Blue eyed men also scare the living shit out of me.

At the start of this I really thought I would be giving this at least a 3 and then at the first twist I was like .... okay maybe a 2.75 and then at the second twist I was like ......... okay so a 1 got it and then finally at the very last twist I had such a good laugh at the ridiculousness it went up to 1.5. While it feels like these thriller authors just set out to write something along the lines of "watch all these different storylines line up perfectly at the end" I gotta give it to them that they manage to actually do it (do it well? now that's the real question). I think Steve Cavanagh has fun, easy writing to follow and for the most part the story kept a decent pacing. The characters were all one dimensional and some of the statistics regarding criminal reoffending were wonky. Overall this is just a typical thriller that left me wondering why they even bother putting cops in these stories cause they never do anything.

I really wanted to like this so I'm sad to be putting it down. I think Holly Wilson presents a unique writing style and in a way does a good job of describing the inner workings of an annoying child lmao. The writing becomes a chore to read after a while though and unfortunately I found myself putting this down every 3 mins and just overall wanting the story to be over. I never found myself coming around to any of the characters and the vibes alone were not enough to carry me through. I wasn't the biggest fan of the magical elements in this and I think I might have enjoyed it more had it stayed more realistic, but I can see how that plays into this being told from a child. I might want to revisit this in a few years, we'll see. 

Reading this I sort of felt like Scott Pilgrim while he's reading that email and he's like "... blah blah blah ... this is .. this is ... bORINNNNNNG!"

I felt Sash Bischoff shows great promise, her writing is good if not slightly too detailed. But man the more I read from this book that more I looked at the pile of other library books awaiting me and I just had to give up. This is sold as some "feminist" retelling of some Fitzgerald book I never read, but man are the female characters in this so ... stereotypical? I don't know everyone felt like a caricature and it didn't help I finished The Silent Patient not so long ago (very similar vibe here but this book is written better lmao). I am still interested in seeing what Bischoff does next. Maybe I'll revisit this some other time (probably not).

This book starts out really fun and captivating. The writing reads like being inside the main character's head and it's easy to follow. There are random bits of information woven into the story that overall fits the vibe of him being a fact checker. I think Austin Kelley did a good job of setting up an interesting premise and, despite the Sylvia being a "manic pixie dream girl" type, I wanted to keep reading. However as soon as Sylvia disappears the story just falls apart. There's so much running around and yet no questions are ever answered and it really makes you question how this guy has kept his job as a fact checker for as long as he has. After a while the random bits of information also start to get annoying and I was left wishing the story would have gone in a different direction. Things wrap up in the last 50ish pages and it just all felt like a last minute attempt to tidy everything up.

There's also a weird unnecessary scene involving a lamb in the middle of this book that I just fail to see what it added at all to this story? I think the charm of this book wore off 50% in and it was hard to gain back. Overall sadly disappointed but happy it didn't take long to read.

I decided to reread this after reading it initially to really form my thoughts around this. I would like to start off by saying, after reading some reviews, the people complaining that there's sexual content in this book .... be so for real right now ...

Okay even though this is very short it manages to convey the importance of giving disabled people a voice. I felt this did a great job of dispelling the myth that disabled people cannot be sexual beings; that they don't have similar wishes and desires simply because the populace finds it easier to ignore them. Also just the very small things that are taken for granted by able bodied people like being able to read a physically book comfortably. I just wish that this was actually longer and that we had gotten to know Shaka much better. I felt she had a really interesting voice and reading her erotica was really interesting. This is not rated higher also because I do feel like somethings still went over my head and I would really like to revisit this book later maybe towards the end of the year.

After sitting with story for a while, I can look back and say that I did thoroughly enjoy this. The writing feels almost dream-like in my memories. I had to try on two separate occasions to start this book before the writing style finally made sense to me and I'm happy that I continued trying. I think the overall premise and execution was unique. There's enough tension throughout that kept me wanting to really figure out what was really going on with it all. The reason I'm not rating this higher is because after some time away none of these characters even stand out to me in my memory. They didn't feel particularly memorable while reading either. This definitely felt more like a plot driven book (not a bad thing) despite some of the more important topics being discussed. Also I'm sorry but that ending was not my favorite. It felt as if it all happened at once and, though it makes sense in the context of everything that happened, I wish they had chosen a different way of ending it all. 

I am definitely interested in diving deeper into Solomon's writing.

I will say that I read this during a moment where I was falling into a reading slump. It was a quick read and I overall had a fun time laughing at some of the more ridiculous things that the main character chose to do. I had to sit with this a little because I was curious if my initial feelings were going to stick around. Overall I think Tasha Coryell has a fun writing style and despite disliking basically everyone in this book I still wanted to keep reading until the end. It was predictable, but that's not always a bad thing. I think it could have said much more about the way that true crime obsession warps the minds of the people who partake in the content 24/7. It also could have taken a more meta approach to the overall topic, but that's just me being picky at this point. I did like the satirical elements of the cognitive dissonance that some of these people can display when attempting to justify their actions. That ending was audacious, though I did laugh out loud at how over the top it was. 

I think if read through a "okay .. weirdos ... lmao" lens this can be a decently fun book. I'm really excited for Coryell's next book though!

I actually had a lot of fun with this and I was pleasantly surprised by the horror movie like scenes in the second part of this book. A quick, but interesting take on the reality tv show set up that's equally funny and makes some decent points. It doesn't get overly deep though, some pretty surface level discussion if you want to call it that. I liked that we jumped right in towards the end of the season and we are given some information through reddit-like threads. I do wish that Samantha Allen had leaned more into the mixed media aspect of this because there were some fun moments happening the discussion threads between what appeared to be frequent commenters. The characters were okay, not anything memorable, and the unlikable characters were fun to hate. Not the biggest fan of the epilogue, but it did overall tidied up the story nicely. 

Definitely a fun book to recommend to someone who might be in a reading slump.

This was my fault for not fully understanding what the book was really going to be about. Initially picking this up I thought it would follow the personal lives of the characters and how it impacted the way they play throughout the Yugoslav Wars. However, this was more so a retelling of the stories they came up with for their barbies with some of the real world bleeding through. I did enjoy feeling nostalgic about playing with barbies as a kid and just how your imagination is truly the limit. I can also see how barbies are a stand in for the Western World bleeding into Croatia during this time and the role the main, charismatic, knock-off doll Dr. Kajifeš plays. I overall did like the concept, but towards the end the stories did start to get a bit tedious to get through. Luckily this is a fairly short book and I think many other people may be able to connect with this story much better than I could. 

My first ARC, how exciting! Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher 😁

I was really excited about this, I liked the overall premise and that it was a novella. I think the whole mirror people concept is cool and the exploration of the self-hatred that the main character faces. Also the descriptions of the aliens and the more gorey moments were really fun. However, I did feel like this book suffered from being a novella. Too much information was given and the pacing was too fast for anything to really have an impact. It also felt like a lot of the same information kept getting stated as a way to move the story forward, but the book is tiny so it's not like any of the information was being forgotten. 

I guess Drew Huff has another book with a similar concept of alien taking the form of humans, but I don't think I'll be picking it up.