This book was disappointing. It centers around a reporter who takes a picture of two kids holding a sign that says they're for sale. Who are those kids? Why are they being sold? What is their family like? What happens to them? These are just a few questions that are never answered by the book since those two children never reappear after the first chapter.

I hate to judge a book for not being about what I wanted, but curiosity about the children was most of the reason I was interested in this. The synopsis on the back of my book seemed to imply the kids were involved (it ends by saying the reporter and his coworker are trying to mend a fractured family). I struggled really hard to get past the fact that the story being told was not the one I'd really signed on to read, and I don't think I was successful.

Instead the story centers around reporter Ellis Reed. The synopsis describes him as struggling, but by chapter three he's been offered a feature and then he gets offered a fantastic job out in New York, so struggling seems like a bit of a reach. There's also Lillian Palmer, a young woman who had a child out of wedlock and lives in total fear of being found out, yet literally everyone she interacts with is wholly supportive of her situation.

It takes place during the Great Depression, but all the central characters seem relatively well off. They have decent jobs, they're covering rent fine and building up their savings. They can afford to help out others. I know that not everyone was homeless or starving during that time, but for a book that was about selling children, I kind of expected it to be a more central focus.

I didn't enjoy reading about the reporter very much. I found him boring and annoying. It was kind of disappointing to go from this heart wrenching family situation to a random reporter making good money and acting like a jerk for no good reason.

I didn't enjoy the romance and didn't feel a lot of chemistry between the characters. One of them was kind of dating someone else she had no romantic interest in for a while, but I didn't think they had any less chemistry than the main couple. I just didn't vibe with them.

I think perhaps I wouldn't have minded having my expectations so wrong if I'd enjoyed the actual story, but the whole time I was thinking how much more interesting it would be if we were learning about the parents who decided to sell their children. I really wanted to know more about them and Ellis Reed didn't feel like main character material to me.

I think the writing was good and I definitely wouldn't be against reading another Kristina McMorris book. I was definitely a well crafted story. Just unfortunately, it wasn't a story I was particularly interested in.

I love the Dear America series as a whole, but I think this book is something special. While the books generally range from good to great, this one was memorable. Anetka is a 13 year old sent to America from Poland to marry a man more than twice her age. He has three children and she becomes mother to them. At thirteen.

It's so heartbreaking in such a normalized way. It's definitely commented on how young she is, but no one really seems to care, including Anetka herself. She's not bitter about becoming a mother when she's still a child herself. She just hikes up her sleeves and does it in a no nonsense way. I think the casualness of this book was what really sent it over the top for me. It's not horrifying that she's barely a teenager essentially being sold as a slave, it's just her life.

It's a great book, one of my favorites that I've read from this series and I would highly recommend.

I hate how disappointed I was by this book. To start with, it wasn't bad. I want to say that right off the bat because this review is going to be colored by my disappointment. I read American Wife, a novel inspired by the life of Laura Bush, which I adored so I expected to love this book as much. I did enjoy a lot of it. At the beginning, it was really cool to see Hillary and Bill's relationship grow. I enjoyed seeing a young version of Hillary come into her own and see how she became the politician we know today (although a slightly different version).

The beginning of the book was very dialogue heavy and felt like a lot of exposition, but I was willing to look past that because I figured the bulk of the book was going to be after Hilly and Bill broke up, since their break up was the alternate history. But I feel like the further I got into this book, the less I enjoyed it.

After they broke up, it felt like it skimmed Hillary's life. She's sad for a bit and then she works at a university as a law professor, and then all of a sudden she's in her forties and decides to run for senate and the rest of the book is the broad strokes of her political career. And I do mean broad strokes. I never felt like I was close to her, or able to see her life unfold and build to her 2016 presidential campaign. Instead I felt like I got brief moments and then summaries of large scale events, like her entire 2008 campaign against Obama. It lost the character of Hillary and her personality. I didn't feel close to her or like I was seeing her as a person for the second half of the book.

So much of American Wife existed solely as a portrait of the main character and it was gorgeous. I knew this book was very different in terms of story, but I was hoping for that same exploration of the main character. It felt entirely lacking. I don't feel like I walked away from this book knowing Hillary as the main character. I don't feel like this book got much deeper than her current public persona.

For me, the point of an alternate history is to explore the differences that stem from one decision, in this case the breakup. But this book didn't feel like it was doing that. So many events were the same, and I mean exactly the same. Hillary's entire 2008 campaign against Obama was identical. Just straight ripped from reality. She had a slightly different political route and no marriage or kids, but apart from that she seemed like exactly the same person in exactly the same political atmosphere. There are differences to the 2016 election, but those seemed more like jabs at irony than true reimaginings. Like haha, isn't it so funny that she's running against Bill Clinton and he's the billionaire whose crowds chant 'shut her up' at every rally. And isn't it hilarious that Donald Trump endorses her? It didn't feel like a genuine attempt at a 'what if' alternate history so much as a kitschy twist on the 2016 election.

To wrap this up, I'll keep my other issues short. It lacked narrative. Like the point of the story was just the 2016 election and everything else existed to exist. Also this book failed to humanize Hillary but simultaneously failed to criticize her character very much. There were a number of points, specifically around race, that were brought up, but it felt like they were mostly skated around in the narrative. Like at one point, Hillary decides to run against Carol Mosely Braun who was running for Illinois senate in the wake of the Anita Hill testimony. In real life, Braun was the first female African American senator. In the book, Hillary won and lost a close African American friend over it. There could have been an interesting commentary on that, but it felt like every time something like that happened in the book (there were a few occasions), it pulled back just short of actual discussion.

This would didn't feel well thought out. I thought American Wife was a masterpiece of literature and was excited to see Hillary get the same treatment, but this book was lacking. I was so bitterly disappointed because while this book was still just fine (even a decent book), I didn't think it was great and I didn't enjoy it nearly as much as I wanted to. It felt like there was so much opportunity for greatness here and it fell flat every time.

This was a really solid start to the series. Not my favorite thriller, but definitely worthwhile enough that I want to continue reading more. This book also reads like perhaps it wasn't initially planned to be a series, so I want to see where she goes with the characters. Rizzoli is interesting and unhappy, and Isles hasn't even been introduced yet (a slight disappointment, but not all that surprising).

I didn't enjoy the romance. It felt unnecessary to the overall story and I really didn't like the cop dating a victim of a current case he's working on element. It's super predatory, although not intended as such in the narrative. And it just didn't need to exist. It added nothing to the story.

I did really enjoy the writing style and the story structure. Despite the fact that I've seen the show so I kinda knew the plot twist and overall mystery, it entertained me. There was enough story and character development to make the whole book interesting beyond just the whodunit aspect.

Beyond that there were definitely sexist and transphobic aspects, but I'm not sure how much was just the characters being generally terrible people (because most of them were). I like when the characters are all garbage human beings in cop thrillers so that didn't bother me too much. Definitely something that gave me pause more than a few times, though. I'm hoping it gets a little better in later books.

Overall, it's a fine thriller. I enjoyed it. Nothing special, but I'm interested in continuing on with the series and I'm looking forward to seeing how the books differ from the show. It's kind of a neutral recommendation so far. I don't think I'll be pushing this series on anyone yet, but I also wouldn't discourage anyone from reading it.

Courtney Summers is an amazing writer. The characters are full developed and the writing itself pulls you in through to the very end. I read this book in one sitting. I read pretty much all of her books in one sitting because she's one of my favorite authors.

But I was disappointed. This is a great book, but I just didn't love it as much as I usually love her books. This is a plot that I've read so many times before. Like genuinely so many. Popular girl's boyfriend sexually assaults her best friend. The best friend is immediately ostracized and hangs out with another outsider. Speak, Just Listen, even All the Rage. More that were too mediocre for me to remember. And I don't feel like this book added anything to the conversation or did anything different. I think all three of those that I listed had more interesting overall stories.

Regina's character, no matter how fully developed, doesn't really seem to go through much growth. She's the mean popular girl, then she has a fall from grace and feels guilty, and oh look at that she's not actually that bad. Like yeah, that's pretty much what I got from page one and then at the end it all gets wrapped up with a pretty little bow.

It frustrated me because of how badly I wanted to love this book and the only thing letting it down was the story. I don't think the plot itself was very strong and had anyone but Summers written this, I probably would have rated it a lot lower. But her actual writing is amazing. It blows me away every time.

So I highly recommend Summers as an author. I don't think this is one of her better books, but I think whatever she writes, she's wonderful. So definitely give her a go even if this book doesn't sound like it's for you.

Lisa Gardner has a really great, engaging writing style. It's why I read all of her books despite not loving the stories. Regardless of what's going on in the book, I'm always interested because of how she pulls me in with her writing.

But unfortunately that's where the positives for this book ended for me. Most of this centers around the mystery of whether a woman manipulated her husband into pointing a loaded gun at her and her four year old son. Because of course, this is something all wives are capable of. That wasn't a passing query but rather the central point of the case. Didn't really enjoy it.

Then I didn't buy a lot of the big dramatic things that happened. Some of them seemed too implausible, even for a thriller where I expect a certain suspension of disbelief to be required. Some big things happened (a violent felon being randomly released from prison without being up for parole) with literally no explanation as to how except some people are powerful. I generally expect at least an attempt at an explanation, even if it's not a great one. At least let me pretend things make sense.

I've also just never been a fan of the Bobby Dodge books. I don't generally find him a compelling character and so many of his plots seem to center around women he gets personally involved with.

I wouldn't recommend this book unless you're a fairly die hard Lisa Gardner fan like apparently I am. Still great writing. Even with a book I found as distasteful as this, her writing style still adds a level of pleasure throughout. Go read Find Her if you want to give Gardner a go, but I don't think this was much worth it.

This is a fantastically well researched book. It covers the opioid epidemic from the invention of morphine and heroin to present day, focusing on Roanoke and rural Virginia. She also tells the story of a few families in the area who she got to know, with kids who were addicted, dealers, or died of heroin overdoses. It's a great book.

My only real criticism is that it is a little too disjointed for me. It jumps between stories in a way that works really well in a lengthy news article or essay, but I struggled with a little bit in a whole book. With all the different people involved, I sometimes lost the thread of the narrative and couldn't quite follow. It wasn't too bad and it was really well done in general, but I did struggle just the littlest bit with that.

I loved hearing from the people personally involved, especially when she talked to the addicted young people. One woman who was my age had me tearing up at the end of the book, even though I already knew where it was going. I couldn't stop myself from crying. All the situations were so heartbreaking, from addicted teenagers to doctors who don't know what would happen to their patients if they died, to parents fighting pharmacy corporations in court. All of it brings the human element so well and paints such a vivid picture.

I do think Macy is a lot more drug negative than I am. She touched ever so briefly on how the crackdown on prescriptions for opioids affected those with chronic pain, but only about twice that I noticed and so very briefly. She also spoke very negatively of doctors prescribing Adderall or Ritalin for kids with no discussion on why that might be important for some kids (and adults) to live life. Over prescription is a massive problem, but in a book that focused so much on the dangers of prescription drugs, I really wish there had been discussion on the importance of those same drugs for people who need them to function.

Overall, a really great and informative book. I'd highly recommend this if you're interested in the subject. It's definitely made me want to read her other books as well.

I think Lisa Jewell succeeded at writing a really engaging novel. I devoured this. Every time I wasn't reading it, I was thinking about reading it or planning how I could make more time to read it. It took me less than twenty four hours to get through because I was enthralled. But to be honest, that was about the only thing I enjoyed.

I struggled a lot with getting into this book. It was hard to follow all the characters and the different timelines when I had no idea what the story was about or how these people connected. I genuinely couldn't follow the story at all for at least the first third of the book.

And then once I did, I never felt connected to any of the characters. Libby was beyond flat, and her wooden conversations with her friend Dido and utter lack of chemistry with the love interest confounded me. They kept talking about how into him she was, but I never got that at all. I didn't get any personality from her, and honestly couldn't tell you a single thing about her right now that didn't relate to her messed up family. She dropped everything for the mystery, including apparently her personality.

Lucy could have been interesting if she was ever allowed the time to develop, and Henry spent so much time in the past that I was only reading his story looking for answers to what was going on.

But man, Jewell can right a good narrative. Did I care? Not really. But I was so invested in reading that it almost didn't matter. She grabbed my attention with her storytelling, even if not the story or the characters themselves.

I do understand the hype for Jewell. I didn't really enjoy this book much, but I'd be very interested to see some of her other books. If she writes them like this, I almost don't mind the flaws. Worth the read, and I'm curious if maybe she has a book where the story works a little better for me.

For the first half of this book, I was bored. I couldn't get into Kersti's story, either in the present as an adult who's unable to get pregnant or in the past as a child at a boarding school. None of the scenes from the past felt like they had any purpose in the narrative and all of the scenes in the present were so disjointed that it felt like half the narrative was skipped. So many important things happened off screen in between the pages and then would be recapped in the next chapter in that timeline months after the fact. It didn't make sense why she would choose to tell the story like this.

The whole unable to conceive plotline also did nothing for me. I wasn't aware going in that it was part of the story, let alone such a major part. It's not my favorite plot line in general, but definitely can be done well. Only it wasn't here. At no point did I ever feel like Kersti really wanted children. She wanted to fulfill her role as a woman. She wanted to fit into her family that she always felt distant from. She wanted to lose the feeling of inadequacy. But she never talked about actually wanting children. I was almost rooting for her to not have children because she seems like she'd be a terrible mother.

Then around the halfway point, Kersti decides that the best way for her to get pregnant is to use her friend's frozen eggs. Her friend who has been in a vegetative state since high school. Her friend whose mother had her eggs harvested while in that vegetative state. Her friend who clearly cannot give any kind of consent. And also, the friend's mother has already used her eggs to have another daughter. Why does Kersti want to do this? So she can breed more Cressidas. Her words, not mine. This is treated as normal.

I feel like anything else negative I could say about this book pales in comparison to that. For a while, I literally thought Kersti was going to be an obsessive stalker and the villain, but no apparently the book considers this an unusual situation but totally fine.

I honestly don't know what I just read. This wasn't the book I expected, and I cannot fathom this being a book anyone wanted. I was not a fan. It was so disappointing because I've really enjoyed Joanna Goodman's work before, but I found this so unpleasant.

This was such a fantastic work of journalism. The whole book was amazing and I could never put it down. I was always thinking about what was going to happen next, and googling the different people and events when I wasn't able to read.

There's so much history and culture in this. Not only does Moaveni give you the story of the individual women she followed, she also gives you the history and culture of each country. Some are born and raised in Raqqa, Syria, some come from Tunis, some are German, some are British. She gives you the context for all these places and the way being a Muslim woman in these different countries shaped their interest in Isis. She does her best to give you the full grasp of the situation, and it makes the book feel so much more full.

I loved hearing about all the different women. Their interest in Isis is never justified, but Moaveni doesn't shame them either. She works only to explain their actions and what led them to those choices. It's really well done. You don't always get to see the women's thoughts (depending on the access Moaveni had to them, which was sometimes limited or not at all), but you get the picture of their lives and stories. It's really well done.

And each of the women had such interesting stories. There wasn't one I felt I wasn't interested in while reading. They all had worthwhile perspectives and it was heartbreaking. You can see the ways in which a little more education or guidance or love would have steered them in other paths.

The only thing I regret is how short it was. This easily could have been twice the length, but it's understandable because Moaveni was working with limited access to the women she wrote about. Not all of them were willing to talk much, and they were terrorists, some in refugee camps, so what she created is something amazing.

I think this book was spectacular and so worth the read. I'd highly recommend this to anyone even a little bit interested. I loved this so much.