This was an odd book for me. I liked the writing style and the author's voice, but I disliked almost every character in the book, including the narrator. I found her selfish, insufferable, pretentious, and not as intelligent as she thought she was. Every single choice she made through the course of the book was the wrong one, and ultimately she didn't seem to grow up or learn anything. I think she should have done the exact opposite of the title of the book, and changed a bit since she was one of those people that, in real life, no one would want to around. However, rather than put the book down I pushed through, hoping she would grow up at some point and stop being so damn selfish. That and I really did enjoy the way the author wrote.

Not that there weren't any redeeming qualities or characters in this book. True, the only character I liked, at all, was Foster and he was pretty much in small doses even when Eva began to acknowledge her crush on him. I also thought the author did a spot on job of describing how tumultuous female relationships can be, especially in cases where there is an odd number of friends in the immediate circle. Inevitably someone feels left out at some point and in this case it was Eva. However, her friends weren't sympathetic at all and came across as just being mean girls for no reason. So, again, disliked them, especially Michelle.

Her family was okay but we hardly ever heard mention of her Dad who was more just a background player. Her sister was interesting but there seemed to be no real purpose for her except to act as a sounding board for Eva when her friends were ignoring her. And her mother was going through the emotional cycle of a soon-to-be-empty-nester but other than that there was no more depth to her than any of the other characters.

And maybe that was the thing; I felt that there was no development for any of the characters. I know that the title indicated there wasn't going to be any changes but a little growth from *anyone* would have been nice. As it was I finished it and felt nothing. I didn't get anything from it other than I wouldn't want to go back to being a teenager. Yet again, I finished it because the author had an engaging way of writing and it was interesting; the characters were just terrible. And because I didn't really like them, this was a "just okay" book for me.

I really enjoyed the author's previous two books and the premise of this just sounded delightful so I was eager to start this one and see if it met with my expectations. And it did. The description of this being Beaches mets the Exorcist is spot on and Hendrix's signature humor is present as well. But the horror factor is still at a high level. Personally, I found Horrostor to be scarier, and had more wig out moments. Although there was a scene here that quite literally tested my gag reflex; so there's that. As corny as it sounds though what was really enjoyable about this book was how it dealt with the complex but endurng nature of female friendships.

The 1980's nostalgia factor is real with this book. However, it isn't saturated with these moments nor does it feel like a big love letter to the decade or that it was written just for that factor. As a matter of fact this book could take place in any decade since the underlying tone is the endurance of Abby and Gretchen's friendship. It is a slow build to the realization that Gretchen is in fact possessed but after that the pace is steady with the demon in Gretchen doing all they can do to start chaos around them, while Abby is trying to convince the adults and other friends around her that something is very, very wrong. The story is basically her journey of trying to bring Gretchen back and save their friendship.

Fair warning this is a slow paced book with a gradual pay off, even more so than Horrorstoor, but I feel the pay off is worth it as it was with that book. It is not gruesome or overly gory and it is really a suspenseful read that I would recommend for any horror book or movie fans.

I read this book for a handful of reasons. One was because it had been on my TBR pile for a few years, after watching the Hallmark movie "Mystery Woman: Mystery Weekend" and realizing that it was inspired by this real world case. The other was that I was participating in the Book Riot's 2018 Read Harder Challenge and this fit the true crime aspect. However after reading this book I can say without a doubt that true crime is not my bag. The reason is because with regular murder or cozies, everything exists in the author's mind. Even if inspired by true events it is still fiction. True crime is true which means it really happened to someone and it is really hard to read that since reading for me is a form of escapism.

The murder and reason behind it is horrific enough. I do feel the author showed a good balance of giving enough information without being too graphic or putting unnecessary details for shock value with regards to the actual murder. There were some chapters that seemed unnecessary and put in just for filler such as the background and updates from the police officials and lawyers that were involved. I can understand having to read about Pauline and Juliet's upbringing to understand why there was such a dissociation with their parents (and by extension mothers) that they felt murder was okay but the background on the other people involved were completely unnecessary. It felt like it was put in to pad the pages count and make it longer than it needed to be.

The recap of the murder itself happened fairly early and then back tracked before going into the trial which I thought was well planned since most people who read true crime likely want the crime aspect introduced quickly. But there were still some fluff to the novel which made it a bit tedious to get through. After the initial telling of the murder it took awhile to get to the trial and see what happened. After that it seemed things were rushed through to get to get when they were released and what happened after that, leading up to the release of the movie "Heavenly Creatures" and the unveiling of author Anne Perry as a murderess. Because quite frankly if that movie had not been released I doubt ant of this would have come to light.

For me the toughest thing to deal with was the lack of remorse or responsibility on behalf of the Juliet, who would became author Anne Perry. Her reasoning (as it were) that she gave for participating in the murder were lukewarm at best and she did not accept her part in the murder. She seemed content to blame it all on Pauline instead of admitting that yeah she was a bit messed up herself and by extension messed up royally. And that is putting it mildly. Murder is one of the things people have the hardest time forgiving but most people repent and honestly? She never did. Or at least it was not portrayed that way in the book. Because no matter the reasoning at the end of the day she along with Pauline killed a woman and took her before her time. And that is hard to process especially when someone has such a nonchalant attitude towards it. Pauline at least (who is now called Norah I believe) will not talk about it at all which to me seems to indicate some form of remorse but the harsh acceptance that there is nothing she can do to change it. To pass the buck, as it were, seems a bit worse for me.

Again this is all taken with a grain of salt since true crime is not a genre I normally read, but this was an unsettling book for me. I doubt I will read any other true crime since this book left me feeling that way and that there was no resolution for this because at the end of the day no one learned anything or grew from this. And a woman was dead leaving a man without his wife and children without their mother.

This is the second book in the author’s Red, White, and Blue Wedding series, following Red Like Crimson and before Out of the Blue. It was a cute light read even though the synopsis was way off about how big of an issue Bree’s aversion to football was. The romance took a backseat to this as majority of the novel dealt with Bree and her grandma getting over familial hurts and learning to forgive others and themselves for past misdeeds. There were a few hokey moments such as the grandma sending Bree over there under false pretenses hoping it would be a love at first sight situation but those were easy to overlook.

I enjoyed this story more than the previous one even though the relationship in this one wasn’t as developed as in the first book. Although to be fair that is because they had a history together. Neither was the resolution that was said to have happened between Bree and her dad and there were lots of threads that were left dangling with no resolution or hope for it, since the characters in these three books do not appear to be connected in any way. I wish the author had either shown a resolution for those plot points or never introduced them at all since it seemed to serve no purpose but to add to the word count. Overall one of Thompson’s better works but still not as enjoyable as others I have read by her. A good choice for a quiet afternoon with coffee or tea and all you want is a quick clean romantic read.

Overwall I enjoyed this book, but it is not my favorite Amish story that I have read thus for. I knew it was a serial and that the stories would be told in snippets, much like serials in magazines. But there were a lot of inconsistencies in the story; not with the story itself but the characters and their personalities. It seemed like it changed from episode to episode. The one who remained the most consistent was Granny and even then there were a few moments where she acted in a way that was a complete 180 than what we expected. I also didn't like the initial introduction of Luke as I felt it was too cliched. He too had a 180 done on him as he was painted a villiain only to have a backstory that was more "developed" later. There were also a few other incidents where in the span of a few pages, Lizzie, went back and forth between Roman and Amos as romantic interests and seemed very fickle although there was a good reason for that. And with it being in episodes there wasn't enough time to really develop any of the stories fully without feeling like things were fully fleshed out.

Overall a decent book but not one I would read again nor am I interested in finishing the series. I do like how the threads that were introduced in this set of stories were resolved and there were no huge cliffhangers which is nice since I really dislike that in a book. So that was nice to have a resolution to this chapter in all these women's lives.

I kept hearing about this book over all of my podcasts and at first I was resistant, but then it kept coming up so I decided to give it a read. And I'm very glad I did. This is a good collection of stories from some of the more well known writers of YA today and their take on the idea of love at first sight. All of these were very sweet stories even the ones that were tinged with tragedy. They all did a good job of describing the various ways new and young love can bloom and how normal situations and set-ups can have unexpected results.

Originally I was going to give this four stars because I didn't love all the stories but when I looked back over the titles I realized it was only one that I had lukewarm feelings for. And even that one was enjoyable I just didn't enjoy it as much as I did the others . What I also love about these short stories collections is it gives you an idea of an author's writing style; so if you've been hesitant about picking up a specific author's work and you enjoy their short story, chances are you would enjoy a novel by them. I would definitely recommend this collection to any YA and romance lover.

I enjoyed this particular collection of short love stories, as I did with all the other anthologies where Julia Quinn is involved. I don't believe I have read anything else by the other authors but after reading this I wouldn't be opposed to it. The framework of the stories aligning up with each line in the nursery rhyme was an interestng choice as well, and I didn't even notice this until a character in Guhrke's story pointed it out.

Overall I thought the stories were well paced and did a fine balance of getting enough of a plot to give a full story in a shorter form. My only real feedback is with Guhrke's story, while enjoyable, seemed too ambitious for a shorty story/novella. Something like that would have been fantastic in a longer format since the ending of the story was a bit antic-climatic, rushed, and borderline unbelievable that they would have resolved their issues like that. It all still came together and I still liked it but the ending left me wanting more of a resolution than was given.

I also enjoyed how long standing the friendship between the four women were since there are not a lot that stand up to that test of time. While small that part set well with me as well since, rather than it being a collection of stories that were connected through a family member or event, it was a collection of stories connected by their friendship and a vow they made involving an older sixpence. Would recommend.