but the difference between this and any single one of agatha christie's novels is this: agatha christie does not throw half assed attempts at suspenseful plot twists at you with the amateurish desperation of a first time novelist trying to get on the new york times bestseller list before they turn thirty. please.
i'd recommend this book for the sheer purpose of finding someone to laugh at this about, but overall it was incredibly upsetting to read.
you'd think that for novel as highly rated as this, it would be significantly less cringey and embarrassing to read. if you're looking for a totally irrelevant and unnecessary romance that came with the added bonus of a sex scene that sounded like a 15 year old virgin wrote it, then this book is for you. not only was it badly developed, the romance was badly written, seemed forced at times and made me generally uncomfortable to read. i don't want to go into the details about language use but take it from me. it makes you wish you were illiterate.
my experiences with murder mysteries are almost exclusively agatha christie, and so that was the benchmark i judged this novel on. i saw that the author has published a lot of novels, which made it easy for me to understand why this one gave me the same feeling of rereading one of my own university essays that i rushed out 2 hours before the deadline. this was just... a bad novel. it was laughable and humiliating to read.
there were some attempts to spice things up, but the difference between this and any single one of agatha christie's novels is this: agatha christie does not throw half assed attempts at suspenseful plot twists at you with the amateurish desperation of a first time novelist trying to get on the new york times bestseller list before they turn thirty. please.
i'd recommend this book for the sheer purpose of finding someone to laugh at this about, but overall it was incredibly upsetting to read.