3.25
I loved the siblings in this book, and I wish we spent less time on June and Mick as important as their story was. I also thought the book was going to take more of a mystery angle, with the arsonist having motives tied to the family drama, but it ended up being much less sinister and unfolded in a way that usually happens in TJR’s books.
I feel like Nina’s chapters being very subdued made sense with her doormat personality and when she finally let herself be, her anger really set flame to the emotions I had reading this story. I just wish she got angrier and let go sooner because I wanted to read more of that. I liked Kit and Jay also, they were very charismatic and sharp witted. But I realized I didn’t feel that big of a connection to this tale when the initial fear I felt when we find out Hud is seeing Ashley at the very beginning of the book, basically fizzled out by the time the confrontation happened. At first I thought the little chapters detailing what some guests were up to really added flavour to the story as it delved into part 2, but as it kept going, and we kept getting those chapters, always imbued with some variation of lust, heartbreak or dalliance, it got boring. I would have liked to see some variation in the chapters on the guests, maybe some about that linked with the other themes of the story, a chapter about celebrity twins in a feud or something.
There were some very quotable parts of the book, but not so much that the book came off as preachy (which is what I found Evelyn Hugo to be).
This was a good read to end the summer with, I just didn’t love it as much as I thought I would.