valzsc's Reviews (93)

Picked this one up after reading a few other novels from Hendrix, I always found them to be easy and fast reads because they keep me on my toes wondering what is going to happen next. This one didn’t disappoint.

It’s a story about friendship, and the awkwardness of growing up when you are dorky like I was 🤭 I connected with Abby a lot and felt her pain and struggles so it made me engage a lot more while reading it.

If I had the time, I would’ve read this all at once because the story picks up quite fast and it is quite a fun story. I would’ve wanted it to be a bit more scary (this is the reason I didn’t give it 5 stars) I think the writer held himself back a little as there where a ton of opportunities to make it darker.

If you into 80’s nostalgia stuff, as I am, you are going to love this one👏🏻

I read this book with 0 understanding of it using material from Pride and Prejudice bc I certainly don’t read the reviews or the synopsis of books 👀 It was fun at times and I really enjoyed the end and the plot twist of it all. And Mr Darcy is just irresistible in any type of literature written about him and that’s all I have to say.

This is one of those books I couldn’t stop thinking about when I wasn’t actively reading it. It’s full of mystery and darkness, two characteristics I constantly look for when choosing what to read next. But is also about trauma, individual and collective. For a young adult novel, there’s a very dark chapter near the end that I wasn’t expecting. Although I think it could’ve gone further. 

For me it was a fast paced slow burner. Some things I saw coming, like Emmy being Foster’s daughter and not Lev’s. His darkness and abuse, were there all the time, underneath the love bombing, doing God’s work and bringing people back from the death, allegedly… I could see where he was going, you know?

The chapter that had Lo being tortured and burned was hard to read, the way it’s written… I felt my stomach twisting and kept saying “no, no, no” out loud. Thinking that’s something Bea, Rob, Jeremy and others went through is heartbreaking. But that’s the reality in a lot of cults and shady religious groups. They break you and isolate you so they have this power over you, and then abuse you without worry of repercussions. 

What a nice book, I have to say.

Oh gosh, where to start? I am pissed off...

I was very excited when I picked this up but it ended up taking me almost 2 weeks to read this 355 pages book. As it is written in a memoir style and we are relying on the protagonist as a narrator, I never trusted her. She rambles again and again, losing the point and the plot in the meantime. Long descriptions and rants about everyone around her that she seemed to hate. There's no one thing that she likes or enjoy more than actually killing these people. She hates on women, men, rich or poor, fat people, the mentally ill, the healthy, and herself.

It wants to be super clever and snappy but ends up being just tiring. And ending everything with this little scheme her half brother put up for her, and him being Simon's killer... Feels anti-cathartic. Overall, every single character is unlikeable, I think the only one I felt sorry for was Andrew as I thought his murder was very cruel. 

I'm giving it 3 stars because I was able to finish it, and although the final letter she gets made me engage a little, I can't help but feel that overall it was too long.

Removing this one as I don’t intent to finish it anytime soon.

I didn’t expect to love this book as much as I did. The character development, the gore and nasty scenes, the tension and scares. It reveals itself greatly. Idk if I wasn’t paying enough attention or if the twists and turns were as unexpected as I felt them. I would read this again and again and again ❤️