NetGalley ARC | Twenty-Seven Minutes

I received a free digital ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Rating | ⭐

Ugh.

Phoebe Dean was killed in a car accident ten years ago. In those ten years, the small town where she grew up has been trying to understand why her brother, Grant, waited twenty-seven minutes before calling for help after the accident. Had he not waited so long, Phoebe might have been saved.

Phoebe's memorial is just days away and everyone is on edge. Gossip abounds as all the regrets, grief, and delusion collide. The four who really know what happened that night are pulled deeper into the storm because someone knows the truth and is ready to spill the details.

Unfortunately, I can't give a spoiler warning, because I don't know what happened. I made it 54% and could no longer suffer through the nonsense of this ridiculously boring book. I would not typically rate and review a book I did not finish, but given that I made it over halfway with this, I am going to.

In that entire 54%, nothing happened. There was all this talk about secrets, but the characters were all so uninteresting and caricature-ish that I truly did not care what those secrets were. I don't mind multiple points of view - if they're done well. The problem here is that all four lacked distinct voices.

From what we see of Phoebe, she was an absolute fucking psycho about her brother. Becca is also mentally ill, but in a different way. I didn't care why Wyatt is sick. I didn't care that June is doing whatever she is doing. Grant has given up on life.

By 54%, nothing had happened. All the talk of 'secrets' was basically summed up as, "We will never know what happened", despite the fact that Grant knew. No real plot, and no clues to even guide the reader. It felt like we were just supposed to wait until the end for the reveal, and enjoy the absolute nothingness along the way. Lack of strong characters could have at least kept me going but no, we don't even get that.

In the Goodreads summary this is billed as "Perfect for fans of Jane Harper" and that is an insanely massive insult to Harper. Her books are brilliant, masterfully told stories that keep me hooked from the start. Nothing of that kind even came close to happening in this book.

Not recommended.

NetGalley ARC | The Rosewood Hunt

I received a free digital ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Rating | ⭐

The quick version:

A terrible rip-off of the Inheritance Games, which did this same thing but MUCH better. Don't get me wrong, there can be multiple books with this kind of plot, but it doesn't mean that all of those books will be written well.

This one definitely is NOT.

Slightly longer version because I have too many reviews to write to waste time:

Lily Rosewood is going to take over the family business one day. She's also been supported by her grandmother in this endeavor, basically groomed to head the company when she is of age to do so. Unfortunately Gram dies suddenly and chaos ensues when it is discovered that Gram's fortune is missing.

Lily and three seemingly-random other teenagers are thrown together for a treasure hunt to find the mising money, but it becomes apparent very quickly that someone is also searching for it. More chaos ensues.

Lily is awful. She feels so betrayed by Gram, who had the nerve to will her money however she wished, and it's a big boo-hoo fest. She's such a baby and brat and not at all unlikable in a likable way.

Not recommended.

NetGalley ARC | The Blackhouse

I received a free digital ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for and honest review.

Rating | ⭐

This was a pretty solid four stars for me for the majority of the book. Even with the weird reincarnation angle. It was atmospheric and at times suffocating, but in the right way because the setting was as much a character as anyone in the story. I had ideas where the ending might lead, but wasn't especially committed to any one scenario.

But then came the final reveal. Yuck.

Everyone is lying about everything.

The guy who died is eincarnated into the woman who is then in love with...the guy's son. Like, I love yous and forevers and everything.

Are we all just ignoring that? The major yuck factor? For real?

But it's fine because at the end of the story the main character decides she's none of the things that have been proclaimed throughout the entire story.

What a waste.

Definitely NOT recommended.

Publisher Gift via NetGalley | Whack Job

I received a free digital ARC from the pubisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Rating | ⭐⭐...barely. EDIT: ⭐ only

This is not a history of axe murder. How can you write a book about axe murder and not write about any axe murders as we traditionally think of them - with the exception of Lizzie Borden? Where was the Axeman of New Orleans? Or Villisca? And to top it off, Lizzie doesn't even show up until chapter nine. NINE! Out of something like twelve chapters, hers and the chapter on the murders at Taliesin are the only ones that are actually axe murders.

Instead we also get stories of a possible 'first axe murder' half a million years ago, we look at the axe as it was used in war, and then take a look at Henry VIII and his love of chopping off heads of people who looked at him sideways.

Had I realized the author is the same one who wrote so flippantly with her father about axe murder victims in the book The Man from the Train, I would not have bothered with this one. Her casual approach to some of the deaths was honestly offensive. She's at times dismissive and bordering on straight disrespectful. I assume her aim was cheeky or funny, but she is neither. I hope she stops writing about this topic.

I honestly got more annoyed by this book as I wrote up the review and am knocking it down to one star.

To sum it up, this is a history of the the axe as a tool to build and how it was also used as a tool of death. But it is definitely NOT about axe murders.

Not recommended.

NetGalley ARC | Parents Weekend

I received a free digital ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Rating | ⭐

I freaking LOVED If Something Happens to Me and The Night Shift. Five and four star reads, easy.

I wasn't totally sold on the premise, to be honest. But given my enjoyment of the previous two novels I read, I went for it anyway.

Should have listened to my gut.

Five families are in town to celebrate the end of the first year of college for their children at a small private school in northern California.

The first event of the evening starts with dinner and cocktails for the families, but five students all from the same dorm never show up. My first issue came right away with this - everyone just kidn of shrugs it off as, "Oh, they're just being kids, went off to party, blah blah,"

...like, what?

Your family travels all this way to see you and celebrate with you, and you have a track record that would make it make sense to them that you just didn't show? Okay...

Anyway, the hours fly by and none of the missing students have contacted their parents. Everyone panics, the campus police call in help, they get search parties going and reporters pop up quick.

Armchair sleuths are quick to compile theories and share them widely. Do their disappearances have to do with their parents, or something the students have done themselves?

I could not have cared less.

Not one single character had a unique voice. I didn't care what happened to any of them, because we didn't get to know the kids. They were just kind of there, but not, since they'd been kidnapped and were absent for much of the book.

The single biggest problem with this book, that then causes all the other problems, is because there were too many characters. You've got five kidnapped kids, which equals five sets of parents, though some were divorced or single parents. Way too many points of view.

TOO MANY CHARACTERS. TOO MANY TOO MANY TOO MANY.

With that many people milling around, you don't get to know any of them. I don't typically demand to know characters of thrillers and mysteries inside-out, but I would like to know enough about them to at least care somewhat about their survival, when warrented.

Given the fact that we don't get to know the kids very well, it's was extremely hard for me to remember which kid belong to which parent(s). And honestly, it didn't really make a difference because the story could have easily taken place with fewer kids/parents and still been the same. Excet maybe then I would have been more invested because I would have actually been able to keep straight who was with who.

The pacing was fast, but not the way it was probably intended. Instead of creating the tension and making readers feel like it was a race against time to save these kids, it was more like the faster we go, the fewer plot holes able to be pondered because you're already on to the next event.

So there's chaos because the kids are missing, chaos because there's too many characters, chaos because nothing is making any kind of sense.

I also found the reference to the brutal murders of the four Idaho students gross and unnecessary. And Calling the missing kids 'The Five' was weird, like trying to link them to the 'Idaho Four'.

Absolutely not recommended.

Book Review | Room for Rent

Rating | ⭐

Poor girl who can't afford to live anywhere else because she's poor and her parents suck moves into creepy gross rental with a creepy gross roommate.

Gross roommate remains gross.

Girl magically meets boy who feeds her lots of food. They're both poor and starving. She's REALLY POOR, guys.

Plot continues predictably. Poor boy is not who he seems.

Everyone almost dies.

The end.

NetGalley ARC | The Eight King Henrys of England

I received a free digital ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Rating ⭐

So this review will actually be pretty brief because I will be honest that I did not finish the book.

Shocking, as it covers some of my most favorite time periods.

But a terrible slander occurred attempting to - either accidentally or on purpose - stain the reputation of my beloved Eleanor of Aquitaine. At best it was poor research; at worst it was lazy research. Neither of which I can abide.

I made it through the reign of Henry I, chugging along nicely. Then came the chapter I was most excited about, because Eleanor was sure to receive several mentions over the course of Henry II's reign.

Yet one of the very first appearances of Eleanor early on in Henry II's chapter mentions Eleanor on Crusade with her first husband, Louis VII. The author states, "Her alleged sexual relationship with her uncle, Raymond, Prince of Antioch, led to the end of her marriage."

Nope nope nope.

First, there's no actual evidence that she had an affair with Raymond. He was the only family she had left besides her sister, and they had not seen each other in several years. These rumors did not start until a couple decades later, likely because we do not know what actually happened that made Eleanor refuse to leave Antioch in the first place. Had the two really had an affair, it would have been an immediate scandal. They were far more closely related than Eleanor and Louis (third cousins, once removed). Some contemporary chroniclers were already hostile to Eleanor, even in her lifetime and more most certainly after her death. Despite my love for the Middle Ages, it - and the entirety of human history - reeks of misogyny, and almost all of the chroniclers were men. Women who did write mainly lived in convents and wrote of their religious experiences. Even Christine de Pizan came along a couple hundred years after Eleanor.

Secondly, even if she had had an affair with her uncle, that is not what ended her marriage to Louis VII. Eleanor did not want to leave Antioch. She wanted Louis to join forces with Raymond, but he refused. She was forced to go by Louis, with some accounts stating he forcibly put her on the boat himself. When they returned from Crusade, Eleanor wanted nothing to do with her husband. It certainly did not help that she learned her uncle had been captured and beheaded at the Battle of Inab. They were guests of Pope Eugenius III after a slog of a trip to get back home.There had already been talk of getting the marriage annulled prior to this, and it was brought up once again. The Pope refused the request and at one point threatened excommunication if they did not attempt to work things out. He insisted they sleep together while there and of course Eleanor ended up pregnant again. She gave birth to their second daughter in 1150, and two years later was finally able to shake herself free from the marriage.

If you do not write accurately about someone I know so much about, how am I to know if you are writing accurately about others I know less about? It is hard to trust someone's words when events are massively misconstrued and no context or detail is given.

So is this continuing in the vein of those chroniclers from hundreds of years ago, or just lack of interest in further research? Yes, the book is about the eight Henrys, but Eleanor of Aquitaine was no small player in history.

Either way, not interested in anything else this book has to say.

NetGalley ARC | The Hitler I Knew: The Memoirs of the Third Reich's Press Chief

I received a free digital ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Rating | ⭐

This is a biography of Hitler written by his press chief Otto Dietrich, who served Hitler from 1933 to 1945, while he was in prison after the war. He believed Hitler was what Germany needed to pull them out of the misery following WWI and it was clear despite claiming he was 'disillusioned', that he STILL thought of Hitler as a great man when all was said and done.

Hitler is not one of those people that gets to be other-sided. There is no other side for him. Whatever positives there might have one been about him are throroughly and irrevocably negated by the fact that he ordered the extermination of an entire group of people, a mass genocide of millions. The author clearly admired Hitler still, and barely mentioned anything related to the wholesale slaughter of men, women, and children.

The author also references quite often the demonic spirit or demonic personality that Hitler displayed. Absolutely not. There is no one and nothing to blame for the choices Hitler made, except Hitler himself. Referring to it as "demonic" attempts to absolve him of responsibility, gives it this air of something occult-ish or supernatural (something the Nazis loved and were obsessed with), and this can NEVER be allowed to happen for him or the minions who followed his orders. Here there is no way to separate the men and women from their actions and this can't be allowed to happen. They are all guilty. Yet Dietrich hardly mentions the mass murder, or camps, the ghettos and murder squads that came before the gas showers and crematoriums.

Dietrich claims to have just accepted what was told to him and chose to stay on as Hitler's press chief for the entirety of the war. There is no way he didn't know what was happening, or going to happen, as the Final Solution was developed and put into action. Yet his silence on this aspect is deafening. There is zero accountability, which is unsurprising.

After Dietrich was found guilty in 1949 of crimes against humanity, he was sentenced to seven years in prison by the US Military Tribunal. it was determined at Nuremberg that under his direction, the German press was to "enrage Germans against Jews" in order to justify what was happening with the ever-increasing restrictions, and eventual imprisonment and murder. Unfortunately in 1950 Dietrich's sentences was communted ot time served and he was released. He should have died in prison and not with his freedom, as he did in 1952.

The fact that Dietrich chose to have this published only after his death also speaks volumes. Books like this can be dangerous because there can be no white-washing of the crimes committed against the Jewish population of Europe. These men and women were human and evil, and deserved to die for their crimes against humanity. Yet many "escaped" or were released from prison early. Both outcomes are unacceptable and I fully support the continued pursuit of any Nazis still alive today who have yet to answer for their crimes.

Despite the complete lack of accountability, I would still recommend this read for those with an interest in WWII and trying to understand how someone like Hitler was able to come to power and keep it for so long. When everyone around you is also evil, it is easy to be seen as 'normal'.

NetGalley ARC | Attached at the Hip

I received a free digital ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Rating ⭐

My initial thoughts that I posted on Goodreads as soon as I had finished the book:

"Ended up skimming the last 30%. This was atrocious and the main character was absolutely so stupid and insufferable. Review to come, maybe. Probably not because I don't want to think about this book anymore."

Yet, here I am. I feel like I have to say a little more at least, because it is an ARC.

So this was billed as Survivor meets The Bachelor. I don't care about either of those shows and have never seen an episode of The Bachelor. I have, however, seen the Rock of Love, Flavor of Love, etc. because I love trashy chaotic messes. I have not seen any episodes of Survivor since the earliest seasons, I think when that Richard Hatch guy played the game how it should be played and everyone got mad at him for doing that and...winning? Still, the premise seemed fun, so I went for it.

On a whim the main character, Orie, applies to be on Survivor. But instead of it being regular Survivor, she is on a dating edition of the show. Magically, her high school crush is also on the show. The teams compete in challenges while speed dating.

The single worst thing about this book is Orie. She is the most stupid, annoying, insufferable character I have ever suffered being inside the head of. The author tried super hard to make her a quirky weirdo who would somehow charm all her challenge partners. For example, her name is just not unique enough, so she wants to be called...Picadilly.

Orie is awful. She has zero social skills at all, and apparently the other characters just loved this about her. We see how rude and selfish she is from the start in her interactions with her sister Lark and it gets worse because of her aforementioned lack of social skills.

It's been a minute since I've read this book, but I usually have no problem remembering major plot points and events. I remember literally nothing from this book except how much I hated the main character.

NetGalley ARCs Double-Shot

      

I received both books as digital ARCs from their publishers via NetGalley in exchange for honest reviews.

Rating ⭐ all around. Oi.

This will be brief because both of these were so nonsensical that I can not spend more than a moment thinking about either one. I finished The Mystery Writer because it was just so absurd I had to make sure I wasn't dreaming the absurdity. As for One Big Happy Family, I honestly can't tell you why I stuck with it. Maybe the same reason?

The Mystery Writer

The crappy part about this one is that it started out strong and I was really engaged with the story. But it went completely off the rails after the main character's brother was shot (this is not a spoiler) - and not a good off the rails kind of thing. The big reveals were absolutely ridiculous and required massive amounts of suspension of belief. It was bad. So, so bad. After only sort of liking The Woman in the Library, I will not be reading any more of this author's books.

I really enjoyed the first half-ish. Theo is an aspiring writer, who has quit law school and moves in with her brother to work on her novel. She writes at a cafe/bar every day and becomes close with an older author who is doing the same. He shares some of his work with Theo, but not much and after he is murdered, she realizes how little she really knew about him.

Chaos ensues, in a really bad way once the reveals start coming. Theo is so stupid, she is lucky she was not killed at several points throughout the book. She consistently made the worst choice possible in any given situation, and bumbled through it, somehow. I don't understand how this is possible, because as I noted above, she was in law school. You would assume one has to be intelligent enough to gain admission to law school. But that is the least concern of all the dumb things that happen in this book.

The murder ends up being the least of Theo's problems as the story does a complete about-face and becomes this weird conspiracy theory thriller in real time, completely devoid of sense or any basis in reality.

In the author's note, she talked about not writing from an outline or planning and boy, did everything make sense after that. At least, it made sense why it was so absurd. The author said she just let the story take her wherever it wanted, so off the cliff we all went.

100% NOT recommended to anyone ever.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

One Big Happy Family

So the wealthy owner of a fancy hotel called the Precipice on the coast of Maine has died and his three daughters are coming for the reading of the will. One sister brings her disgusting husband and handsome son, one sister brings her crazy wife and their weirdo son who is 14 and speaks only in rhyme for most of the book, and the third sister is single.

Charley is the absolutely stupid as hell main character who is worried about losing her job, depending on what the sisters choose to do with the hotel. Rodrigo is her only friend and works at the hotel with her. Her elderly grandmother is at a care home that is super expensive, and has dementia, so Charley steals from guests to help pay the bills.

Bree shows up, claiming to be on the run from an abusive boyfriend, so of course Charley will just hide her at the hotel. She just happens to arrive right ahead of the sisters.

Also, a hurricane is coming.

As if there were not enough things to annoy me, they all kept referring to the attorney there to read the will as 'Attorney Black'. Sometimes just by her last name, which made a lot more sense, but usually 'Attorney Black'. I have never once called my attorney 'Attorney Booth'. Are we supposed to refer to our attorneys by their profession and name? DOUBTFUL.

Basically, this is a gigantic mess. Everyone is stupid or crazy or weird or a murderer. Too many convoluted story lines entwined to try and make the obvious twist a little less obvious. Lots of side drama that had zero relevance. Everyone is awful or stupid and I wish they had all died, except Charley's grandma.

Also 100% not recommended to anyone ever.

NetGalley ARC | History vs. Hollywood: How the Past is Filmed

I received a free digital ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Rating ⭐

I can't stand historical fiction when it is based on real people, especially my girl Eleanor of Aquitaine. I am the person who constantly corrects books and movies on their inaccuracies. So, a book doing the same? I should have LOVED this then, right? Here's the premise, from Goodreads:

Film studios have been making historical movies now for over a century. In that time, thousands of films have been made covering not just centuries but millennia. Did Neanderthal woman really look like Raquel Welch in her bearskin bikini? Did 6,000 rebellious slaves claim that they were Spartacus? Did Berengaria complain to her husband, Richard the Lionheart, ‘War, war; that’s all you think about, Dick Plantagenet’? Was El Cid strapped to his horse’s saddle to lead his army after he was dead? These aren’t questions of history; they are questions of Hollywood.

Charlton Heston was a foot too tall for General Charles Gordon. John Wayne was a tad too American for Genghis Khan. Eric von Stroheim’s bald head was an odd choice for the perfectly hirsute Erwin Rommel. And Warren Beatty and Fay Dunaway were far too gorgeous for bank robbers Bonnie and Clyde.

Hollywood never gets it right. History and its characters are endlessly complicated, and producers, directors and screenwriters have a simple story to tell. They have a maximum of two hours to explain what happened over weeks or months or years and many of it give it their best shot.

Yet for all Hollywood’s shortcomings in recreating the past, it has managed to evoke eras and people long dead in a magical way that has kept millions of us enthralled for generations

Sadly, it was not to be. The author was incredibly snide and condescending throughout the entire book. This is especially evident when the author discusses Titanic. Yes, I love that movie, and have since it came out when I was 15. I will defend it until I die, and while there are certainly parts that were not historically accurate (Murdoch killing himself remains my biggest issue with the film), it was still incredibly well done. But for the author to say it was incomprehensible that Titanic won eleven Oscars is simply stupid. It was an incredible tribute to a piece of history that we continue to be enamored with, over 100 years later.

The author was also inaccurate with some of his history concerning the Tudor period, in comparing it to Hollywood depictions. This is an era I know very well, so I was able to identify those parts pretty quickly. This caused me to question his facts and what was accurate regarding the periods I know less about.

I also found that the scope of the book was simply too massive and unwieldy. So many movies were introduced, that the author's analysis was superficial and there was not much room to actually dive into any of the movies in question.

Overall, this was a disappointment. I was expecting to learn new things about the movies and the history they were based on. Instead, the author's tone made it unenjoyable and I can not recommend it.

NetGalley ARC | Skirts: Fashioning Modern Femininity in the Twentieth Century

I received a free digital ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Rating ⭐

Coco Chanel was an actual Nazi. But it really felt like almost half of this book was a love letter to her and her influence on fashion. A NAZI. Are we suddenly okay with Nazis? Because, no. No no no.

There are parts of this book that were well-done. I loved the focus on Serena Williams and how she changed the face of tennis with her choices in game-day outfits. She's incredible and has changed the game in so many ways. In fact, I would have appreciated more focus on anyone besides thin white women though, as at many times throughout that's where the focus remained. There is mention of Laverne Cox which I also liked, as this inclusion was so important. Unfortunately, it was not enough.

Another issue with the book is that seemed to care more about telling the tory of the celebrity wearing the dress or skirt being discussed. Instead of focusing on what the dresses and skirts said about the time period in women's history, we get more info about the celeb themselves. Not exactly what I was reading the book for. There's not much in the way of feminist/feminine history, if that's what you're looking for.

And despite the title literally being Skirts, the book does not only focus on skirts, but dresses as well. Less than half the chapters were actually about skirts.

As I also metioned above, there was far too little information on any bodies except thin, white women.

It took everything I had to finish this book, which I actually did quite a while ago. It took even more effort to write up this very late review.

Ultimately, remember that Nazies are bad. Coco Chanel was bad. She should never be presented in any other way. And here, she was. Her Nazism was completely glazed over. Gross.

Book Review | Down the Hill: My Descent into the Double Murder in Delphi

Rating ⭐

Books like this absolutely INFURIATE me. Everything you need to know about the author is right there in that first word of the subtitle: My. I hate when authors put themselves into the story, especially one like this where families and communities have been traumatized by horrible events.

The story of what happened to Abby Williams and Libby German had my attention from the start. Best friends spending a day exploring a place they already knew well, not far from their homes, murdered in seemingly broad daylight and no one knows what really happened.

The thing is, we STILL don't know what happened, yet here's the book to make some money quick for the author. A man has been arrested for the murders, committed in 2017, but this is far from over and I absolutely can not stand books like this.

I can't decide if it is better or worse that the author has developed a relationship with the families over the years.  On one hand the author genuinely seems to care about them and doesn't give me the icklike she's only using them for her career. On the other hand, with the case nowhere near over, she will be part of the cycle that keeps the families reliving the worst days of their lives over and over again.

The major problem is that the book isn't REALLY about the girls, their families,or justice. It's about the author's experience covering the case, and all other sorts of random stuff that doesn't matter to the subject at hand.

Hendricks is a broadcast journalist and that shows through her writing. The bottom line is, it's just not that well-written. This is not a knock on broadcast journalists, but one must acknolwedge the differences between writing pieces for short news broadcasts vs. print journalism vs. authors. This also shows especially in the latter half of the book, where there is clearly not enough material to justify writing this yet. It's not a cold case, so writing a book before its resolved makes no sense. Another way to make moe money I suppose - releasing updated editions as the years go on, perhaps?

Basically, I could have done without all of the personal nonsense the author also included about herself, another example of not having enough material on the actual subject. I completely bypassed anything involving the author's personal life and any of her anecdotes. The interviews with Paul Holes and Dr. Burgess were also unnecessary. It was all just filler, there is nothing new here and there won't be for quite some time.

Abby, Libby, and their families deserve so much better than this.

Book Review | There's Someone Inside Your House

Rating ⭐

Okay...but, why?

As in, why was this book even written?

We find out who the killer is halfway through and that's it. He's running around, leaving town, coming back, attacking people. Then Makani and Ollie only care about having sex all the time, despite classmates dropping like flies, and nothing makes any kind of sense.

I was expecting a thriller, some twists and turns, because what is a YA thriller without thrills? A boring ass book, that's what.

I was expecting Ollie's brother to somehow be in on it, with her staying there and him being a police officer. Maybe it was too obvious a choice, but at least SOMETHING interesting would have hapened.

There was suspense when we didn't know who the killer was, but when he's revealed, you're left thinking, "Who the fuck is that guy, again?" and flipping back to see where you last read about him. He was bland and completely unmemorable. Not to mention, so were all the victims, except Makani. And she's not even that interesting, she's just memorable because she is the main character. Her whole backstory was so dumb I am not even going to bother rifling through it to explain what the hell she was doing living with her grandma in the first place.

The author gave some characters the last names of cities/counties in Nebraska. Rainbow Rowell does that same shit and I fucking hate it. It's stupid. With Rowell it is constant, since she's from here, but my God PLEASE STOP. The name of the town it all takes place in is called Osborne, which is obviously a nod to TO, Tom Osborne, one of the greatest college football coaches of all time. Unfortunately with such a terrible story, that's not exactly something to be proud of being associated with. Hopefully TO will never know that this exists.

On the subject of towns and cities, if you are going to try to make your book realistic, you should know things like the fact that:

A) Boys Town is not a town or city or anything. It is basically its own tiny village sitting on about 600 acres in West Omaha. It is a place for children and teens with pretty severe behavioral needs, who also tend to have emotional and academic needs as well. Families do live there, because they take care of kids who live on-campus. Other kids who attend school there live at their own homes. It just depends on what the individual needs of each child are.

B) It's IN Omaha, as stated above. Definitely not located near some random truck stop on the interstate or whatever she was going for. It's not even on the outskirts of Omaha, but smack-dab in West O.

I hate when easily verifible things are fucked up like this.

Everyone is boring. Even the killer. Especially the killer. I wish everyone would have died. Except the main girl's grandma. She was cool.

NetGalley ARC | Tell Me What Really Happened

 

I received a free digital ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. I received an email from NetGalley indicating that the first five hundred requests would be approved.

Rating ⭐

I don't even fucking know what I just read.

In theory, I would have loved this one. Unlikable teenagers being secretive? YES PLEASE!

Sasquatch lore interspersed...eh, but could be interesting.

Spoiler alert: it was not.

Also, there will be spoilers so if you are thinking of reading this dumpster fire, stop here.

So there are stories about the woods and Salvation Creek and over the years many people have gone missing. When/if they've been found, the surrounding circumstances were very strange. Of course, this group of five teens are going into these woods for a random camping trip planned by their lead bully/BFF, Maylee. When only four of the group come home, each has a wildly different story explaining their trip and what they knew about Maylee's movements before she vanished.

The way the story is told is something I like, alternating points of view from the four, but the characters themselves just don't all work. Petra, Maylee's best friend, is the prime example. She was such a charicature, it was absurd. And no way, given her father's position on the police force, would she have offered up all the information that she did because some of it made her look insanely guilty - and for someone who repeatedly presents herself as such an expert on police procedures, surely she would have known talking like all of this would not look good for her, or any of them. She was completely obnoxious and ridiculous. Petra rambled more than anyone and it was just so unlikely.

The whole Sasquatch angle was so riduculous because of how much it seemed like it was going to be important to the story and it fell just as flat as everything else. Petra's half/step-brother (can't remember which) Nolan is obsessed with Sasquatch and guess what? He ends up being the one who kills Maylee, because he THOUGHT SHE WAS A FUCKING SASQUATCH THAT WAS EATING MAYLEE. I mean seriously, what in the actual fuck.

The story alternates among various points of view and we are to believe that the four surviving teens (Nolan, Petra, John {Maylee's boyfriend}, and Abigail [Maylee's former friend]) would just freely talk and ramble and go on and on, knowing they are suspects in Maylee's disappearance. Except John. He does the smart thing and does not answer many questions. Of course, this makes him look guilty. He's not.

So here's what really happened when Maylee disappeared - she invited her ex-friend Abigail to help her stage her disappearance because she wants to be an influencer and wouldn't it be such a huge draw to be the girl survived a few days alone in the woods and eventually returns to civilization? As stupid as that sounds to a normal functioning human being, we also have to accept that this is part of our culture today. No matter HOW absurd it seems.

In the course of the teens all being interogated, Maylee's body is found, the story all comes out, and I was left dumbfounded, asking myself why I wasted time and what the fuck just happened.

The concept was intriguing. I love unreliable narrators and multi-character viewpoints. Those are sure-fire ways to catch my attention.

But Petra and the Sasquatch nonsense ruined what could have been a really good book.

Highly NOT recommended.

NetGalley ARC | Helltown: The Untold Story of a Serial Killer on Cape Cod

 

I received a free digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Rating ⭐

I really tried with this one because Costa's victims deserve to have their stories told. But the alternating chapters with Vonnegut/Mailer were not necessary and added nothing to the story, though then I suppose the book would have been much shorter. I skimmed those chapters because I did not find them interesting or valuable to the real story. I also find it difficult to believe massive re-created conversations and don't believe they belong in a non-fiction text unless the original conversation was recorded word-for-word. A few lines of dialogue, sure. But long conversation? Nope. If the book is marketed as non-fiction, then it should BE non-fiction. There is even an author's note where he states he took some fictional liberties with the story, which is not cool at all and that should have been at the beginning of the text. I was incredibly disappointed in this one, it was a jumbled mess, and I could not finish it despite several attempts. There are better books on the subject, and I do not recommend this one at all.

Book Review | Night Film

 

Rating ⭐

Initial reaction: Good gracious, what a slog that was. I read this one because it was on a spooky books list from BookRiot. Nothing remotely spooky or sinister about it. The insufferable main character wandered from one clue to the next with the help of two sidekicks. He was utterly boring, and that made what should’ve been an attention-grabbing book utterly boring as well. I don’t even know why I kept reading. I should’ve DNFed it. I guess I kept hoping for some shocking twist, and my persistence would be rewarded. Big fat nope. This book was an absolute waste of time.

++++++++++++++++++++++++

After a couple weeks away, my initial assessment has not changed. This book was absolute shit.

So our main character Scott is a former investigative journalist who had previously done a piece on the elusive Stanislas Cordova and it ended up costing him his career. Cordova is hyped up as this cult-figure director who has not been seen in public in thirty years. But Cordova is back on Scott's radar when his beautiful daughter Ashley is found dead in an abandoned warehouse in NYC, her tragic death ruled a suicide. Scott doesn't believe it was a suicide and embarks on a ridiculous adventure because of his own vendetta against Cordova, who he has built up in his mind as this mythical being who must be taken down.

At least, that's how it all came across to me.

Oh, and I almost forgot - his wife left him too. So now he hates women and is incredibly sexist. More on this in a bit.

Cordova and his family have lived on this secluded estate for decades and his movies were so disturbing and unsettling that they're impossible to find and you have to bootleg copies from the darkest depths of the Internet or whatever.

So Scott begins his boring journey, picking up two sidekicks along the way who had absolutely nothing to the story because all the characters are so flat, the only way I knew who was talking was because of the author's identification of who was speaking when.

We are repeatedly reminded about how elusive Cordova is. There are very few known photographs of him, and in most of those that do exist, the photo doesn't show his whole face. He bought this huge estate and filmed the majority of his movies there, and everyone signed NDAs and blah blah blah.

Yet every single person Scott and his two dopes talk to spill every last possible detail to them, so that these idiots just wander from person to person, getting more information. While they don't get to Cordova himself, they talk to tons of people who are connected to the family in some way, either personally or professionally, or by pure chance.

As that is the basic set-up, each new conversation feels incredibly repetitive and you find yourself wondering if you already read this conversation a few pages back. Nope! Just someone new, ready to give Scott all the info he needs to keep plodding along.

The investigation that was supposed to be about Ashley really is all about her dad and Scott just can't let go. We see lot of media that they stumble on along the way - interviews given in newspapers and magazines, blog posts, chat forums, photos, medical reports, etc. Some of it is also from Scott's personal stash, from his previous investigation. It's all just more info-dumping that we and Scott need to figure out what's going on. I think this is actually a pretty useful tool, in the right story. But it didn't work here.

Scott himself is also super problematic because he is a racist, sexist d-bag. I still don't quite know if that was the author's intention or not, but I hated him in a way that was probably unintentional. Now if you have read any of my reviews in the past, you know I am cool with unreliable and unlikable characters. They make book-life more interesting at times.

The issue is, Scott is not unlikable in that way. He is simply a terrible character and terrible human and I hated him and pretty much everything he said and thought.

The only purpose for any character of Color is to help Scott further his investigation. And all the while as they give him the info he needs, he is judging them for obviously not being as perfect as him, the white male who is obviously the true star of the book, forget even Ashley - despite it being her death that led to all of this anyway.

Scott is aided at various times by: a Black taxi-drive (with gold teeth), a Hispanic hotel maid who annoys him with her 'superstitious ramblings', and a Chinese man. Literally the only diversity in the whole book are people who fit stereotypes of that certain race or culture. Gross.

Sexism abounds as well, as this Bitter Betty can't get over his divorce. He constantly comments on his ex-wife's looks and how he wishes she was not as beautiful. Like, he wants her to be ugly now because they're divorced. What? It's CONSTANT. Like, every time they interact.

The writing itself is also pretty lackluster. It really was such a slog to get through but I kept going because I thought that surely there would be something suspenseful, some twist or turn that would make it all worthwhile. Nope. Not even a little bit. But you can definitely tell the author thinks she is just the most clever by a lot of this nonsense, especially the actual ending.

Since the author IS so much smarter than us, she provides tons of explanations for things she just wrote, immediately, usually in parentheses. I like to think of myself as a fairly intelligent human being who does not require such help, but who knows at this point I guess, since I hated this book so much.

Very highly NOT recommended.