madeline's Reviews (776)

I'd say I'd commit murder for a whole series of this, but it seems like a bad idea given the concept. Nevertheless, I want more Lewis & Bell NOW.

I picked this up on a recommendation from a friend and I'm so glad I did. As someone who grew up on SVU, NCIS, and Criminal Minds, it's the kind of book I would have inhaled as a teenager -- and also apparently as an adult.

Set in the 1980s, the FBI has an idea that teen serial killers may open up better to other teenagers as opposed to adult agents. So, they call in two people they think have the best chance of relating to a teen killer they're interested in: Travis Bell, a US Marshall candidate whose father was killed in the line of duty by a serial killer, and Emma Lewis, the "final girl" of another serial killer.

Emma and Travis use this experience to process their own traumas, something I think is done really well. Emma, in particular, is coming to terms with what happened to her, and Travis is a wonderful example of how to support someone going through that.

This book is twisty-turny and so compelling, and I would love more in this universe to see how the characters all continue to grow. It'd be a super fun fall read, and it's perfect for people interested in true crime, or fans of Criminal Minds, Mindhunter, and Silence of the Lambs.

This book just doesn't work.  It's so frustrating to watch these two characters circle each other and make basically no moves, Maya in particular since she seems unable to work through both her romantic feelings for Derek and her obvious unhappiness at her dream job.  I was very uncomfortable with the "White woman discovers her Roots of Color" subplot, and was super taken aback by the fact that Derek lost his wife in a mass shooting event at their church.  That particular piece of the story is so underdeveloped that it really just serves as a kind of shock and awe feature meant to amp up the reader's empathy for him, which isn't necessary!!

The story has STRONG religious undertones, which is not my jam, and is slow-burn very low-steam.  Overall, the plot is underdeveloped and the writing is robotic.  Dialogue is incredibly stilted and Derek's 12 year old daughter talks like a 40 year old woman with an MBA.  A swing and a miss.  

Thank you Avon and NetGalley for the ARC.

Addie and Dylan broke up eighteen months ago.  They haven't seen each other since -- until Dylan and his friend Marcus rear end Addie and her sister Deb while both pairs are en route to their mutual friend's wedding.  Trapped together in a tiny car on a road trip where nothing seems to go right, Addie and Dylan choose to face the reason for their heartbreaking split and see if it's truly past repair.

I've loved all Beth O'Leary's books so far, and this one isn't an exception there.  But while this book technically satisfies the one rule to be a romance novel, I really don't think it is one.  TRT has all of O'Leary's trademark sharp wit, funny banter, and delightful characters, but it also dials the serious stuff all the way up to eleven.

Addie and Dylan are a "right person, wrong time" couple.  The first time they dated, they were both emotionally immature, and Dylan was embroiled in some very toxic relationships with other people in his life.  Because you get present and past alternating until a good two-thirds or three-fourths of the way through the book, the strides each character has made to become a better person are really apparent.  But it also means that the worst parts of them are front and center for a lot of the book.  I spent a long time trying to reconcile the Marcus who seems like a vaguely decent person with the Marcus who's so in pain that he can't stop lashing out at the people he loves, and the Dylan who seems emotionally aware with the Dylan who can't see what's plainly in front of his face.  

Because O'Leary's two previous books have a much more even balance of humor and heaviness, I think this book will be off-putting to some.  There's still a lot of wonderful road trip rompiness, but this book leans a lot more into the ideas of what and who is forgiveable, loving toxic people, and working through trauma than her earlier ones.  Because I expected more of a rom-com, there was an adjustment period, but once I got into the swing of it I was totally enthralled.  Dylan is a poet, too, which makes his narration so, so gorgeous -- we've gotten snippets of O'Leary's ability to write some truly gorgeous prose in the past but having a character that's also a writer really gave her some room to run with things and it is wonderful.

I think this is a book that's going to stick with me for a while.

TWs:

minor car accident, drug use and abuse, alcoholism, attempted sexual assault, emotionally abusive parents, homophobia, a mistaken case of infidelity

An absolutely delicious imagining of the Hades and Persephone myth.  Immersive world building, fully realized characters, trademark Katee Robert heat.  Hades is one of my most favorite heroes I've read in a while, Persephone is strong and independent without veering into "nOt LiKe OtHeR gIrLs" territory, and they adopt three puppies.  Literally what more do you need?  Just the second book in the series immediately, really.

Callie, a recent college grad looking for her next step, can definitely handle watching over the family escape room business for the weekend.  Until, of course, a small cult wanders in and begins to summon a demon.  Before she knows it, Callie is responsible for saving the world from certain extinction, and she can only do it with the hot intern demon they summoned, who just so happens to be the literal son of Lucifer.  Can Callie save the world and fall in love at the same time, or will everything go up in... ahem, smoke?

This book was one of my most anticipated reads of the year, and I was really disappointed to see some other early reviewers reporting they were less than satisfied.  In the end, I'm glad I saw those reviews because they tempered my expectations for a novel with a ridiculously fun premise that struggles to find its footing. 

NYAHG is neither YA nor New Adult, and it suffers a lot from not being able to pick a side.  Either we lean into the camp or we lean into the responsibility of saving the world, and this book doesn't do either and it falls flat.  Callie is less a real human being and more a vessel of knowledge.  There's no discernible shift between her POV and Luke's, and the style works much better for him than for her.  Additionally, the book starts off with a really... immature?  unrefined?  tone that has a serious shift around 15%.  Like, going from AO3 fanfic written by a 14 year old to a professionally written and edited shift.  I'm willing to chalk this up to ARC status but I was certainly more engaged post-shift.

Overall, I think this book is too neat, particularly in the final 15%.  All their problems are wrapped up fairly easily and without any real angst.  It could have been either more tightly edited and remained its current length or had another 40 pages in it and it wouldn't have suffered either way.

I'll be recommending this as a YA novel over a NA romance, particularly to fans of early seasons of Supernatural and Lucifer.  If you liked the "ragtag group of friends staves off the apocalypse" vibe, I recommend When the Sky Fell on Splendor by Emily Henry.

Thanks very much to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for the ARC!

A truly delicious slice of life x coming of age story. Fourteen year old Mary Jane is hired to look after the new neighbors' five year old daughter for the summer, a big coup since the girl's father is a doctor and therefore very impressive to her traditional, strait-laced parents. What her parents don't know is that he's actually a psychologist, and he's going to spend the whole summer attending to one patient: a famous rock star. Against the backdrop of a hot, sticky Baltimore summer, Mary Jane begins to understand adulthood and parenting, shifting gender roles and expressions of love, and how to believe in yourself when the people you think are most important to you don't.