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A review by bookph1le
We Love to Entertain by Sarah Strohmeyer
1.0
1 star not because I thought it was necessarily terrible, but because I didn't like it.
I'm honestly not sure what this book was going for. At times its tone is something like satire, but mostly it just read like standard narrative fiction. I didn't feel any tension from it, which means, for me, it ultimately failed as a thriller, but it also wasn't biting enough to be good satire. Mostly it was kind of mundane and about two characters I didn't find particularly interesting because they were both just bland.
It's too bad it was executed in such a disappointing way, because it does have the potential to be something a lot more fun, a lot more biting, and a lot more sinister. If you ask me, home improvement shows--anything on HGTV, really--make for stellar fodder for a takedown. Maybe I'm just an incurable cynic, but all reality TV is so patently fake to me that I'd really love to see a book tackle the subject well (anyone who sees this and happens to know of any, please leave me a tip!).
I think I need to take some time and sit with why I love the mystery/thriller genre so much despite that I find it so consistently disappointing. LOL Probably I need to read more literary mysteries, but that's a minefield of its own, seeing as how many of the ones I've tried to read have leaned more heavily on the "literary" end of things than I really wanted. Genre fiction doesn't have to be bad, it's just that publishers choose to make it that way.
I'm honestly not sure what this book was going for. At times its tone is something like satire, but mostly it just read like standard narrative fiction. I didn't feel any tension from it, which means, for me, it ultimately failed as a thriller, but it also wasn't biting enough to be good satire. Mostly it was kind of mundane and about two characters I didn't find particularly interesting because they were both just bland.
It's too bad it was executed in such a disappointing way, because it does have the potential to be something a lot more fun, a lot more biting, and a lot more sinister. If you ask me, home improvement shows--anything on HGTV, really--make for stellar fodder for a takedown. Maybe I'm just an incurable cynic, but all reality TV is so patently fake to me that I'd really love to see a book tackle the subject well (anyone who sees this and happens to know of any, please leave me a tip!).
I think I need to take some time and sit with why I love the mystery/thriller genre so much despite that I find it so consistently disappointing. LOL Probably I need to read more literary mysteries, but that's a minefield of its own, seeing as how many of the ones I've tried to read have leaned more heavily on the "literary" end of things than I really wanted. Genre fiction doesn't have to be bad, it's just that publishers choose to make it that way.