_chelseachelsea's reviews
93 reviews
How to Survive Your Murder by Danielle Valentine
dark
funny
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
Cringey beginning, decently entertaining middle, TERRIBLE ending. Atrocious. Falls flat and leaves you unsatisfied in so many ways. I’m genuinely mad that I trudged through the over-drawn third act (that literally goes ON and ON) just to be slapped in the face with a rushed, RIDICULOUS and unearned final twist.
So many abandoned storylines! So many unneeded characters!
Do yourself a favor and just read a Kara Thomas book instead. This thing sucked.
So many abandoned storylines! So many unneeded characters!
Spoiler
What emotional tie are we supposed to have to Millie and Eli when we barely interact with them the whole book? What happened to Wes if he wasn’t listed as one of Owen’s “victims” at the end? What the actual f*ck was going on with Final Girl? Why would Claire want to kill Millie and Eli anyway? She wasn’t displaying any controlling or obsessive behaviors toward her sister the whole book and then all of a sudden she’s Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction? And why spend an entire book building up this emotional conflict for Alice about whether it’s right to undo her sister’s death, just to yank the rug out from under any minute character development she achieved?Do yourself a favor and just read a Kara Thomas book instead. This thing sucked.
One to Watch by Kate Stayman-London
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Very funny, romantic, and a perfect beach read. This book has been criticized for fat-shaming, but I think the portrayal of the character’s insecurities is just extremely real. Bea loves fashion and knows she’s beautiful, but that doesn’t make her magically impervious to fatphobia. Personally, I loved how she was written.
The It Girl by Ruth Ware
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
This book is okay. I’m not sure there’s much to say beyond that. The central story is a familiar one for anybody who’s read a thriller: a decades-old murder comes back to haunt the people who were closest to it, and one woman sets out to find the truth about the people she thought she knew. In classic Ruth Ware style, we swap back and forth between the past and the present, slowly unraveling what really happened the night April Clarke-Cliveden was brutally murdered.
You’ve read this book before. And while The It Girl is a perfectly fine locked-door (sort of) mystery, it’s hardly thrilling. Because we already know what’s coming, the tension never really swells in the Before timeline, and the search for The Truth™ in the After is bogged down by its unnecessary length.
Pacing becomes an especially big issue when the past comes to a close and we remain in the present for the remainder of the novel. Hannah is a decently interesting protagonist, but her friendship with April isn’t quite compelling enough to make you care about it. Perhaps if we’d gotten more insight into April beyond Hannah’s descriptions, which are often focused on how vapid and cruel she is, we could have felt greater sympathy. But April is just not a person most readers will relate to, and there’s very little emotional connection to her friendship with Hannah (or anyone else) because of that.
Ruth Ware has been very hit-or-miss for me ever since I read (and adored) her debut novel In a Dark, Dark Wood. I loved One by One, hated The Lying Game, and found myself so bored during The Woman in Cabin 10 that I put it away after a few chapters. I think Ware is at her best when writing in a limited setting - when the world of her novels becomes too open, or stretches across too broad of a time period, they lose a lot of intensity.
The It Girl doesn’t break any new ground, and it’s a little too long, but if you’re looking for a beach read this summer it’s a perfectly adequate choice.
You’ve read this book before. And while The It Girl is a perfectly fine locked-door (sort of) mystery, it’s hardly thrilling. Because we already know what’s coming, the tension never really swells in the Before timeline, and the search for The Truth™ in the After is bogged down by its unnecessary length.
Pacing becomes an especially big issue when the past comes to a close and we remain in the present for the remainder of the novel. Hannah is a decently interesting protagonist, but her friendship with April isn’t quite compelling enough to make you care about it. Perhaps if we’d gotten more insight into April beyond Hannah’s descriptions, which are often focused on how vapid and cruel she is, we could have felt greater sympathy. But April is just not a person most readers will relate to, and there’s very little emotional connection to her friendship with Hannah (or anyone else) because of that.
Ruth Ware has been very hit-or-miss for me ever since I read (and adored) her debut novel In a Dark, Dark Wood. I loved One by One, hated The Lying Game, and found myself so bored during The Woman in Cabin 10 that I put it away after a few chapters. I think Ware is at her best when writing in a limited setting - when the world of her novels becomes too open, or stretches across too broad of a time period, they lose a lot of intensity.
The It Girl doesn’t break any new ground, and it’s a little too long, but if you’re looking for a beach read this summer it’s a perfectly adequate choice.
The Golden Couple by Greer Hendricks, Sarah Pekkanen
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
An engaging mystery that’s a bit drawn out and spins one or two threads more than it needs to, but entertaining and polished nonetheless.
The Guest List by Lucy Foley
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-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
4.0
A solid, fast-paced mystery with a satisfying conclusion. The multiple POVs can be a bit hard to keep up with, but Foley manages to balance the characters and their motivations quite well. I’ve rarely enjoyed a whodunnit as much as I enjoyed this.
Tender Is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica
challenging
dark
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Deeply upsetting and unbearably detailed, Tender is the Flesh presents a horrifically believable dystopia with no happy endings and no silver linings. The writing is gorgeous and the pace is fast - I read this over the course of a morning and spent the afternoon picking my jaw up from the floor.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Violence, Body horror, Cannibalism, Child death, Classism, Pregnancy, Murder, Torture, Trafficking, Gore, Grief, Slavery, Confinement, Death, Excrement, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Animal death
That Weekend by Kara Thomas
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Something I really like about Kara Thomas is her skill for pacing. Many thrillers unfold too slowly - dragging out the mystery until the last possible second, then rushing through the explanation like a Bond villain - or too quickly, in a way that feels unrealistic and overly convenient. This was my second Thomas novel (the first being The Cheerleaders) and I continue to be impressed by the way she manages to balance tension with realism. That Weekend feels like a play, with a first act that lays out just enough information to draw you in, a second act that unravels with impeccable timing, and a finale that delivers satisfying answers. While the mystery isn’t necessarily jaw-droppingly clever or unique, I don’t think that’s a weakness. In fact, I‘m finding more and more as I read thriller after thriller that a believable story is infinitely harder to pull off than a ridiculous one.
For most of the book, I had a 4.25-4.5 star rating in mind. I loved the narrator, Claire, who we follow as she struggles to recall the events that led her to be found bloody and concussed on a mountain she doesn’t remember stepping foot on. Claire is smart, but stubborn. She is petty, but she cares. She feels like a real teenager, on the cusp of adulthood and unsure of who she wants to be. When her life is toppled by trauma her response to it feels true, not contrived, and when she starts digging for answers it’s not because she’s a scrappy hometown hero with a sudden burst of detective skills - it’s because she cannot move forward from her own grief without the answers she thinks will resolve it. Again, Thomas demonstrates a real understanding of loss.
The one complaint I have, which ultimately caused me to drop my rating to a 4.0, is that while the finale does give a satisfying resolution to the story - without tying it up too neatly in a way that feels cheap - there are a few “bonus” twists that I felt warranted more attention. One of my biggest pet peeves in a thriller or mystery is when a plot point feels rushed or thrown in at the last minute. By the time these shockers are dropped on us, the pages are drawing to a close. There’s no time to explore the meaning or impact of them. I found it frustrating that by the time we were really getting to learn more about these other characters, our time with them was over.
Outside of that peeve, That Weekend is an excellent novel about guilt, grief, and the burden of secrets - even the ones we must keep to protect ourselves.
For most of the book, I had a 4.25-4.5 star rating in mind. I loved the narrator, Claire, who we follow as she struggles to recall the events that led her to be found bloody and concussed on a mountain she doesn’t remember stepping foot on. Claire is smart, but stubborn. She is petty, but she cares. She feels like a real teenager, on the cusp of adulthood and unsure of who she wants to be. When her life is toppled by trauma her response to it feels true, not contrived, and when she starts digging for answers it’s not because she’s a scrappy hometown hero with a sudden burst of detective skills - it’s because she cannot move forward from her own grief without the answers she thinks will resolve it. Again, Thomas demonstrates a real understanding of loss.
The one complaint I have, which ultimately caused me to drop my rating to a 4.0, is that while the finale does give a satisfying resolution to the story - without tying it up too neatly in a way that feels cheap - there are a few “bonus” twists that I felt warranted more attention. One of my biggest pet peeves in a thriller or mystery is when a plot point feels rushed or thrown in at the last minute. By the time these shockers are dropped on us, the pages are drawing to a close. There’s no time to explore the meaning or impact of them. I found it frustrating that by the time we were really getting to learn more about these other characters, our time with them was over.
Outside of that peeve, That Weekend is an excellent novel about guilt, grief, and the burden of secrets - even the ones we must keep to protect ourselves.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Child death, Classism, Confinement, Grief, Incest, Medical content, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Violence, Physical abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Medical trauma, Murder, Toxic friendship, Vomit, Gaslighting, Gun violence, Alcoholism, Blood, Drug use, Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Child abuse, Mental illness, Trafficking, and Alcohol
None Shall Sleep by Ellie Marney
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Takes a while to really get going and severely lacks in action until the final chapters, but this teen-friendly crime novel was charming and entertaining enough to keep me on the hook.
My Best Friend's Exorcism by Grady Hendrix
dark
emotional
funny
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
After being pretty disappointed by The Final Girls Support Group, I’m happy to say this Hendrix novel was a winner. My Best Friend’s Exorcism is delightfully twisted, darkly funny, and surprisingly moving. It’s a nice blend of retro horror and coming-of-age flick that highlights Hendrix’s surprising talent for getting inside the heads of teenage girls.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Bullying, Violence, Body horror, Blood, Body shaming, Fatphobia, Eating disorder, Gore, Mental illness, Suicide attempt, Vomit, Animal death, Sexual assault, and Toxic friendship
Moderate: Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death of parent, Homophobia, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Gaslighting, and Forced institutionalization
Pieces of Her by Karin Slaughter
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
I really enjoyed this one. It’s been a while since I read a thriller with great PACING (so many lately have felt endlessly slow) and Pieces of Her hits a real sweet-spot. Slaughter manages to balance the tone of both timelines quite well, so neither feels boring or arduous. Tense, darkly funny, and exciting enough to make me want to seek out more of her novels.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Classism, Death, Drug abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Homophobia, Dementia, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Kidnapping, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Murder, Pregnancy, Suicide attempt, Terminal illness, Torture, Toxic relationship, Blood, Confinement, Cursing, Injury/Injury detail, Mass/school shootings, Physical abuse, and Violence