bethreadsandnaps's reviews
2525 reviews

3.5 stars

I really liked the premise of this story. Crissy is a Princess Diana impersonator working and living at the dilapidating Buckingham Palace casino in Vegas. She's estranged from her sister Betsy, notably because she blames Betsy for her mother's death. 

Both owners of the Buckingham Palace casino die by suspicious suicide within days of each other. Betsy's boyfriend Frankie, Betsy, and her foster-now-adopted daughter Marissa roll into town. Frankie is involved in cryptocurrency and is taken by how similar Betsy and Crissy look to each other. 

Dun dun dun. 

I really liked the female relationships in this novel. They came across as very genuine. Where I got a little sideways was the crypto/casino takeover plot. It seemed really rushed. I'm more of a fan of character-driven novels, so I could see why the action scenes didn't really work for me. 

Opal is living in Eden, Kentucky, taking care of her younger brother Jasper. The two of them have lived in a motel since their mother died. When Opal meets Arthur who lives in the Starling House, she takes his good paying job offer and gets sucked into the secrets of the house.

I didn’t buy the romance in this novel. The magical/fantasy elements didn’t really work for me either. The story was decent and would likely appeal to those who enjoy fantasy.

4.25 stars

I really liked this novel! More than THE SECRET HISTORY. It did take a bit of time to sink into and get my bearings, but once I did, I didn't want to put it down! 

Seven friends are all fourth-year Shakespeare thespians at a small college. When the book opens, we find out that Oliver (the main character) has served ten years for killing one of the other students. Now that he's getting out, the detective wants to know the REAL story. So Oliver tells us. 

The characters were great. The pacing was solid. If I had more Shakespeare knowledge and understood more of his plays, I would have probably had an even better reading experience.

4.25 stars

I love Ashley Audrain’s honest portrayals of women grappling with motherhood in THE PUSH and THE WHISPERS.

THE PUSH closely centers one mother/dynamic while this novel backs up the camera to zoom out on a neighborhood dynamic with four families. 

Several months after a picnic where the neighborhood hears usually composed Whitney scream uncontrollably at her son Xavier, Xavier falls out of his bedroom window and is in a coma. One neighbor Rebecca is a doctor and struggling to conceive. Neighbor Blair is Whitney’s best friend, and her snooping casts suspicion on Whitney having an affair with Blair’s husband. And neighbor Mara has a prime view of Whitney’s house as she battles her own demons at her house. 

The tense portrayal of all of these complicated, real feelings really made me think.

3.25 stars

I didn’t know that this was the second in a series about Detective Marley Kaplan. About 100 pages in I felt like the appropriate background was given within the novel, and I checked to learn there is indeed a first novel that I hadn’t read. Enough is provided to know the broad strokes of the first book that would jog your memory - if you had read it at all. 

In this novel, the Detective is off the job after the fire (from the last book). Her mother, a professor, has her colleague pulled into a murder investigation as a suspect. Even worse, there’s a Title IX investigation because the death of her student. At her mother’s urging, Marley infiltrated herself into this death investigation by moving into the victim’s room because, after all, the room is available. 😝

Why would an unemployed detective take this case on for free instead of looking for a job? The suspect list was pretty short in this novel. And a lot seemed told rather than shown. 

That said, I didn’t find myself bored. I did want to keep reading and, because the cast list was short, I wasn’t ever confused or overwhelmed. 

 

4.25 stars

THE SEQUEL by Jean Hanff Korelitz is a strong sequel to her 2021 bestseller THE PLOT. Since it’s been over 2 years since I read THE PLOT, I do recommend reading these close together or at least reviewing the full summary with spoilers to THE PLOT before picking this one up if you were like me and forgot some of the intricacies of the first book. I think it’s necessary to have that background. 

In this novel, the main character Anna Williams-Bonner is Jacob’s widow from the first book, and she has decided to become an author herself and successfully publishes her own book THE AFTERWORD at Jacob’s publishing house. I absolutely loved the publishing insider commentary that reminded me of YELLOWFACE. Shelf Awareness even got a shout out in this novel! 

Soon Anna receives excerpts from a novel that seems very familiar, and she starts to spiral. If you like unhinged narrators, you’ll enjoy seeing Anna’s journey in this novel. She takes literal and figurative journeys to try to get to the bottom of what’s going on. 

I don’t think the author knew she was going to write this sequel until after she experienced success with the first novel, so there was some layering needed with the plot that, at times, felt strained. You don’t read thrillers like this for their plausibility, so just go in with the goal of seeing where Anna takes you. And she will take you places! 

I was curious about what Anna’s novel would be about, but unfortunately the reader never gets to know.  I, for one, would love to know what kind of plot Anna’s mind would create.

If you liked THE PLOT, I’m certain you will also enjoy THE SEQUEL. I ended up rating it a little bit higher because I loved the publishing industry talk in the first third of the book. 

 

3.75 stars

ALL FOURS by Miranda July is honestly not my cup of tea personally, but I admire what the author is trying to do. The author seems to be making bold statements on aging, menopause, sexuality, gender, nonconforming families, among other themes. 

The unnamed narrator is about to embark on a cross-country road trip from Southern California to NYC when she becomes obsessed with Davey, who she meets at a gas station while she's gassing up for her journey. She aborts her road trip to remodel a motel room for $20,000 and pursue Davey the Hertz employee for three weeks instead of going to NYC. It's a weird premise, so weird that it reminds me of ONE'S COMPANY, a novel in which the main character wins the lotto and builds the TV sitcom set for Three's Company and chooses to live as a character in the sitcom. Anyway, back to this one.

There is a lot of graphic detail in this book. Of everything. Masturbation, sex (M/F, F/F), roleplaying, fetishes, bodily functions, fetishes WITH bodily functions, need I go on?? Probably not what I'm most comfortable to read, but I think making the reader uncomfortable is what the author is going for. 

I'm not knocking this book for its content although I do think the graphic nature is worth giving others a heads up about. What knocked it down for me is that I had a furrowed forehead almost the entire time I read it because I only grasped very small parts of this main character. So much of the book is her sexual obsessions that I didn't feel I had a sense of her beyond her sexual side. Being that I'm actually a year OLDER than the main character, I expected to empathize with her more than I did. I wanted her to seek therapy and possibly seek out medication (more than her doctor-recommended hormone cream) because most of the time I thought she was out of control and more self-insight could be helpful. I also didn't get much about her husband Harris and child Sam. It's difficult to be invested in a book when I can't create much (or any) connection with the characters. 

All that said, this book is VERY memorable (chapter 11!!) and has themes that are often unexplored or danced around in other novels that this novel meets head-on with unabashed frankness. 

The writing is good. The content is a mixed bag. An affair, particularly a long-term one, is messy. Talking about it is messy. There's no way that this book couldn't be messy. Add in some religion (I did not think we were going to be hearing about religion). Add in some folksy Southern sensibility (I listened to this one, which was narrated mostly by the author and one chapter by the author's wife).

There were so many times reading this that I thought this marriage couldn't be saved, and I truly do not know how it was saved. I liked that Harrison admitted that he played a role in this. I like that they sought therapy. I like that they showed perseverance. 

It felt like the couple were in the *messy middle* for most of this book, and I felt shortchanged that the reader didn't really get the full story of how they got out of it. Because I'm sure a lot of people read this to figure out how to get over that hump, and that part felt missing. Although I wasn't expecting the religious aspect, it didn't come across too heavy-handed. 

It takes an incredible amount of vulnerability to write a memoir like this. 

 

Oh, George. 

Kate Greathead’s THE BOOK OF GEORGE (publishes October 8, 2024) features … wait for it … George, a white man who is given all the structural advantages in life and still seems to underachieve. The commentary on mediocre child-like white men in this book is fascinating. 

The reader does see where George learned to not be accountable: his family. His mother Ellen, notably, let him get away with things as his only boy and his youngest and didn’t take her mothering seriously, particularly after Denis left. It’s not like George came out of the womb entitled. 

George is not wholly unlikeable. Sure, he’s inconsiderate when he wants to be. He’s lazy a lot of the time. You just want to give him a kick in the butt. And you want his on again-off again girlfriend Jenny to realize that she is too good for George and put his sorry self behind her. 

There are a vast number of scenes in this book to pick from as the most “George.” The scene that pisses me off the most when Jenny comes over to pack his crap while he plays video games. 

There are a lot of small vignettes in this novel that really show off George’s immaturity. The author is a very deft writer down to the sentence because I could take so much from even a paragraph. I suppose it comes down to how I questioned spending my reading time on this underachieving white man when I could have been reading about more interesting and motivated characters who engage with the world in other books. 

 

3.5 stars

Heiny’s short story collections are REAL and interesting. This is no exception. However, I feel like I need to warn you that there are two topics that come up in this one that will immediately turn some readers away: 1. Infidelity (nearly every story) and 2. Describing in detail putting a dog to sleep (just one story).

Aside from those two warnings, and even the infidelity theme became tired to me, the collection sparkled.