mlinder18's Reviews (632)

Mary gets kicked out of college for a violent act and is forced to return to her home town. The same night she returns an old childhood friend goes missing. Mary becomes an amateur sleuth and through her investigation she often has to comfort her own issues and ghosts of the past. 

This book was middle of the road for me. I felt like Mary was a little under-developed for me. There were a lot of unanswered questions about why she acts out violently, why she was on medication, etc. However, the book overall does tackle some important topics especially around race and media. Not my favorite thriller but I would love to give this author another shot and see what she has coming next. 

A nice detailed look into the history of alcohol and drinking and the important roles women played in it all. I would've given 5 stars but some chapters felt a little long and would jump from topic to topic which made it hard to follow in the audio book. 

I picked this book up hoping to make sense of all the senseless acts that have occurred in this country since April 20th, 1999. The tragedy that occurred at Columbine High School over 20 years ago was senseless and a preventable act of violence. Dave Cullen's reporting on the events leading up to and after the incident is remarkable. I thought I knew what happened all those years ago, you grow up hearing about it and seeing the different documentaries and news stories but I think most get it all wrong. Cullen pushes the envelope and reveals information that isn't widely reported. 

This book brought me to tears multiple times and took me a while to read because I needed frequent breaks. I appreciated the focus on the survivors and the families of the victims. I would challenge anyone who doesn't support gun reform or law enforcement reform/defunding of police to read this book. I was appalled to find out nothing has changed in the 20 plus years, and even worse, no real action was taken after this horrible incident. 

(Obviously this book is VERY triggering and should be read carefully) 

Got through two short stories and was bored. Nothing was mysterious or thrilling and the writing was exhausting. Unhauling this book in the hopes that it finds a place with someone who loves these kind of stories. 

Ahhh! Just a gorgeous and real love story. Eva and Shane were two kids who fell in love with the right people at the wrong time. 15 years later, they get a second chance. I laughed, I cried and I was inspired. Give this book all the roses 🌹

Three siblings must take a cross country road trip to earn their inheritance but ghosts from the past make this trip difficult to say the least. 

Well it's been a while since an ending of a book made me this mad. I was very excited for this one and often see people rave about this author but truly this book was nonsense. Nothing was believable, it went on far too long and there was plot holes everywhere. 

The twists at the end were definitely "thrilling" but I still wouldn't recommend this book to many. 

At different times reading this book I found it thrilling, romantic, nonsensical, and hilarious. 
The world building is lacking but the character building is top notch. I truly don't know how to rate this because I don't feel as strongly about it as some. Maybe I'll return to this in the future and feel a stronger connection. 

Well if you like to read spicy books just for the sex scenes and don't care at all about plot or character development then go ahead with this one. 

The smut in this book is top tier and abundant. However that was all this book had. Boil it down to any plot and it's just a few pages long which is unfortunate because I think the story had so much potential. 

One of my biggest issues is that the relationships in this book are only focused on sex. I didn't buy into any of the emotional pull or connection for the characters. 

My hope is that as the series continues that it gets more plot driven. I think I'll pick the second book up and give it a try. 

This will put into words that feeling you have whenever you have a free moment and think "what should I be doing right now to be productive." An extremely important and challenging book that will change the way you think about work, productivity and laziness. 

I had very high expectations for this book because the movie is one of my favorites! However, the book fell a little flat for me. For starters, it's too long. A romance/comedy/family drama never needs to be 500+ pages, that is just over the top. I also found the footnotes a bit distracting and they often took me out of the story so I wasn't able to engage. I truly wish the author would have found a way to integrate that more in the story. However, my largest pet peeve is the writing/POV. Switching POV's between paragraphs at times without indication gave me whip lash and often times left me confused. I ALMOST DNF'd this, but I pushed through because I own the box set and want to at least give the 2nd book a go. It's getting 3 stars from me, even though there were some big things I disliked, the overall story was fantastic.