Influence by Sara Shepard and Lilia Buckingham

 

I received an ARC of this book thanks to NetGalley and publisher Little, Brown Book Group UK in exchange for an honest review.

I was a huge fan of Pretty Little Liars back in the day so I was very excited to receive an ARC of this book. Being a fan of books centered around social media, I was keen to see a PLL-style take on it. I think sadly I have outgrown this kind of writing but that doesn't mean it's a bad book.

Let's start with the positives-unlike some of Shepard's other work, this didn't feel derivative of PLL. The characters had distinct problems (one is struggling with sexuality but it hits different beats to Emily's story) and their roles as influencers took the story in a very different direction which was nice. I liked that we only experienced Scarlet through her live vlogs as it broke up chapters nicely and gave her a more unique edge. I couldn't really tell where the story was going to go, and it's a little bit more chill than PLL as well. You're not stressed by these characters being majorly screwed over at every turn.

Now for the negatives. Putting aside the fact that it reads a bit juvenile (very understandable as that is the age group it's aimed at), I found the characters converged a fair bit. They started off quite distinct but as the book went on, I kept getting a little confused as to who was who and what drama they were involved in. This leads me to the next point which is that the climax was very messy. Things were paced well and then all at once, everything started happening and that's when the characters became less distinct and the story sort of fell apart. In particular, I didn't even remember some of the characters involved in the ending which is a bad sign. I suspect this might have been written as a series and then rushed a bit when it was released as a single book (though it still has series potential).

Overall, Influence is a fun read and it has more positives than negatives. If you're part of its target age group, there is a lot to like here and I do enjoy Shepard's writing. Older audiences won't find much to keep them gripped beyond nostalgia, but I can see this taking off in the same way PLL did.

Overall Rating:

.5

The Island by C.L. Taylor

 

I received an ARC of this book thanks to NetGalley and publisher HQ Young Adult in exchange for an honest review.

Fun fact: I love books about people trapped somewhere, especially if they're thrillers. I was definitely intrigued by The Island which tells the story of an island holiday gone wrong when six teenagers have their tour guide die and their escape boat sabotaged. Stuck on the island, they seem to be haunted by their worst fears as bad things happen to them one by one.

This book definitely started strong and it has a lot of good qualities that most YA thrillers lack. The characters felt distinct and developed enough for the story they were in, and I was genuinely intrigued by the scenario being set up. It was extremely well-paced and I raced through to find out what was happening and who was behind everything.

I think my main issue is that there were a fair few elements lacking, and I think some of those were down to this being a YA book and some weren't. I didn't find the actual ending to be at all satisfying. It was a cool concept but poorly executed in my opinion. I also felt the stakes weren't quite high enough. It is YA but I read a lot of YA thrillers/horror and most of them have stuff a little more intense than this. I'm not sure if it was the events themselves or just how they were written which I found a bit tame, but it would have been nice to have felt more tension as a reader.

Overall, this is a solid YA thriller with a cool premise and a good execution. It's not perfect but there's a lot to like here and C.L. Taylor is clearly very talented. I definitely recommend it as someone looking for a light low-effort read with strong characters.

Overall Rating:

The Appeal by Janice Hallett

 

I received an ARC of this book thanks to NetGalley and publisher Serpent's Tail / Profile Books in exchange for an honest review.

I was really intrigued by all the buzz surrounding this book. The Appeal is a novel told in epistolary form, a thriller presented as a series of emails and other evidence that you must examine as a detective. The plot itself follows the story of a group of people who are putting on a play together when the daughter of one of the families falls ill with cancer. Wanting to try an expensive experimental treatment, the family aim to raise money from the community. Within this context, there are a lot of rivalries and other events which culminate in the murder of one of the characters.

For most of this book, I was utterly hooked. The email style works well (although the downside of an ARC was there were a lot of format issues, which makes it hard for me to talk about the full experience of it) though it does take some getting used to. I really liked that there was a character we never heard from directly and who we could only build a picture of based on what others said to and about her. There were several undercurrents of tension and things which could go wrong, which helped keep me invested and made me very keen to read on.

However, sadly I think this book fell apart at the ending. After about 75% of the way through, you have gotten almost all of the evidence and so the book switches to text messages between the detectives investigating the case. This worked fine at first but quickly became dull to me. I wish the book had made this section much shorter and just revealed the solution because it wasn't fun for me at all to read 5 separate theories, followed by more speculation, followed by more theorizing. It just dragged a lot and it sucked all the joy out of the eventual reveal for me because the tension and momentum had been lost. I also think there were just a few too many characters to keep track of. Three or four of them could have been cut without much being lost, and it would have made for a tighter story.

Having said that, I still immensely enjoyed this book and I think it's a great way to format a thriller. The plot itself is good and, my issues with presentation aside, the ending is satisfying and works well for the story. I love murder mysteries and trying to piece together clues, so I will always appreciate any book which actually attempts to give you decent clues and encourages you to work things out. If the ending format had been different, this could have easily been a 5 star read for me.

Overall Rating:

.5

People Like Her by Ellery Lloyd

 

I received an ARC of this book thanks to NetGalley and publisher Pan Macmillan in exchange for an honest review.

There is a bit of a trend towards social media thrillers and it's a trend I am all for. Something about these books draws me in and, for the moment at least, I find them generally new and interesting. Sadly People Like Her was a bit of a mixed bag.

The plot is focused around three characters: our influencer Emmy, her husband Dan and a mysterious third presence who is both stalking Emmy and hates her for some past transgression. This is a decent enough set up but somewhere, the plot just loses its momentum. It felt like it took me a long time to get through this book even though I was reading it relatively quickly. There just wasn't much happening for the thriller aspect, and I found Emmy and Dan's day-to-day problems not compelling enough to carry the story.

I will say, I did like how Emmy being an influencer was explored in this story. I felt she was both extremely mercenary and also still sympathetic to an extent, and it made for an interesting dissection of the darker side of being an influencer. She was an interesting character if not always a likeable one, and while there wasn't enough to carry the whole plot, I do think she was a good character to center a story around. It would have been nice to see how she dealt with more direct pressure if she had encountered her stalker or the idea of them earlier on.

Overall, People Like Her is a decent thriller but one that just falls a bit short for me. Ultimately the elements didn't quite come together and therefore the climax felt unearned and disjointed from the rest of the story. However, there was still a lot to like here and it does have some interesting points to make. If you like social media thrillers, it's worth giving a go.

Overall Rating:

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V. E. Schwab

 

I received an ARC of this book thanks to NetGalley and publisher Titan Books in exchange for an honest review.

I must admit, I was a little afraid to read this book. Fantasy isn't hugely my genre but I have loved Schwab's writing in the past and the hype for this book was real. Thankfully I was utterly enchanted by The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. This is a romance with a fantasy set up, with the premise being our main character Addie is immortal due to a deal she made with some kind of devil/demon figure long ago. Now she will never age nor die, but she can also never be remembered or leave a lasting mark on the world. Much of the book focuses on her past life and the unique relationship she has with the devil/demon figure, but in the modern day she meets a man who is able to remember her and quickly falls in love.

As I already hinted at, this was much more of a romance than I expected which I am glad of as I'm not the biggest fan of historical fiction. Having said that, I really enjoyed the passages set in the past and Addie was a compelling character so it was good to have so much focus on her. If you enjoy dreamy, slow-paced character explorations then this is definitely the book for you. It did take me a long time to read as it is slow-paced and quite long, but it never felt like a slog or a chore to get through. For a genre of book I don't normally reach for, I was very enchanted.

Overall, I have to join the legions of people singing this book's praise. It is beautifully written, full of heart and manages to be quite unique despite the topic of immortality being nothing new. I fell completely in love with Addie and her story, and I know this is a book which will stay with me for a long time.

Overall Rating:

.5

The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman

 

I received an ARC of this book thanks to NetGalley and publisher Penguin Books (UK) in exchange for an honest review.

The Thursday Murder Club is essentially about a group of elderly people who get together to try and solve unsolved crimes, but get tangled up in a more recent case when someone is murdered in their community. It's really hard for me to sum up how I feel about this book, mainly because I find its strengths and weaknesses to largely be the same. For this reason, I'm going to deviate from my normal review format and make a list of talking points:

1. Characters-I really liked the characters of this book and I think its one of the features that is a definite strength. At first a lot of them blended together but as the story went on, I really grew attached and began to appreciate them. They are definitely the heart of the story and they're the main reason I would read more in this series.

2. Writing-Overall, I think I did like the writing of this book. I have several features I will talk about in more detail but the writing style itself was enjoyable and reasonably engaging. The plot was less so and I didn't really care for the mystery which was a bit of a shame. I just can't get very invested in criminal organisations and financial scandals, and I wish the mystery had had more of a personal element as the characters were the best part of the book and it would have been a much stronger drive in my opinion.

3. Punchlines-Speaking of writing, this book had a very weird feature whereby a 'punchline' would occur in the middle of a paragraph. For example, at one point the young female detective is on a date she isn't enjoying. You get a long list of reasons why the man is awful, and then a sentence begins with (paraphrased) 'she got out of his bed and got dressed', implying she slept with him anyway. I assume this was done for humour but it doesn't occur at the end of a scene or paragraph, but is instead just dropped in the middle. This happens a lot and sometimes it seems like it might be trying to be character development, but these punchlines were rarely brought up again and they just fell a bit flat for me. They could have been good ways to end scenes but in the middle of them, they just felt distracting.

4. Names-This is the thing that annoyed me the most about the whole book. Every single character will constantly end a sentence with the name of the person they are speaking to. For example:

A: Did you see the body B?

B: Yes I did A

A: Awful isn't it B?

Etc. My partner suggested this was to replicate how older people talk but I swear the younger characters did it too and I just found it incredibly annoying. I eventually got used to it but it was very distracting at first.

5. Ending-Highlight for spoilers. So at the end of the book, we have three bodies. These three bodies have all been murdered by different people. Two other people also pretend to have killed one of the bodies and confess to it. The problem is that all of these reveals follow each other (in different scenes but presented narratively after each other) which makes for an exhausting experience. I have already said I struggled to care about the mystery but I genuinely switched off by the third confession and had lost all interest in what actually happened. This section I do feel could have worked and was let down by bad writing/plotting/execution.

Overall, this review might appear quite negative but I do actually have fond memories of this book. I would definitely read more of these characters and I think it has real promise as a series, I just wish some little niggles could be ironed out. With a strong mystery plot though, this book would 100% be one of my favourites. It's a shame this one fell a bit flat but I am cautiously optimistic for more.

Overall Rating:

.5