My Darling by Amanda Robson

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

My Darling is a confusing, messy story about two women and (sort of) two men. Jade is married to Tomas and she is delusional, rude and unpleasant. Emma has just begun dating Alastair, a man who starts to show controlling tendencies. Emma herself is pragmatic and honestly, she doesn't have a second personality trait. Jade becomes convinced Tomas is cheating on her with Emma and decides to take matters into her own hands, resulting in a multi-layered murder plot where everyone is framing everyone else.

This book was so painful to read. I initially started with the audiobook but that was far too confusing, so I swapped to the e-arc which was a bit easier to follow. The characters are quite bland. I expected there to be more going on with Jade but no, she is just delusional and horrible to everyone. I expected there to be more going on with everyone to be honest. We learn more about Emma but it doesn't really translate to anything meaningful in terms of how we view her. Alastair has an ex-wife who shows up a few times and is described in a huge amount of unpleasant detail, but why? What does it add?

The plot itself is very melodramatic and a bit tedious. I wasn't surprised by anything that happened. I am not someone who needs a huge twist in my thrillers, but it almost felt like it was written to contain twists but there just weren't any? I won't give the details of the ending but it is framed like a standard ominous thriller ending where we are meant to feel dread at what the protagonist might do next, except I feel like everything she did was reasonable given the world and people she was dealing with. This is a side effect of the melodrama. Everything becomes a potentially reasonable response because the actions themselves are so extreme, and the people so one-dimensionally unforgiveable.

I was so disappointed by this book. The one saving grace is that this is quite an easy read, so I did finish it rather than abandon it halfway. Unfortunately I can't recommend it though

Overall Rating:

The Binge Watcher's Guide to Supernatural by Jessica Mason

 

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

The timing of this book was fortuitous. I have just started bingewatching Supernatural for the first time ever with my friend, and it seemed like the perfect time to read this book alongside it. Unfortunately, this was not the fun experience I was hoping for.

This book is written by a megafan which would be a good thing if it wasn't so cringey to read. It's very rare that I'll use that word but this book is just full of bad vibes. The author constantly drools over and sexualises the main actors in a very 'Tumblr' way. The blurb states 'Think of this as John Winchester's journal, guiding you through trivia and tribulations to enrich watching this incredible show'. I don't think John Winchester would describe his sons in this way, despite the tendency for the show to include some incestuous vibes.

Bafflingly, she praises the amazing acting skills at several points whilst berating the campier episodes of the show. I may be in the minority here but I feel like Supernatural is the kind of show to be enjoyed for its campiness. The acting is very bad, especially during earlier seasons. That is part of the fun and the charm, and it makes the watching experience for me.

I am willing to accept this part is down to personal taste. If you love the show unironically and think it is a fantastic piece of drama, maybe you will enjoy this book more. Having said that, there are still many flaws to be found here. Despite being a watcher's guide, there are spoilers throughout for later episodes. These are marked but if you avoid them, you miss out on a lot of content. You honestly don't gain much insight or clever commentary for any episode. You might as well read someone's blog on Tumblr for the depth and extra trivia you acquire. Certainly the blog might be less uncomfortably thirsty.

Overall, this book just wasn't for me. I wanted so much more and it barely scratches the surface. I have enjoyed other books in this series so it won't put me off reading those, it's just a shame this one was such a miss.

Overall Rating:

The Final Chapter by Jerome Loubry

 I received an ARC of this book thanks to NetGalley and publisher Hodder & Stoughton in exchange for an honest review.

When David was young and on holiday, his childhood friend went missing. Now a famous author, he and his publisher friend are shocked when one day they receive a book which tells the story of that fateful summer. But their books differ slightly and there is a third unknown recipient out there. With all three books promising to tell the truth of what happened, they must find the third author and discover if any of them is actually a murderer.

This book started off okay but quickly became very boring. In particular, it felt like it dragged around the middle and nothing of interest was happening for a long time. It is actually a relatively simple premise and plot, but the way it was told was so confusing that it became a chore to understand. The characters aren't that interesting or sympathetic, and I felt like the twist at the end was very predictable. Unfortunately this just wasn't for me.

Overall Rating:

Ruthless Women by Melanie Blake

 

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

This was so close to being a fun, if totally ridiculous romp. Then there was a healthy dose of transphobia and no thank you.

Most of this book can be described as a bunch of women working on a soap opera, backstabbing each other and having a lot of graphic sex. It's very ridiculous but not in an offensive way. Almost every sexual encounter starts with the woman not wearing underwear and the man noticing and then they bang. I was fairly engaged in the story and I enjoyed it a lot for what it was.

Unfortunately this book was ruined for me by a scene where someone is revealed as trans, and then the other characters proceed to threaten to out them. Every character is morally grey so it's not entirely portrayed as a triumphant moment, but the narrative does suggest we are meant to be on the side of the people doing the blackmailing. The trans character is what I would consider to be the most villainous presence and so it left me feeling very unhappy that in 2021, someone could write this with zero consideration for all the 'trans people are evil' tropes the media has used for years. It was bitterly disappointing.

Without that, the book could have easily gotten a 3.5 star rating from me. I am giving it 2 stars in an attempt to be fair because it could have been worse but dear god, it's such a shame.

Overall Rating:

Christmas Evil by Mark L'Estrange

 

Pretty disappointed with this on the whole. It wasn't awful but there were three key things which stopped me enjoying it as much as I could:

1. Too many exclamation marks! Writers should use these very rarely and it felt like every story had at least five. They were unnecessary and became very annoying to me

2. The stories followed a pattern of 'x goes somewhere, encounters weird people, weird people or x end up being a secret monster'. This wasn't every story but it was a huge chunk of them and it became very repetitive

3. Finally, one of the stories had a weird scene where some lesbians pretend to be straight to make a guy buy them expensive champagne, then mock him and make out in front of him. This added nothing to the story and just alienated me as a reader because it was presented as such a typical thing to happen and like, people don't do that?? The sexual content wasn't huge in this horror collection and certainly not compared to some others I've read, but sometimes it cropped up in weird ways (like a young boy looking up the skirt of a young girl, again for no reason) and it was always distracting when it did. I have nothing against sexual content but it has to add something and not just be a confusing aside

Overall, there are far worse horror collections out there but I still feel this needed a good editor to clean it up.

Overall Rating:

Rewind by Catherine Ryan Howard

 

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

Having previously read a thriller by this author and been really impressed, I was hoping for so much more from this book. Rewind is the story of Audrey, a protagonist so inconsequential she didn't even appear on the blurb or in anyone else's reviews. But while the blurb claims this is the story of Natalie, in reality she doesn't play much of a part in it aside from being murdered. Audrey is the wannabe reporter investigating her disappearance and what I would consider the true protagonist. Natalie is an influencer and our murder victim, a woman who gets attacked while investigating somewhere she thinks her husband might have cheated on her at.

Rewind is ultimately a fairly boring story with a needlessly confusing setup. The blurb got me pretty excited and I normally don't mind stories told out of time, but the way this is set up makes it a little pointless. The PAUSES, REWINDS, FAST FORWARDS do little apart from indicate that the story is taking place in the present or the past. The video aspect of the murder is extremely straightforward and not really part of the actual plot at all. There aren't any twists, nothing surprised me and I didn't really care about any of the characters. It was all so generic.

Ultimately, I can't recommend this thriller. It's a shame because it has a lot of elements I love (I really like thrillers based around social media influencers, and that's a pretty hot topic atm) but everything was so dull and straightforward. If you prefer very linear thrillers, you might like this one but otherwise there isn't much to recommend.

Overall Rating:

Judderman by D.A. Northwood

I received an ARC of this book thanks to NetGalley and publisher W.F. Howes Ltd in exchange for an honest review.

Unlike the first of these audiobooks (Holt House), Judderman sadly left me a bit wanting. It's a very rambly sort of story which gives the impression of it being long, even though the whole thing is only about two hours in length. It also suffers from not having distinct voices for the characters, meaning that I found it very difficult to pay attention. It doesn't seem to have much of a plot as a result. It is set in a city and there is some kind of entity and a missing brother, but I kept tuning out due to long sections which were mostly there for atmosphere. It's a shame because I did enjoy the weirdness and unique tone of the first of these audiobooks but this didn't have anything much going for it. As with the first one, this is an old recording and so the sound quality is a little muffled/quiet which matters a lot more in this book than the first due to the monotonous tone. I think I might have enjoyed this more as a physical book but as it stands, I find it difficult to recommend this one.

Overall Rating:

Pink Villa by Olivia O'Neill

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

Okay, so firstly I missed that this was erotica. I do not read erotica so that was my bad. However, this review will be taking that fact into consideration. I also do think this book's blurb is misleading, as it implies there is some sort of dark/thrillery secret and it compares this book to several thrillers. This is not a fair comparison.

So Pink Villa is the story of a sex-addicted woman called Eliza who is hired as a nanny for a rich family. She then bangs a lot of people. That is the entire plot, by which I mean this book is just sex scene after sex scene. Okay, erotica is like this. But there are story elements hinted at early on which never come to fruition and, more importantly, these cast some really unfortunate implications over everything.

Eliza is the horniest character there has ever been. She doesn't care who she sleeps with and she is never satisfied. It is also strongly hinted at that Eliza was, if not outright assaulted, then creeped on by her stepdad. These squicky implications are compounded by the obvious daddy issues explored with one of her lover. I know some people are into that but this part of the book is not played up enough for it to be appealing on its own, nor is it downplayed enough for you to comfortably ignore it. I HATE the idea that she is horny because she was creeped on and, while I feel that's unintentional, it lurked in the background throughout the story.

Some of the writing is decidely not sexy as well. Twice the main character is told to 'come over here and bring your breasts' as if she could possibly leave them behind. The sex scenes are so relentless that they just blur into one. Also this is told in second person, which I'm not sure if that's common for erotica but might put some people off.

Ultimately, this book fell flat on so many levels. I think the sex scenes have potential to be great and they are great at points, but the characters are so flat and it all gets very repetitive after a while. This is definitely not a book for me and if you're hoping for a darker erotica, it's not the book for you either. There is one attempt at a 'twist' of sorts but it falls so flat that if this book wasn't compared to thrillers, I wouldn't have even realised that's what it was.

Overall Rating:

The Stranger's Wife by Anna-Lou Weatherley

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

This book really did not gel with me. I did finish it but it was a definite slog and I skim-read about 40% of it. There was just nothing in the plot which I found particularly gripping and, while the characters were alright, I wasn't invested enough to make up for the lack of good story. The two female characters described in the blurb don't meet until about 60% of the way through the book and once they do, things become very pedestrian. I also feel the plot they hatched made no sense? I could see no advantage to what they did. So disappointing!

Overall Rating:

The Other Mrs. by Mary Kubica

I received a free copy of this book for review thanks to publisher Park Row and Edelweiss.

My experience with Mary Kubica has been an interesting one. I have loved almost all of the books I've read by her but I can usually see why a person might not like them as well. Sadly The Other Mrs. proved to be a thriller that just wasn't for me and that's because it commits the cardinal thriller sin-it is extremely predictable.

I will not spoil any 'twists' in this book but it uses one of the more overdone thriller tropes and what's more, it is completely obvious from the start that it is going in that direction. I kept reading hoping I would be wrong but by the time the climax rolls around, I fail to see how anyone would not have worked out what is happening. Though I'm not usually a fan of this trope anyway, I have loved books which have used it in a clever and surprising way. This book does neither of these things.

Putting the lack of a twist to one side, the writing style is competent but also weaker than other Kubica books I've read. There are just some really odd choices, particularly in the first few chapters. A face is described as 'eyepleasing', an adjective is used twice in the same sentence, the structure is just a little off. These are all minor things but they were very frequent and it took me out of the story. I did not find the main character Sadie likeable at all. She was far too quick to suspect her own children of awful things and she didn't have a lot of empathy for anyone. None of the characters were particularly great.

I'm really disappointed I couldn't give this book a more positive review. It might appeal to complete thriller novices but for anyone who likes the genre, this offers nothing new.

Overall Rating:

Growing Things & Other Stories by Paul Tremblay

I received a free copy of this book for review thanks to William Morrow and Edelweiss.

Oh boy. I really honestly thought I would love this short story collection. I read A Head Full of Ghosts by Tremblay earlier this year and really enjoyed it, so I was looking forward to experiencing a greater range of his work through an anthology. Sadly this book was not designed for the casual reader. Honestly I was surprised by the sheer amount of references to his other work present in this and, as someone who has only read one of his books, I did not find the stories easy to understand despite not getting those references. This was my major problem with the anthology and I found myself skimming and skipping stuff as a result. Maybe if you're a mega-fan then you would get a lot more out of this but I also feel that this should stand on its own as a collection rather than relying on knowledge of other works.

My other main problem is I just wasn't that interested in many of the stories. Normally I review every single story for an anthology but for this one I would be repeating myself a lot so I'm just going to mention a couple and do my overview stats.

Number of stories: 19
Number I liked: 2
Number which were okay: 3, maybe?

Something About Birds-A somewhat meta creepy story about birds where a journalist writes about meeting a horror author who wrote a creepy story about birds. Okay, so this one definitely felt like I was maybe missing something from the context but it was one of the few where it didn't matter and I still got absorbed into the story. It was probably my favourite of the collection and it had creepy moments whilst still making sense.

A Haunted House is a Wheel, Upon Which Some Are Broken-A choose-your-own adventure story about a woman visiting a haunted house. Despite the page numbers not being available for the ARC (meaning that I could not choose my own adventure but had to read it linearly) this was a very beautiful story and I loved every minute of it. A tied favourite with the previous story and this would probably be my favourite had I been able to read it in the way it was intended.

These two stories save it from being a one star read for me. Now for some of my least favourites:

Notes from the Dog Walkers-An incredibly meta story which is exactly what it says on the tin. This story just went on and on and on and I tried to read all of it but it was just getting worse and worse. I have actually read the work I needed to in order to get this reference and yet I still didn't get it which is a terrible sign. It was very surreal and read very narcissistic to me. Only for mega-fans I feel.

That's the only one I can talk about in detail as I have forgotten the rest. Sorry.

Overall, I am deeply disappointed I didn't enjoy this. It won't stop me from reading Tremblay's other books and being excited for them but I think I'll avoid his short stories from now on. I understand Tremblay is a huge author but it seems a strange decision to release a collection which is so alienating to people who don't know his work inside and out. I wish I could have given this a more positive review.

Overall Rating:

The Stranger Inside by Laura Benedict

I received an ARC of this book thanks to Net Galley and publisher Mulholland Books in exchange for an honest review.

Oh boy, this was a rough read. And it started off so promising! The Stranger Inside is about what happens when a woman comes home from a long break to discover someone else is living in her house. That alone is a great thriller premise but unfortunately that's pretty much the only great thing about this book.

A lot of other reviews have complained about the main character, Kimber, being incredibly unlikable. This actually didn't bother me much because a) I don't think anyone deserves horrible things to happen to them and so I have a high tolerance for terrible people in thrillers, and b) Kimber was so flat that she didn't have much of a personality for me to dislike. I just could not understand her actions at any point. From the very first chapter, the way she reacts to someone being in her house is just..off.

There is also unfortunately a serious case of the plot only happening because certain people act like morons. Pretty early on Kimber discovers something which could get the stranger out of her house. Does she tell the police? Nope. Instead she keeps it to herself and decides to investigate and continue not being allowed to live in her house. I understand curiousity but what she knows about the stranger isn't intriguing enough at this point for her to want to investigate further. From that point onwards I was just frustrated because everything could be stopped if only Kimber went to the police with what she knew.

The other major problem is that this book really dragged for me. This is a combination of poor pacing, a dull protagonist and a really weird way of doing plot reveals. One spoiler-free example goes like this: Kimber finds out the name of the stranger in her house. A flashback chapter then reveals who that stranger is in regards to her life. Then in the present day, Kimber finds out who that person is through a friend. Then another character tells her who that person is. Then she finds evidence to confirm who that person is. Then another character tells her who the person is. This is the same bit of information talked about again and again with no new details, and we have to sit through characters talking about stuff we already know.

The ending as a whole was a mess. There is one very weak 'twist' which you actually again, get told earlier on through narration. This basically amounts to Kimber going at one point 'Hmm, that mysterious person reminds me of X. But that's silly haha.' and then at the end, 'Omg, that mysterious person is X! Who could have seen this coming?'. I came dangerously close to not finishing reading this and I skimmed the end as a result. The final few pages hold another 'twist' which just erases a pretty major thing and it's about as awful as that sounds.

I really don't feel good when I dislike ARCs that I've requested but sadly, The Stranger Inside just did not do it for me. If characters really aren't important to you and you don't mind not being surprised by a thriller, then you might get more enjoyment out of this than I did,

Overall Rating:

Three Truths and a Lie by Brent Hartinger

SPOILERS AHEAD.

Oh boy. So I admittedly decided to read this book after seeing it on a Booktuber's 'Worst of 2017' list so maybe it's my own fault that yeah, it kind of ended up sucking. To be fair, this book is definitely not the worst thing I've ever read. It's just that the ending...wow.

So this book is about our main character Rob who goes to a cabin in the woods with his boyfriend Liam, Liam's best friend Mia and her boyfriend Galen. Galen gets murdered, they end up stranded in this cabin and then suspicion falls upon everyone. Blah blah blah, pretty standard thriller story.

First of all, the three truths and the lie listed on the blurb are not three truths and a lie. In fact, technically none of them are true? Also I've always played it as 'two truths and a lie' so I can only conclude that the title was changed to have it fit the story and the final twist.

I can't talk about anything else without discussing this ending. So first twist-Liam is behind everything all along. Big surprise. Rob and Liam have only been together for 3 months and yet Rob never suspects Liam once. In fact, he talks constantly about how Liam is his soulmate and acts shocked that he might not know everything about him. In 3 months? Really? By the end of the book, Mia is also dead so there is really only Rob and Liam left, and the book is told from Rob's perspective.

Now the second twist.

Liam and Rob are the same person. Yeah.

You can tell that Hartinger is trying so hard to be clever here. Admittedly, I like that 'Three Truths and a Lie' ultimately refers to three real people, one fake one. But he has this weird scene at the end where a psychiatrist points out to Liam/Rob that Liam and Rob never spoke to each other around other characters and this just reeks of self-congratulatory behaviour on behalf of the author. Like 'look, look how clever I am! See? It's totally not a nonsensical twist at all'.

Also there's another twist with Liam having hated Mia all along (see what I mean about the blurb?) which just makes him seem like the dumbest character ever. He hates her so he deliberately befriends her for years and years just on the off-chance he'll be able to murder her someday. Ah yes, perfect logic there.

I can't be totally unfair to this book. The writing style isn't the worst and I managed to breeze through it. It's just that the plot is so dumb that it overrides everything else. I picked it up out of curiousity but I'm not sure it's even worth that.

Overall Rating:

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

SPOILERS AHEAD.

Oh boy. I am not going to win any fans for this one. So this book has been on my TBR list for four years now. One of my closest friends recommended it to me waaaay back in first year of university and I earnestly promised to read it as he said it was one of his favourite books. Flash forward to 2018-the movie is coming out and I am reminded of this book's existence. I excitedly text him to say I'm finally starting to read it and I begin.

Aaaaaaaaah.

This book is bad. Painfully bad. Reading it is like being punched in the stomach by someone you hate only you're not allowed to complain about it because you have only yourself to blame. The only way I can accurately do my hatred of this book justice is to break it down into subtitles so apologies if it seems disjointed. There is just a LOT of ground to cover.

Plot Summary

The setting is 2045 and the world has gone to crap. Our protagonist is a teenage boy named Wade Watts, an orphan who spends all of his time in an online virtual world called the Oasis. That's all everyone does now-that and make endless 80s references. You see, the guy who made the Oasis died and left behind a video saying he would give 240 billion (yes, BILLION) dollars to whoever finds his hidden Easter egg first. In order to have a chance of finding this Easter egg, you have to memorise every piece of pop culture from the 80s ever. No that isn't a joke. Wade is the biggest geek and therefore of course will undertake the quest to find the egg first. By 'quest' I mean spending four years watching and reading stuff, then finally getting off his ass to do something.

Problem #1-SO MUCH EIGHTIES

Many people appear to love this book because of the endless references to everything nerdy. These people are severely misguided. You see, Cline employs the absolute laziness way of referencing stuff which is to just namecheck everything in a massive stream of pop culture vomit. If the reference isn't included as part of an obnoxiously long list, then you can bet it will be inserted into a paragraph of description in the most distracting way possible. Characters, places, even the music in tense scenes is replaced with a reference to a better work of fiction.

'She was so charming. Her geeky demeanor and hyperkinetic speech pattern reminded me of Jordan, my favorite character in Real Genius'

How distracting is that? It fails on two counts because if you don't get the reference, well you suck for not being nerdy enough (more on that later). If you do get the reference however, then you can't possibly think of anything other than the character from that movie from then onward. It ruins any description Cline does bother to write and it jerks you out of the story like a car crash.

Problem #2-Show don't tell

So the finding of the first key is kind of glossed over a bit (I mean, if you can call 10 chapters or so 'glossed over') which I guess is done because finding it is a given. Unfortunately this results in one of the worst narrative mistakes an author can make and that is simply telling the reader about stuff instead of bothering to describe it. It's honestly baffling when Wade finds out the location of the first key, calculates it will take him three days to get there and then just immediately comes up with an alternative plan. Then he teleports there and makes his way through a dungeon in the space of a sentence. Cline literally lists him finding loot until he reaches the big boss of the dungeon and it's such a bizarre decision. I guess it's because if you've played the game he's referencing, that would be rather dull to read about. Alas it is dull anyway and you could have done so much cool stuff with detailing Wade's journey and have him battling things. Even fans of the game could have enjoyed in-depth references.

This is not a one-off either. Too often the author resorts to simply listing things or skimming over certain details. I don't need to read about everything but why bring something up instead of simply using a time skip or a change of scene? This is also linked closely with the next problem...

Problem #3-No suspense allowed

For the first half of this book (and even a bit beyond that) the author seems petrified to let the reader experience any kind of suspense. Finding the first key is told with the knowledge that Wade will succeed but that does not excuse things like this happening:

'I breathed a sigh of relief. (I wouldn’t learn until later that the keys were nontransferable. You couldn’t drop one of them, or give them to another avatar. And if you were killed while holding one, it vanished right along with your body.)'

So throughout this scene we're not sure if he's going to be attacked and lose the key he just gained. Then Art3mis tries to attack him and the above sentence happens, immediately removing any kind of suspense. By telling us so early on that keys can't be stolen, it removes so much potential tension from later scenes. Again, stuff like this happens repeatedly.

Problem #4-Wade is too good

The other major reason the story lacks any suspense is that Wade basically never struggles with anything. It is astonishing how many skills this guy supposedly has. He is one of the first people to work out the location of the first key and gets it immediately, even though Art3mis has been trying for five weeks. Granted he struggles with working out the second key but only with working it out. The actual nerd skills needed to complete any challenge, he has in spades. None of these skills are foreshadowed either (beyond us being told repeatedly how awesome and nerdy he is) so every time it's like 'I approached the place, waiting to see what the next challenge would be. It was this thing. Sweet, I'm awesome at this thing.'. I was just waiting for him to encounter something he wasn't amazing at and it never really happened.

At one point when Wade is in hiding and is all depressed, he becomes incredibly obese. He then installs a fitness program onto his virtual system and within months (literally months) he gains abs and becomes very muscular. I can understand having a computer program help you lose weight making it much easier but it's still ridiculous. It doesn't explain how he loses that weight healthily when it's so much in such a short space of time. It's just another thing that he does effortlessly.

Problem #5-No one has that much time

This book is all over the place when it comes to logic and time. So Wade is poor and we're told right at the start of the book that he has to scavenge and sell computers for food since his aunt steals all of his government-issued food. This is then never mentioned again. He also attends school which presumably follows the usual full-time school structure. Four years have passed since the start of the egg hunt and yet somehow Wade has had the time to consume thousands of hours of films, TV shows, books and videogames. How? For example, just one thing Wade claims to have done is watch Monty Python and the Holy Grail 157 times. That is almost ten days worth of watching just one film.

This continues much later on when we're suddenly told that he has had to take on a full-time 40 hour a week job (with 10 hour shifts) and yet he still has time to go into the Oasis all the time and still hunt for the egg. What??? It doesn't make any sense.

Problem #6-Is this even a romance?

Not gonna lie, I have quite a few issues with how Art3mis and Wade's relationship goes down in this book. He has a crush on her before he meets her and when he does meet her, we get some truly cringe-worthy flirting between them.

'“You’re evil, you know that?” I said.

She grinned and shook her head. “Chaotic Neutral, sugar.”'

That line was so bad that it almost ruined the magical idea of romance a lifetime of watching Disney movies has instilled in me.

It does get marginally better but it still really bothers me. Art3mis makes a lot of good points about how Wade only gets to see what she wants him to see since they've only interacted online. And she repeatedly says she looks nothing like her avatar which he repeatedly ignores. Good thing she was lying right? This discussion also leads to one of the most godawful please-can-I-stop-reading moments in the whole damn book:

'Art3mis: How well do you know Aech?

Parzival: He’s been my best friend for five years. Now, spill it. Are you a woman? And by that I mean are you a human female who has never had a sex-change operation?

Art3mis: That’s pretty specific.

Parzival: Answer the question, Claire'

If some guy spoke like that to me, I would never ever speak to him again. This was written in 2011 for god's sake, there's no excuse for transphobia.

Just after the halfway point, we get the obligatory break-up due to Art3mis wanting to focus on the contest (though she is adamant they were never dating, something Wade repeatedly ignores). Wade then bombards her with messages etc to try and get her back. I honestly don't know how the author meant us to interpret this because he does get her in the end but it's not as a result of his behaviour. However, it's still another point against our hero.

I also dislike the faint 'not like other girls' vibe going on in the narration. Wade takes time to point out how Art3mis has a curvy but normal build, unlike EVERY OTHER GIRL who apparently are all either stick-thin or have porn star bodies. Because of course most girls would choose to look like a male fantasy.

Finally, there's a scene where Art3mis and Wade discuss what they would do with the money. Wade says he'd buy a mansion and cool stuff and Art3mis says she would feed all the starving people in the world. You know, because dystopia. Wade MOCKS her for this. This is never really resolved apart from a glib joke by Wade later.

Problem #7-All the other crap

1. There is so much racism in regards to the Japanese characters.

2. Aech is apparently one of the most famous players in the Oasis at the start of the book, has a really cool hangout and yet has no friends apart from Wade.

3. Why do they hang out with I-r0k? Seriously, no one likes him and he exists only to mess stuff up later. Oh, and also so Wade can prove his knowledge in one of the hardest scenes to swallow (I've dealt with a lot of sucky gatekeeper nerd guys in my time).

'I nodded. “The prizes were all mentioned in the Swordquest comic books that came with the games. Comic books which happen to be visible in the treasure room in the final scene of Anorak’s Invitation, by the way.”

The crowd burst into applause. I-r0k lowered his head in shame.'

Never has a scene made me root for a protagonist less.

4. If Halliday intended the true message to be 'don't waste your life in the Oasis', why did he create an impossibly hard contest designed to make everyone spend their time in the Oasis consuming the exact same pop culture he did?

5. Wade says this stupid insult '“Your mom bought them for me,” I retorted without breaking my stride. “Tell her I said thanks, the next time you stop at home to breast-feed and pick up your allowance.”' followed by 'At this school, the only real weapons were words, so I’d become skilled at wielding them'. Skilled. With dialogue like that. Sure.

6. Halliday sounds like an awful awful person. Wade takes the time to point out he fired people for not understanding his references and yeah, that makes him awful.

7. Name-dropping Revenge of the Nerds as a good movie. Gross.

8. Oh look, more problematic stuff:

'“Stop hitting yourself like Rain Man, OK?”'

9. Stop. Making. Wade. So. Unlikeable.

'When I reached the bar, I ordered a Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster from the female Klingon bartender and downed half of it. Then I grinned as R2 cued up another classic ’80s tune. “ ‘Union of the Snake,’ ” I recited, mostly out of habit. “Duran Duran. Nineteen eighty-three.”'

10. The weird blob dancing scene.

Final Thoughts

So after all that, how come this book gets two stars and not one? Well to my utter surprise, after about the halfway point this book improves a lot. Almost all of the references vanish (sadly not quite all) and the actual plot becomes the main focus. It's not a bad plot either, and I even found myself enjoying it at times. Sadly this is not enough for me to recommend this book. It wasn't even enough to cancel out the sheer anger it made me feel.

Mild other positives so this doesn't seem so negative-Art3mis is a pretty cool character. I like how she held her own and she was by far the most sensible and relatable person. Aech isn't bad either really. The plot goes in a weird but not unwelcome direction nearish the end and it was certainly different than what I was expecting.

Overall, I am kind of baffled how this book gets any 5 star reviews. From reading them, they all seem to be written by people who are happy with shallow references and enjoy the gatekeeper aspects. As someone who normally loves a clever reference, I am deeply disappointed by the quality on show here.

It's such a shame because the second half of the book shows how good Ready Player One could have been if it wasn't trying so hard. I would have loved to see more creativity and uniqueness within the world of the Oasis. It also desperately needed a less douchey protagonist.

Overall Rating:

Three Sides of a Heart: A Short Story Anthology

From one fantastic cute anthology about love to...well, this. This isn't the worst anthology I've ever read but it's one of the dullest. Most of the stories don't even follow the basic premise and the whole thing is super disappointing. I'm going to do what I've done in the past and go through each short story in turn, only expect a lot less detail for most because I don't actually a) remember what happens or b) like most of them.

Riddles in Mathematics, 2.5/5-One of the better ones, not that that's saying much. It's written in a very dull and kind of hard to follow way. It's also one of the ones that follows the love triangle premise the closest, although yeah, it still doesn't really count as a love triangle. Basically there is a girl, her brother and a girl who is their best friend. Girl fancies best friend girl but thinks she is dating her brother. You can probably guess what happens.

Dread South, 3.5/5-Not. A. Love. Triangle. This was such a weird story to follow the first one but also it was pretty great so I can't fault it too much. It takes place in an alternate timeline where zombies exist after the American Civil War. Black women are trained as warrior servants to protect rich white people, and the main girl gets bought one by her rich fiance. She then falls in love with her servant protector. Bit of a weird context but enjoyable on the whole.

Omega Ship, 2.5/5-Kind of a cool idea? So it's the end of the world and humans are evacuating the earth. However, the ship breaks and only three people manage to escape-one girl and two boys. The girl is overcome by the idea of having to have babies forever and has to choose which boy to have a baby with first. The problem with this is that it could have used more time to explore the emotions of the characters and the themes it was trying to consider. I could totally see this working as a full-length novel or YA series. As it stands, it's a bit weak.

La Revancha del Tango, 1.5/5-I have pretty much no memory of this apart from skim-reading it. A girl dances? Someone gets jealous? Somehow the person she is dancing with symbolises who she is going to be with for the rest of her life. One of the weaker ones.

Cass, An and Dra, 1.5/5-Told sooooo badly. Again, this could have been a cool idea. I'm not entirely sure what the point of the whole 'Cassandra' thing is beyond a reference to Cassandra the fortune teller. Basically Cass (none of the characters have gender in this) is dating An but then is tempted by Dra-or at least, I think that's what this was trying to convey. Cass can see the future and see how each decision they make will result in different options, so each time they have to actively choose An. Obviously the names spell out 'Cassandra' so I was expecting some kind of split personality thing but nope. I don't care enough to try and sort out what this clumsy mess was trying to say I'm afraid.

Lessons for Beginners, 3.5/5-A actual love triangle! The main girl gives kissing lessons to people at school. She gets employed by an old childhood friend and her new boyfriend to try and improve his kissing. The two girls have insane chemistry but aren't sure where it's going to lead. I don't remember just how good this was but it was cute and far more interesting than most of the other stories.

Triangle Solo, 1.5/5-Erm, so this was needlessly sci-fi. It just kind of dropped the sci-fi in there as well, like shoving ham into a vegetarian sandwich. Effectively this is two guys fighting over a girl they used to know who went away for ages and came back hot. I barely skim-read this one.

Vim and Vigor, 4/5-By far the best story in this. There is a love triangle in this but it's not actually part of the story really, just the set-up. These girls were best friends and massively into a fandom when one of them died in an accident. They then stopped speaking to each other and drifted apart, but this story is about them learning to cope with their grief and re-establishing their friendship. A sweet story and a breath of fresh air to the anthology.

Work in Progress, ?/5-I don't even remember this one.

Hurdles, 3.5/5-Another solid one rooted in reality. A girl is set to become a star athlete and has a lovely boyfriend. Her ex boyfriend has just come out of prison for drug use/other bad things. She is trying to decide whether or not to run away with her ex or stay with her new boyfriend and go for an athletic scholarship (or something similar). The only thing holding this story back is you never find out what she chooses. Very disappointing considering one option would be extremely bad for her.

The Historian, The Garrison, and the Cantakerous Catwoman, 3/5-Apart from giving me serious Buffy ripoff vibes, this story was pretty cool. The main character is a girl who helps a superhero-type figure fight demons by basically being his researcher. He then meets another superhero-type girl who he falls in love with. This story is all about the main character's jealousy and feelings of betrayal at this.

Waiting, 1.5/5-I only vaguely remember this story but I definitely know I was not happy with the love triangle resolution. I'm pretty sure the main character ended up picking the worst possible option and treating a perfectly nice guy like crap in the process. This story was clearly going for 'pick passion over companionship' and while I understand that to an extent, they shouldn't have made the other option so appealing. Instead it just seems like she had learned nothing and was making the same bad mistakes all over again.

Vega, ?/5-Erm...this was probably a story in this anthology?

A Hundred Thousand Threads, ?/5-I skipped it sorry.

Before She Was Bloody, ?/5-I also skipped this one. I tried, I really did.

Unus, Duo, Tres, 3.5/5-This was really well-written and quite a cool concept of a story buuuut...polyamory is a thing guys. I don't want to say too much but this is about undead vampire lovers and what happens when they both fall for another human and yeah, polyamory should have been the resolution.

Okay, so as you can probably tell this was a very long anthology and my memory of many of the stories is pretty hazy. I read it only a month ago and even from reading the story descriptions from other reviews, there are some I just can't remember anything about. Overall though I would say it's not worth picking up this anthology. Even the good stories didn't really blow my mind massively, and there are so many that it really drags near the end. It's such a shame because this could be a great premise for a bunch of interesting short stories but that just doesn't happen.

Overall Score:

The Murders of Molly Southbourne by Tade Thompson

I have reluctantly tagged this book as 'horror' due to Goodreads and several reviews on there insisting that this book is scary. It really isn't.

I don't get this book. I heard such rave reviews about it and the premise sounds so interesting and yet the execution is bland and weirdly distant. I get a vague Frankenstein vibe from it which I guess could be a good thing but something isn't quite right about the tone. For starters, the author manages to make a story about a girl constantly spawning murderous clones boring. That in itself is kind of impressive. They also manage to create a novella with very little plot and no real resolution. Combined with a lack of character depth, why is this so popular again?

Okay, so my main issue with this book is that it didn't make me feel anything. The main character is extremely flat and distant, and there's absolutely no emotional reaction from her to anything. Again, maybe this was meant to reflect how traumatic her life is and how it's ruined her? But we start with her as a child and she is just as lifeless then. At no point did I feel like I understood Molly's actions or was worried for her wellbeing. All the potentially interesting things that could stem from this idea remain unremarked upon. What happens if a clone murders her? We never find out. Why is this happening? We kind of find out in the most unsatisfactory way. What the heck does the opening/ending mean? The author decided to just stop so we're definitely not finding that out. It's all so disappointing.

The more I reflect on this book, the more I find to dislike about it. It's not particularly bad or enraging, it's just kind of hollow and ultimately pointless. Even for a novella, there's very little to it. The book equivalent of eating a rice cracker.

Overall Rating:

The Choice by Samantha King

ABSOLUTELY HAS SPOILERS AHEAD. It's okay, this one sucks.

This is one of the messiest books I have ever read. I don't understand how it got this way either because the basic premise (woman picks which child gets killed when a psycho breaks into her house) is good. Not very original but certainly a solid basis for a thriller. Unfortunately the book isn't actually about that.

Okay, so the best way to explain the plot of this book is to summarize each of the three parts separately because really, they're a different story:

Part 1-A woman struggles to live with the guilt she feels for choosing one of her children to die. Unfortunately she can't talk (because none of this is real) which means she doesn't actually have any interesting interactions with anyone. Instead we get internal monologuing interspersed with flashbacks.

Part 2-A woman wakes up from a coma. *gasp* None of part 1 was real! Nothing much happens here until we build up to the 'twist' that her daughter isn't actually dead because the weird choice scenario didn't happen like she imagined it in her coma dream (see what I mean about messy?). This twist is entirely obvious due to no one mentioning her daughter's death at all during this whole section.

Part 3-The main character is kidnapped by her husband who was the masked gunman (again, this is painfully obvious). A vague and badly paced showdown occurs. The woman lives with her two children, the end.

The biggest theme of this book is 'missed opportunities'. So part 1 has the main character be mute as an attempt at foreshadowing the fact that she's not really there/it's some weird coma dream. I as a reader don't care about this however because where is the premise offered by the blurb? I expected a book dealing with the main character's guilt at being forced to choose which child to die, an examination of why she chose that child and MOST IMPORTANTLY, other peoples' reactions to it! What would her husband say to her? Her surviving child? Her friends? All of this is completely lost for the sake of a twist which means that none of it matters anyway.

Similarly, by having the twist at the end of part 2 be so incredibly obvious, it unfortunately means that none of this section really matters either. None of her thoughts about her dead daughter are valid because her daughter isn't dead. So now we're two thirds of the way through the book and nothing so far matters.

It's really sad because there is some good stuff in this book. Not the pacing or plotting because that's always awful, but the actual style of writing isn't terrible. The characters as well are believable and had the potential to be compelling. I like the story of the romance between her and her husband, even if I hate the way it's revealed. And again, that initial seed of the idea could have made for a really good thriller. Instead, we just have the worst kind of mess.

Overall Rating: