A pretty quick murder mystery that I easily read in one sitting, but...there were so many twists and turns that it felt the last half of the novel just kept twisting and twisting until we got to the reveal and I just scratched my head.

A very sweet and wholesome 3.5 stars!

I'm not sure that I truly enjoyed this one as much as I thought I would. For one, I had a hard time connecting with Spensa from the start. She read as an incredibly immature 17 year old, though I suppose that can probably be explained by just how much her life was blown up as a child-- so much of her personality and ambition came about as a result of what happened to her father when she was seven. Reading from Spensa's point of view made me feel incredibly old as well, considering how much I just wanted to shake her and make her see sense. However, I was very glad to eventually see Spensa start to struggle and work through some growing pains.

The story itself was fine, though it wore through the same tried and true grooves as every other "outcast finds themselves in a new school and is determined to make something of themselves and be the best" trope. The writing didn't elevate that trope for me, unfortunately. Almost every plot beat was easy to predict, execpt for the ending. Sanderson can definitely write in a way that keeps stringing you along. I kept reading chapter after chapter desperately wanting to know what the end would bring.

I'm not sure I liked the end much, either. I got the answers I wanted and a decent hook for the second book, but I'm not so sure that I care to continue the series.

Also, M-bot was annoying. Doomslug was way better.

(I got this book as part of Book of the Month's January selection. Hooray for BOTM!)

The book doesn't come out until March; this review is spoiler-y in some aspects.

Spoiler

I fucking love the fake relationship romance trope. It's my favorite above all favorites, my holiest of holies. As a result, I have high expectations which doesn't help when I do read the trope.

This is super cute and a decent crack at it, but ultimately pretty shallow.

I found it a hard to relate to Daisy. She's written as so super cool and so super quirky and her only hobby seems to be Marvel movies? I mean, same. But a well-rounded character that does not make. Liam is a little better, but not by much. In fact, I'm trying to remember any sort of real depth of character either of them had, and I'm not coming up with anything.

The story moves along at a quick pace, and the fake relationship aspect is super cute. Fun dates, fun tension, not NEARLY enough pining for my taste. Unfortunately the third act drama comes out of nowhere because something over the top had to happen to force the Separate/"Break up" in the third act trope; Liam and Daisy were WAY too into each other to make just a plain misunderstanding work out. Cute reading for the rest of the story, but it just made the break up part of the trope drag.

It all felt really shallow. It was a fun read, but I don't think I got much out of it otherwise.

Popsugar Reading Challenge 2021: A book published in 2021.

This is so good from top to bottom, a 4.5 star read that only lost half a star because of pacing issues. It starts off strong, thrusting you into the world without a life jacket, but lags in the middle only to speed to a conclusion that is satisfying and unsatisfying all at once.

I needed a bit of chicklit fluff when I picked this up to read, and I got exactly that. While I give my chicklit books a lot more leeway than I do others, I didn’t quite gel with The Nanny Diaries. (And if I’m going to be honest, I wanted to read the book just so I could watch the film starring Scarlett Johansson and Chris Evans. I love them.) It was a great glimpse into the life of a Park Avenue nanny, but there wasn’t much depth to it.

I wasn’t connecting with Nanny and the family she cares for, so by the time the big climax came, I couldn’t even cheer along with her. It was a so-so book, and I enjoyed the movie a little more if only because of Scarlett’s charm and Chris Evans’s everything.

I had incredibly high hopes (okay, not incredibly, but they were up there) for this novel, but it seemed to fall flat for me. It was cute in a way, but it was hard to relate to Jane, our heroine, on her journey of self-discovery and determination to rid herself of a fantasy she could never hope to achieve. The idea of Austenland, a place where you can play at being in the Regency-era seems fun, but it came across as boring and stuffy, nothing like I expected. Not even Jane's adventures throughout could have brought this to life for me.

I think I listened to this audiobook some time in the great haze of late 2019 when I started a new job that I had a near 2 hour commute on. Wake up at 4:30am, leave at 5:30, get to the parking lot at 7:15, nap until my job started at 8:30, leave at 5:30, get home at 7:30 or 8, MAYBE see my husband for an hour, sleep at 9:30, rinse and repeat 5 days a week for 7 months...what does this have to do with this book? Not much. But I'll always remember Billy Jensen's narration keeping me sane in Southern California traffic, and for that I have a warm spot in my heart for this book.

That soft spot bumps this from a 4.5 up to the full 5 star rating for me, because this book is also also really damn good.

I can't remember many details right now but from what I do remember, I really enjoyed hearing about Billy's life. Especially interesting was how he began to get into amateur sleuthing, and the stories of how his tenacity, his drive, his patience have all led him to wanting to help solve crimes, not just write about them.

One thing I do remember loving: Billy is very patient and understanding of how slow police investigations move. In contrast to books and movies and TV shows that depict characters jumping ahead of things because they can't wait or don't want to wait (and because of plot), Billy gives the police what he has, and simply waits for them to work within the bounds of the law. He's also very adamant about his rules for citizen sleuthing for the network he's setting up - all very important, very respectful rules.

I don't think this is something you read simply because Billy was friends with Michelle McNamara and was part of her attempts in looking into the Golden State Killer, nor to read because he's been tangential to some big cases or helped finish writing [b:I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer|35068432|I'll Be Gone in the Dark One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer|Michelle McNamara|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1499131009l/35068432._SY75_.jpg|56363890].

This book is all those things. But, I think this is to be read as insight into the life of someone who has spent their whole life writing about crime, and who is likely to spend the rest of their life doing their best to help solve crimes. I think you can read this as a look into the mind of someone who is probably going to go on to be a true force for Good for the rest of his life.