Jesus Christ what the fuck did I just read. I don’t even know what to say other than I couldn’t put it down and it felt so fucking viscerally unsettling but not in a I’m gonna dnf sort of way.

physical manifestations of grief

have apparently been a common theme in the books I’m reading lately but this was so well done and I had no clue where the story was headed by the end. Insane work by C. G. Drews 

In all honesty I don’t usually like cozy reads and I’ve been pushing this book further down my tbr bc it’s so highly recommended but I’m actually really glad that it was chosen for my book club. I devoured it in one sitting. The humor was impeccable and the romance didn’t feel forced or too quick, I love a found family and the ending was super satisfying. I’m not sure if it changed my mind about cozy reads but it’s a treasure to have read. 

Edit: I came back to this after sitting on it for a while and multiple things occurred to me. All three of the children of color were raised by white people and had all of their cultures stripped from them, down to their very names. Also, the idea that Jaime would be over decades of trauma by his family after an hour of seeing them was absurd.

The ending felt a bit rushed but this was such an enjoyable and quick read and it felt really satisfying the whole way through 

This felt very rushed by the end and overall, felt like there was no suspense built up and the characters weren’t used properly. Also the number of times “said” was used pissed me off. At least the ending was unexpected

, I thought the son was still alive so there was that

This was a quick and enjoyable read, the only downside to me was that it was extremely fast paced and it didn’t feel like everything got as fleshed out as I wanted

This was very mind-fucky and I’m not quite sure how to feel about it. A lot of the prose felt repetitive and I couldn’t fully immerse myself in it, I kept pausing and scrolling away and then coming back to it. The premise was interesting and I like the mixed media. The screenplay in the book felt more like horror than the book did itself