Sometimes books just don’t turn out to be what you expected, and that’s okay. 

Is The Favorites a bad book? Not really. Is it a good book? Not really. 

The storytelling format of first-person POV alternating with pieces of another media format (in this case it’s a documentary but most often in the past few years it’s been podcasts) has never been a favorite of mine. I find it annoying and feel it takes away from the narrative flow of the story. In the case of this book I felt like it boiled down the supporting characters in the story to cookie cutter stereotypes, making it easy to guess certain plot twists ahead of time. 

While I enjoyed the plot I didn’t enjoy how it was carried out. I guess you could say the plot was intriguing but the story that was told with the plot was less so. I expected something a little darker and more thrilling, and this read more like a scintillating soap opera. At times it kind of felt like I was closer to reading Danielle Steele than what I thought I was going to read when I requested this book. It’s juicy, with complicated relationships and a lot of drama. 

I wouldn’t re-read this and I won’t recommend it because it simply doesn’t vibe with what I look to keep on my bookshelves, but if you like your reads dramatic, romantic, intense, and soapy, then I think you might like it a whole lot. 

I was provided a copy of this title by the publisher and author via Netgalley. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Reviews rated three stars or lower will not appear on my social media Thank you.