This was a STRONG book and a very good setup for a sequel. While I don't think the romance was necessarily slow burn the way I've seen it described, iThis was a STRONG book and a very good setup for a sequel. While I don't think the romance was necessarily slow burn the way I've seen it described, it was beautiful and I loved the way they learned to lean on each other for support. I wish Roman's POV was more of the book because he was a gorgeously written character. The relationships Iris developed with the rest of the characters were so stunningly portrayed. The cliffhanger had me feeling physical rage and that's honestly a good thing, but now I'm upset that I can't immediately read book 2. The plot picked up pace a LOT once Roman showed up in part 2, but I think the pacing was really well done and very engaging.
Notes:
-Listen, I love it when characters in an enemies-to-lovers refer to each other by name in a conversation, but this was too much. Realistically, if you're having a conversation with someone, you don't use their name in every single sentence. It wasn't even just between Roman and Iris, they all did it all the time. Also, what was the obsession with last names? At the Gazette, they all said each other's last names when they were talking to each other, and they did it so much that it honestly bothered me a lot. There was no reason for her to be calling him Kitt every five seconds. Also, why does she exclusively refer to him as Kitt?
I wish the world was more expanded. This was a pretty short book so there wasn't a whole lot of room to add worldbuilding, but I had barely any sense of the landscape, the magic system, really anything besides the couple of letters about the gods. Hopefully there's more expansion of the setting in book 2....more
I considered writing a nice respectful review but honestly this book was just too bad for me to be nice. I don’t know where all the good reviews are cI considered writing a nice respectful review but honestly this book was just too bad for me to be nice. I don’t know where all the good reviews are coming from because this was honestly the worst book I’ve read all year. Every character was so laughably one dimensional, ESPECIALLY Finn. and who is still calling him Finny?? i cringed every time she said it on the page. I’m pretty sure there were roughly 4 lines of dialogue through the whole book, which was just painful. Autumn was like a manic pixie dream girl without the manic, because she’s ✨depressed�. I’m not even going to touch on how much the author romanticized depression because I might get so enraged that I foam at the mouth like a wild animal. We were supposed to think Autumn is weird, and for what? Because she wears tiaras? (Honestly that was really weird but not even in an interesting way, she just seemed like a toddler.) The way she sat and stewed internally about Sylvie every time she saw her wasn’t even romantic, it was just creepy and gross. Unless I missed something, Sylvie never did anything wrong, but Autumn acted like she went around kicking puppies. Every word of the prose was so pretentious it made me want to gag, and the ending (the one that supposedly “destroyed� everyone emotionally) was just rushed and jumbled together. We spent PAGES talking about Autumn and Sasha’s stupid “battle� over Jamie but summed up a whole death, suicide attempt, and pregnancy in less than 6 pages?? It’s like the author was running close to a deadline and had to finish the book so quick that she forgot to actually write more than a single sentence to explain the ending. The only tears I cried over this book were tears of regret for the money I wasted buying it. If I could give it zero stars, I would. ...more
I read Never Lie before this one and absolutely HATED it so I wasn't super excited going into this book. However, I was very pleasantly surprised by hI read Never Lie before this one and absolutely HATED it so I wasn't super excited going into this book. However, I was very pleasantly surprised by how much better this book was, and how much more sense the plot twist made. I will say, I read both of them via audiobook and I really don't like the reading style of the narrator, so if you're picky about your audiobook narrators then you've been warned. ...more
i wanted to be nice and give this book 2 stars but the more i think about it the more angry i am. this book gets SO much hype and this author is like i wanted to be nice and give this book 2 stars but the more i think about it the more angry i am. this book gets SO much hype and this author is like the queen of thrillers currently. I had super high expectations and just liked absolutely nothing.
WARNING: SO MANY SPOILERS
The Ethan/EJ red herring: the similarities drawn between them were RIDICULOUS. it was like the author was putting up neon signs pointing at Ethan to say “LOOK ITS EJ� and the fact that nothing came of it feels like a cheap misdirection. They’re both into wines, he happens to pick the wine that EJ brought to the house, they’re blonde and short, they’re charming, they both have rich parents, Ethan’s parents died in an “accident�. Honestly Ethan also sounded like a giant walking red flag and Tricia literally pointed out multiple times that all her friends said he has red flags but we’re just supposed to see them live happily ever after and be okay with it??
The Blackmail: yes, slashing someone’s tire is bad and illegal and she would’ve been punished for it. But blackmailing someone and forcing them to give you narcotics prescriptions AND eventually trying to sexually extort them is a much worse crime. Since she was secretly recording all her sessions (we’ll get to how i feel about that in a second) she would have ample evidence of the blackmail between that and the messages he sent her. If she had saved the pictures he took of her to her own phone she could’ve gone to the police and proved that he was stalking, blackmailing, and harassing her. She was a giant celebrity so she would’ve gotten off easy with her crime. There is no world in which that needed to escalate the way it did. one slashed tire is not going to ruin your career when you’re that rich and famous.
Does Freida know what a therapist does? I’m no psychotherapist but even I could tell that the ethics and practices in this woman’s career were AWFUL. I saw a review mention that the reason therapists have to have physical case notes is so they can use them to bill insurance companies so that creates a giant logical hole. She speaks to her patients in such a weird way, especially the woman with schizophrenia. She spends the whole session telling her how she’s wrong and delusional, which is so unproductive. The thing that bothered me the most is how she spoke to a client IN PUBLIC and introduced her to Luke, which is the hugest breach of confidentiality and absolutely would never happen in real life.
What’s wrong with Adrienne Hale i genuinely thought the twist was gonna be that Adrienne was still alive and that she would have some terrifying disorder and be the villain all along because this woman genuinely made no sense. She claims to be a genius amazing flawless psychiatrist but talks and acts like it’s her first day on the job. She’s rude to Gloria the receptionist for literally no reason, and she was never even slightly convincing in her feelings for Luke. she never acted like she cared about him in the slightest. also, slashing someones tires for stealing your parking spot? girl i know it’s annoying but we went immediately from Minor Inconvenience to Committing a Crime. she tried to defend herself but there was genuinely no excuse. overall it just seemed like she genuinely had no empathy or compassion for anyone in her life. also, if she suspected that tricia killed her friends, why would she just not do anything about it? she’s sitting in a room with a woman who has committed three murders and never once does she think “hmm i should talk to the police about that�
Police Incompetence: speaking of the police, did they just never investigate anything ever? EJ and Ethan both murdered their parents and were subjected to absolutely no scrutiny or suspicion at any time. Tricia turns up at a hospital covered in the blood of her friends and no one bats an eye or suspects her for an instant. Dr. Hale disappears, but the police never search her home thoroughly enough to discover a secret room of cassette tapes (a whole ROOM) or a trapdoor under a couch? it wasn’t even hidden that well, you would literally just have to move the couch over. Given the stakes of the case, you would think they could take the time to slide the couch a few feet to the left and notice a trapdoor with a rotting corpse hidden in the floor. with this many people being murdered, it doesn’t make sense that the police would just be on their merry way not investigating any highly suspicious deaths.
the writing: Someone PLEASE buy Freida McFadden a thesaurus. there would be pages where the same description would be used like 5 times and it was exhausting. Any thoughts Tricia had about her husband were written like a Wattpad story. If i had to see her think � *swoon* I have the best hottest husband in the world� one more time I was going to set the book on fire. She would bring up the same things over and over like she thought we forgot she was pregnant with Ethan’s baby. Thanks Tricia, I hadn’t remembered since you told us 3 pages ago. I think she mentioned Dr. Jake’s green eyes at least 20 times, which was roughly 19 times too many. The writing didn’t feel polished at all, the dialogue was awkward and SUPER corny. Given the reviews I’ve seen for this author and this book in particular, I wasn’t expecting such juvenile writing
Plot Twists and Unreliable Narrators: there’s a difference between a plot twist that is surprising because it was well written and a plot twist that was surprising because it genuinely doesn’t make sense with the story. I guess she tried so hard to confuse the reader that she also confused herself and just wrote a twist that makes no sense with everything leading up to that point. Also, it seems that a lot of thriller writers need to sit down and discuss what an unreliable narrator is. I have seen plenty of unreliable narrators done well, but Tricia just straight up turned into a different person after the plot twist. It was ridiculous and felt cheap and unbelievable and it didn’t make sense with anything we had learned about her up to that point. it would have worked better from third person, but in first person it left me feeling extremely unsatisfied.
The ENDING????? I love a book where we see the bad guy get away with something, or where justice isn’t completely served. But I cannot stand this ending. Everyone is a murderer, no one gets caught, and then I’m just supposed to be happy that they had a baby and are living there happily ever after as murderers. I already hated every character in the book, but it would’ve been nice to have an ending that didn’t feel like such a cop out.
overall, the only thing i liked was how quickly it was over. the audiobook was 7 hours so at least my suffering ended quickly. I don’t get how this has such rave reviews because everything about it was so infuriating. ...more
**spoiler alert** I finished this book in a single sitting. I have rarely read a book so good I legitimately couldn’t put it down and this was one of **spoiler alert** I finished this book in a single sitting. I have rarely read a book so good I legitimately couldn’t put it down and this was one of them. The suspense was so well written and I was feeling genuine fear throughout the whole book! Might not have been the best book to read alone at midnight but once I started it I couldn’t stop.
The characters were sort of 50/50 for me, some of them seem a lot more developed than others. (From the bottom of my heart, screw Oliver) Overall I loved the character dynamic and it was nice to see their personalities come out in different ways as a response to the situation. Maddy and Simon just felt a little one dimensional but oh my goodness I LOVED reading Oliver and Red.
I so so appreciated the way Red was written. Though it was never explicitly said, her behavior and thoughts seemed to imply some sort of autism spectrum disorder or ADHD (this is my unprofessional opinion don’t come after me, it’s just what I think based on the information provided) and I really loved seeing how those traits were a help and a hindrance to her.
This setting SLAYED. 31 feet of space but still Holly Jackson managed to cram in a page-turning, terrifying plot. At the part where they were hearing the walkie talkie outside the RV and the voice telling them to “come find me� I was genuinely afraid and on the edge of my seat. And just when I thought I knew what was going on, I got hit by perfect plot twist after perfect plot twist. The way everything was woven together absolutely stunned me and I was NOT expecting Catherine to be involved, let alone be the one who killed Red’s mother!!!!!!
I really don’t have enough good things to say about this book. I could write whole novels about why this was amazing and gripping and made me cry at 1 AM. Absolutely one of the best suspense novels I’ve ever read, from one of my favorite authors!!...more
I didn’t expect to love this book as much as I did. I’ve read a few mysteries centered around prep schools, but I never liked them all that much. I enI didn’t expect to love this book as much as I did. I’ve read a few mysteries centered around prep schools, but I never liked them all that much. I ended up loving this book so so much and found it so fascinating that I ended up reading until 1 AM because I couldn’t put it down. Some of the characters fell a little flat for me, but overall I loved the way the plot was set up, and the pacing of the mystery was perfect. I was hooked the whole time and was on the edge of my seat during the ending. Greyson has a special place in my heart, and I think that this book was quite well-done. Great summer read!...more
This concept was extremely intriguing, and I was very interested throughout the plot. However, there were some things I just couldn't quite g3.5 Stars
This concept was extremely intriguing, and I was very interested throughout the plot. However, there were some things I just couldn't quite get over.
Like Paige. Yes, Flora kissed your boyfriend. Yes, that is a terrible thing to do and it's perfectly reasonable to be upset. But Paige knew that Flora was extremely incapable of taking care of herself. She knew that Flora was risk-prone on her own, and still left her home alone for days. No matter how angry she was, she had been trusted to take care of Flora and neglected that completely.
Also, Flora's parents. I understand that they were meant to be the antagonists, but I just hated them from the beginning. I was glad they turned out to be horrible people because then I felt justified in despising them.
Finally, Flora. She just felt flat as a character. If I was halfway through the book and you asked me to describe Flora, all I would be able to say is that she has amnesia and she's in love with Drake (who turned out to be the scumbag to end all scumbags). She had no dimension, at least not to me. Her whole life seemed wrapped up in Drake. She didn't have a personality beyond her fake boyfriend and her amnesia. I was interested in the plot because it was well-written, but I didn't have much of an interest in Flora herself....more
I loved this book. I stayed up an hour past my bedtime to finish this book. I read this book at school and got in trouble with my stats teacher becausI loved this book. I stayed up an hour past my bedtime to finish this book. I read this book at school and got in trouble with my stats teacher because I could not put it down. Jack was such a vivid, realistic narrator. I loved that all the characters were so vibrant and three-dimensional but so real. Kate and Jack and Franny and Jillian all had flaws and struggles. They were just so human, and I was rooting for them from page 1. I cried at the end, and I can already tell this is a book I'll be coming back to again and again....more
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