booking_along's Reviews (1.97k)

Süße nette gute Nacht Geschichte (oder überhaupt zum vorlesen, egal welche Uhrzeit) die ganz das bietet was der Titel verspricht. 

Es ist für jeden, aber ich denke besonders toll zu lesen für alle Locken und Wildere Haar Besitzer die vielleicht erst sehen müssen was für Wunder in ihnen steckt. 

Nur zu empfehlen!

A strange little magical realism treated story that left me as confused about what it was about and what happened and how as it did when I started it. 

Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing just didn’t expect to have no idea what was going on, going into this story. 

The writing was okay -it felt a little clunky and plump in some instances ( for example at some point the police man wants to be careful and not too direct while questioning the suspect and says „are you a whore?“. Which, I mean I am not the expert at always knowing what’s okay to say kn any given situation but that’s not a particularly carefully worded way to start a conversation) which I Jeveraner if it was done purposely or not. 


It was still an interesting if very strange read and if you have a few minutes and are interested, why not give it a quick read? It’s not even 30 pages!

this did have a very Doyle-esc feel to the writing and story telling and if it wouldn’t have been as long and a bit dragged out it would have felt like an actual real Holmes story.

so clearly this author can write and tell a story in ways that if you love the original holmes stories by doyle this is a good addition. 

i even enjoyed the mystery. 


but this book was a 100 pages or so to long for me. 

look i love running around with Holmes in any format i can get it in (movies, shows or books? give it to me!) but i like the shorter format of how it’s mostly done with the individual cases. 
Holmes does his work in a way (and it is done well jn this book, just a smithed to slow for me to love it!)  when the spectator sees him take everything in, question some situations, visit a place or two and then does his big reveal of the case as if it should have been obvious from the second the time was seen. 

trying to add some layers to that never works for me. 

that’s a personal preference but it’s my review so: i didn’t love this but i enjoyed it okay. 


i think it’s a good addition to the Holmes book series and it’s a nice read overall. 

but be prepared that it can get a bit slow in the middle.

this was lovely. 

well written and nicely plotted out, filled with well done characters. 

it had some pacing issues since some sections were really slow and especially the climax and big reveal all happened to fast and basically all at once and the lead up to those final reveal moments felt rushed -almost as if the author remembered that the book had to end now and it all had to be solved and revealed still. 

but while i think those moments could have been done better i didn’t kind the slow moments and the long build up.

i enjoyed Signa as a character a lot and absolutely loved Death! 


i didn’t love the ending

cliffhangers for this type of story isn’t my favorite. i would prefer it if authors just make me want to pick up the next book because i want to be back with the characters and experience a new thing with them instead of being left with this open ending of sorts.

but it wasn’t horrible just not my preferred way. 


all in all very enjoyable and a good experience and i am excited to continue on and see what Signa will experience next. 

well written, realisation and fantastic characters. 

i don’t know what i expected -i have only recently read a short story from this author as a first sample before and really enjoyed it- but this was so much more than i expected. 


it was a romance - but it also was so much more. 

it had a lot of topics especially surrounding abuse in relationships -even more specifically emotional and verbal abuse- and as someone that has experienced those situations i found it very well done. 
and that is not a spoiler it’s a selling point! 
if you do abuse, especially within a romance story? do it well or don’t do it! and this author did it fantastically! 


i also enjoyed that this was a age gap romance with the woman as the older partner and how that was not treated as anything special. because it shouldn’t. if all parties in a relationship adult and consenting? who cares? they have to be happy and not you so if you wouldn’t be in a relationship with a larger age gap, fine don’t. 
this book did a good job with how it was done and how the characters  behaved. 


i really enjoyed Alexis and while she could be a bit too focused in small things that should feel as important to her as it was - it was understandable why she focused to heavily on them. 

i am not saying it something every abused person does but especially emotional and verbal abuse can make you almost obsessively focused on the smallest details and make those tiny details seem extremely important. sometimes that can be because it makes the abused feel more in control (not being able to control a lot else at least that detail is as it should be!) or because of the smallest thing isn’t as it should be the abuse will be worse.

 

so i understand why some people didn’t love her or found her annoying but for me she made sense. and she evolved and learned. 

daniel was wonderful. i do like how he was written too and honestly he felt almost too “perfect man” kind of character -always willing to help, always willing to do what needs to be done, step up…- i didn’t mind that. 



the story itself was well done, had nice pacing and i found the build up and typical romance plot thing

aka third act break up

very real and understandable and it made sense. 


clearly i enjoyed this book a lot and can’t wait to continue on and i know the next book of this follows alexis best friend but i would also love to get a book from the perfective of a person from the small town. get more of that small town feel and the people there. 


so happy i read this and really had a fantastic time! 

can’t even formulate the words for this right now. 

beautifully written, impactful story and memorable characters! 

filled with heartbreak and hope, love and loss and hate and grief and dreams. 

a story that has LGBTQ+ characters, chronic illness rep and so many other representations and moments that are beautiful!

sadly this didn’t work for me.

and interestingly it wasn’t the heavy focus on squash (the sport and where the titel comes from) or the heavy topic of grief with as many can understand is not always something you can read or connect with in every book that has the topic. 

those things were okay. 
i did think that the grief was done relatively well and how it was told with how long and how deeply affected grief can leave you. 

and while i personally have no interest in the sport nor do i seek out reading about any type of sport , i also didn’t mind it overly much even if it was very heavy handed and felt like the author expected the reader to not only have a basic understanding of squash as a hobby but as a profession as well (which i didn’t even know was a thing before this book which says more about my disinterest in professional sport than anything else). 


my biggest issue with the book was that it felt like it didn’t have real characters or any actual people and lives and their stories worth being interested about in it. 
which might sound mean but what i mean is that the characters didn’t feel real - they read bland and more like a wage sketch of a character than a fully formed and developed character that a reader can learn to understand or want to get to know if nothing else- and and with that everything about this story felt just as blend and distant as those characters. 

this book might have talked a lot about grief and what i can do to a person, a family and lives in general but i never felt that grief. 
i didn’t feel the loss and pain and desperation of having to keep going and trying and feeling like its not working but time just keeps on ticking anyways. 

maybe i am just heartless or the  author purposefully kept the reader at a large distance so that the characters felt more like silhouettes than anyone specific or real. 


i don’t know. 

i do know that it wasn’t for me and i didn’t enjoy this book. 

oh well i hope others have a better experience with it. 

This was too much with too little in all ways possible for me. 

The idea was good and it could have been an interesting story but the short story formt didn’t allow for enough build up, anticipation and interest to build for me to care. I didn’t care what the characters went though or why they  did it or any of that befreundet didn’t know the characters nor did I feel like I wanted too. 

The plot itself could have been good but it felt to rushed and to compressed to really get there and actually be good. Again could have been well done with an actual longer story but in short story format too many things happened to rapidly one after the other while at the same time never really being explained enough for me to want to see that much action happen.


Clearly this didn’t work for me, sadly.

If you are looking for mindless action and don’t mind not getting to now anything or anyone or really getting a clear picture of any questions - go for it. 


Other wise? Maybe not the right story for you.