The Retreat by Mark Edwards

I received an ARC from Net Galley and publisher Thomas & Mercer in exchange for an honest review.

I LOVE Mark Edwards. I don't think I've actually reviewed any of his books properly before but I read through all of them about two summers ago. He is one of the few authors where I have consistently loved everything he's done and The Retreat is no different.

For starters, the setting of this book is amazing. I have actually been on a writer's retreat to Wales before and this book captured the creepy atmosphere brilliantly. I also love the basic idea. The main character is a horror writer (whose biggest book is clearly a homage to It) famous for writing about missing children. He accidentally chooses to stay at a place where the woman who runs the retreat had her child go missing. It provides the opportunity for a lot of great character interaction, as well as a solid reason for him to get invested in the mystery.

Before I get too gushy, this book isn't perfect. The story gets a little convoluted near the end, although I still found the ending satisfying. There's also a recurring thing that Mark Edwards does which is he describes female characters somewhat sexually, even when they're not meant to be love interests. It's very minor in this book but I still noticed it to a degree.

On the whole though, I would still very much recommend this book. It has an exciting story and I could not predict where it was going, which was so refreshing. Even if it got a little convoluted, each new hint to the solution was surprising to me and I could not put it down whilst reading it. There are a lot of genuinely creepy moments in here as well, or little atmospheric things which really strengthen the story. Ultimately this is another great book from Edwards and I highly suggest you pick it up.

Overall Rating:

The Good Twin by Marti Green

I received an ARC from Net Galley and publisher Thomas & Mercer in exchange for an honest review.

I was honestly so disappointed by this! So the twin/thriller thing has been done to death and this doesn't exactly have the most original plot. However, that gorgeous cover and the potential for a good story sucked me. After all, I don't really mind how original my thrillers are in premise so long as they keep me entertained. Unfortunately due to a poor writing style, The Good Twin barely did that.

It is ultimately the writing that lets this book down. The characters are very flat and don't feel like actual people at all. It switches between focusing on Mallory and Ben, but Mallory's chapters are written from her POV and Ben's chapters are in third person. This makes for a very jarring reading experience. I can only assume this was done so we could tell who the focus was on without the chapters saying 'Mallory' and 'Ben' all the time, but it's really not a great solution.

You also then get flashback chapters from Charley's POV which don't add much new to the story and you have the whole thing of having to go over events you've already read about. This is a good chunk of the book and it just feels like you're waiting to catch up with the present again. Out of all three of the main characters, Charley is probably the best written but that isn't saying much.

My other major problem with this book is that it swaps plots a fair bit in the standard twisty thriller way. The issue with this is I was far more interested in the story I thought I was getting before the twists happened. I liked the whole 'can I really trust them?' aspect of both Ben and Mallory's interactions, and the same thing at the end part too (not going into detail because I don't want to spoil but it should be clear what I mean if you've read it). The first twist has been done to death in books like this while I haven't really read many books that cover the whole 'can I trust my partner in crime?' thing.

Overall, this book isn't bad enough to really annoy me but it was a bit of a slog to get through. There isn't really anything positive that would make me recommend it. It's passable but there are far better thrillers to pick up.

Overall Rating:

.5

Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

Okay, so confession time-I was not expecting to like this book. I have actually been avoiding reading this book for several reasons, the main one being that I'm not the biggest romance fan anyway and I'd heard that the romance in this is one of those where all the problems are caused by stupid teen pettiness. This is definitely not the case. Anyway, what finally made me pick it up is we got it in at work in our £1 sale bin so I caved and decided to try it. I was not expecting to love it as much as I did.

So this is a fairly straightforward story of a boy and a girl who meet on the school bus, fall in love and deal with a lot of family drama whilst doing so. I haven't read anything by Rainbow Rowell before and I was not prepared for the beautiful writing style. This is not written like most YA romances-it is definitely not fluff and the characters are more like mini serious adults, only somehow also realistic and not in the least bit pretentious. The problems dealt with in this book are also very real.

I liked both of the main characters immensely. Eleanor is the kind of character who should annoy me. She picks fights with Park when she has no real reason to and her entire style of thinking is very odd and eclectic. However, I felt like I 100% understood her at all times. The strength of this book really comes from the two protagonists. I never had to deal with anything like what Eleanor goes through but I could recognize my teenage self in her all the same. I also really like Park a lot. His storyline is pretty understated compared with Eleanor's but it is made up of brilliant moments. The whole eyeliner bit is brilliantly done, as is his dad stuff. His mum's attitude to Eleanor is another thing I loved. The family is extremely present in this book for both protagonists and again, every single one of them felt like a real person.

There are a few problems with this book but nothing major. As I said, Eleanor does pick fights and I can understand why people would be frustrated with her. There's a whole scene where she gets mad that Park likes her when she wears makeup, although this makes perfect sense when you consider she is probably playing down her femininity to avoid catching her stepdad's eye even more. Understanding Eleanor stopped stuff like that bothering me personally. There are also a ton of weird metaphors or bits of writing which again, I quite liked but I can see how it would be annoying. They all came from Eleanor's POV.

Overall, I am so happy that I decided to read this book. It has definitely become one of  my favourite YA romances and I will be seeking out more from the author. I would highly recommend it if you're looking for a romance which is low on the fluff but high on the emotional connections and character detail.

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:

Little Monsters by Kara Thomas

I read a lot of YA. I read a lot of thrillers. But something I tend to neglect somewhat in my reading in YA thrillers. Recently I've been in the mood for them so I finally picked up Little Monsters which has been on my TBR list forever. And yeah, it's pretty damn good.

One great thing about this book is it did not go in the direction I expected. It wasn't 100% surprising and I could see a lot of what happened around the middle of the book coming from a mile off, but then the story evolved and went in a slightly different direction again which was surprising. I will say that the very end (as in, literally the last sentence) was confusing for me. I didn't understand what it was trying to do, though it was framed as a last-minute twist of sorts. Maybe someone can explain to me what that meant because yeah, it left things on a weird note.

Little Monsters tells the story of Kacey, the relatively new girl in town who is still struggling to find her place among her friends. The plot kicks off when her two best friends don't invite her to a party one night and, unfortunately, this is also the night where one of the friends mysteriously vanishes. Like most YA thrillers, this book does take some ridiculous turns. They're not awful but they're not exactly the most logical of routes either. Kacey also makes terrible decisions throughout which is very frustrating. I consider both of those features of the YA thriller genre though so I'm willing to let it slide. I get very tense reading about people accused of a murder they didn't commit so perhaps Kacey's poor decisions got to me more than they would most.

Overall, this is a neat little read. The writing style is pleasant enough and I definitely wanted to keep reading to find out what happened next. The ending is satisfying if not perfect, and all the characters are quite well-developed and interesting. If YA thrillers are your thing, you should definitely check this one out.

Overall Rating:

Little Deaths by John F.D. Taff

Now this was a pleasant surprise!

Honestly I wasn't expecting this collection to be great. I haven't had much luck with horror anthologies on Amazon and most of them tend to be either forgettable, weirdly sexual or just entirely gore-based. The stories in this aren't (on the whole) any of those things. Most of them are really unique, very gripping horror stories that manage to be surreal at times without crossing the line into absurd or incomprehensible. Alas not every story in this collection is great and I was slightly put off by the author gushing about his own stories at the end which knocked off a star or two.

So let's start off with the good. 'Bolts' is pretty solid, albeit I was very put off by the weird vibes the main character's relationship had. It felt very forced and read like someone writing about a fantasy relationship. Thankfully this doesn't last and the story is a neat twist on a classic. 'Calendar Girl' was really great and one of my favourites. The suspense is built up well and its not entirely predictable which is great, 'Here' is beautiful and mesmerizing, and again you can't really tell what is going on as the plot sucks you in. It's not really even a horror story but it fills you with dread and the potential for horror keeps you guessing. 'The Mellified Man' was another favourite and, while predictable, I still loved every second. All of these I would give 4-5 stars.

Most of the rest I would give 3 stars each. 'Helping Hands' was one of the more engaging ones, and 'The Lacquered Box' only missed out by not really being very clear in what was going on. I hated 'The Mire of Human Veins' at first but it grew on me as it went on. My main problem was the overly-descriptive writing style which doesn't really fit with the other stories and comes across as pretentious. 'Orifice' was so close to being good for me but it just fell a bit on the weird side.

There were only a couple that I either didn't read properly or actively disliked. They tended to either be more on the sci-fi side or else I hated the format of the story. 'Sharp Edges' was very bland and I skimmed it after the first few pages. I couldn't even read 'Snapback' due to the terrible format of it being emails or reports or whatever it was. 'In Men, Black' was also uninteresting to me and I couldn't engage with the alien plot at all. Assume all the rest that I haven't mentioned are middle of the road for me.

Overall, I was very pleased with this collection. Though this review may seem fairly negative, I was genuinely enthralled by most of the stories and some of them I know will stick with me for a very long time. Taff's writing style is clear, enjoyable and quick to digest which is perfect for a collection like this. I would definitely recommend this for anyone who enjoys horror anthologies and I would love to read more from the author.

Overall Rating:

.5

S.T.A.G.S by M.A. Bennett

This is a bit of a weird experience for me because I heard of this book this morning, got it on my Kindle, read it in less than two hours and now I'm writing this review. It's also kind of a weird book.

So S.T.A.G.S is about this girl who goes to this super fancy boarding school full of students with old money. She goes there on a scholarship and everything about the school is very traditional and totally unrealistic. The popular kids are these 6 teenagers called 'The Medievals' who wear monk hoods and stockings (to be fair, the entire school has to wear stockings). They detest technology and encourage everyone to read and paint and do other, more useful activities instead. We're meant to buy that the whole school goes along with this and no one ever uses a mobile phone entirely out of choice.

Anyway, the main character gets invited to a hunting weekend at the main popular guy's house, along with two other unpopular kids and all of the Medievals. If you've read the blurb of this book (heck, even if you've read the cover) you can totally guess where this plot is going. The downside is that it doesn't take it anywhere near far enough. I was disappointed by how tame this book is. Maybe I read too much horror but I was expecting the rich kids to literally hunt the unpopular kids and try to murder them. That isn't what happens. Even considering it's YA, it's a bit of a letdown.

Having said that, this is still a pretty good book. The characters behave like idiots at times and the ending bothers me so much because again, it's a super obvious 'twist' and it's not surprising at all. The one thing I liked about the ending was the callback to the comma thing. That was admittedly a nice touch. However, I feel like there was a plot hole with the whole 'it's been going on since Medieval times' thing. Like does it always take place at Henry's house? If so, how have they made sure that there is always one family member there? It's just one of those things where the more I think about it, the less sense it makes.

S.T.A.G.S is not a book that is going to change the world but it is an enjoyable and also very easy read. It's very short and if you like the sound of the blurb, you are pretty much going to get exactly what you expect from that. It's worth reading for the likeable characters and the endearing oddness of it all alone, but it's also a little more than that. Just don't expect anything super dark or surprising because you will be disappointed.

Overall Rating:

Close Your Eyes... by Darren O'Sullivan

I received an ARC from Net Galley and publisher HQ Digital in exchange for an honest review.

To be perfectly honest, the start of this book was a struggle for me. It's not really anything to do with the book itself but this is definitely not my brand of thriller. The story centers around Daniel, a man whose family gets kidnapped by a mysterious figure from his past. The figure says that Daniel has something that belongs to them and they need it back or else his family will die. The only problem is Daniel has amnesia and has no idea what the object is, let alone where he hid it.

So yeah, I typically go for more psychological and domestic thrillers. For the first half of this book I was very bored and I almost didn't finish reading it. However, it is very well-written and I found myself connecting with the characters despite it all. After the halfway point, I was hooked. It helped me that the chapters alternate between Daniel hunting for this object and his wife and child being held hostage. Rachel was by far my favourite character and I loved the amount of time spent on her half of the story, as well as the focus on the child. Too often the family is treated like a plot device in books like this whereas here they were definitely fully-fledged characters.

In the end, I really enjoyed reading this book and I loved how the plot went. If this is your kind of thriller then you should definitely read it as you will enjoy the first half much more than I did. Even if it isn't, it might be worth trying. For an author to get me invested in a story like this, they have to be doing something right. The second half definitely has more elements of a psychological thriller as well which adds a nice dimension to the more adventure thriller side. Overall I would highly recommend this book.

Overall Rating:

.5

Aftercare Instructions by Bonnie Pipkin

I received an ARC from Net Galley and publisher Legend Press in exchange for an honest review.

I'm a little confused because I got this book from Net Galley where is is apparently being released on the 3rd May 2018. However, Goodreads says it was published 27th June 2017. Oh well.

This is a bit of an odd read for me. Genesis (I hate that name so much) is a girl with many problems in her life-her dad died of an overdose, her mother is suicidal and her boyfriend ran out and left her at the abortion clinic. This book focuses on her dealing with the latter problem and adjusting to the idea of a life without her boyfriend. Despite the intense subject matter, this is actually a rather detached book which makes it easier reading than it might have otherwise been. The characters are okay but they don't really cross the line into feeling like real people, perhaps with the exception of Gen herself. This isn't necessarily a flaw-in a book like this, too much focus on character would have been very difficult to read and distracting from the main character. On the other hand, anyone who isn't Gen is a bit flat.

There isn't a whole lot of plot here but that's okay. I enjoyed the flashbacks to before the abortion being told through the medium of play scripts. It was a nice touch and it came across like Gen dealing with her pain through distancing herself from it by writing the scripts. I don't know if that was the intention but I appreciated it all the same.

So why isn't this rated higher? Honestly, it's mostly because of things it lacks rather than mistakes it makes. Not much attention is given to things like developing Gen's friends as characters and so when we do get vague details about them, it can be confusing. Ditto Gen's family situation. We know her sister moved out and Gen misses her but only because we are told these things explicitly. We're never shown Gen being close with her sister or missing her particularly. A similar thing happens with Peter's mum hating Gen. We get one script scene flashback but the rest is all told to us.

Overall, I don't regret reading this book. It's an interesting read and I wasn't really sure where it was going, both of which are good. It's a shame I couldn't rate it higher but it just doesn't have that life to it that makes me love a book.

Overall Rating:

.5

Twenty Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler

Okay, so this is partially my own fault because this book has been on my TBR list forever and I haven't read the blurb in over two years. But I picked this up expecting a trashy, fluffy romance and I was not prepared for the depth this book goes.

Maybe 'depth' is the wrong word but this book is not about two teenage girls trying to kiss their way through twenty boys in twenty days. It's actually about one girl trying desperately to grieve the death of her boyfriend without letting her best friend know, all while reconciling her guilt with having new romantic feelings for someone. It's still a YA and don't get me wrong, there are plenty of teenage girl moments and fluffy bits. But damn if it doesn't make a decent stab at depicting grief and complex emotions either.

'The hardest thing is that I'll never know exactly what I lost, how much it should hurt, how long I should keep thinking about him.'

I found the main character Anna to be extremely likeable. You understand why she is friends with Frankie, who could so easily have been turned into the horrible, typical YA wild best friend. Instead you get a friendship that feels very real, as well as actual family relationships and proper parental characters. Ockler somehow manages to capture the almost-mundane side of grief and difficult circumstances. What happens when all the desperate mourning stops and you have to return to everyday life?

'There’s not much anger left between us, just a great divide — like best friends in high school who go to different colleges, lose touch, and move on in parallel lives that never cross until years later, in a random bar or grocery store, and after a brief hug and five minutes of small talk, they both realize that the threads that connected them so long ago have frayed and blown away, leaving nothing to discuss.
So they nod and smile.
And bid one another farewell.'

See that? We've all felt that and damn, Ockler describes it perfectly.

So is this book going to change the world? No, of course not. It is YA and there are some excruciating quotes in here too. But I was pleasantly surprised by the way this book handled grief. It also described being a teenage girl in a fairly accurate way, without a lot of the exaggeration often found in YA fiction. Overall I am glad I finally read it and I feel like I got something from it beyond the trashy fluff I was looking for.

Overall Rating:

.5

Dark Matter by Blake Crouch

SPOILERS AHEAD.

Good news-the book club I'm a part of has been revived! Expect more random book reviews of things that aren't usually my taste.

So this is the type of thriller I would never pick up, only with a very sciency edge. I was honestly not expecting to enjoy it as much as I did but it turned out to be a pleasant surprise. This book focuses on Jason, a Physics professor with a wife and a son who gets kidnapped by the alternative universe version of himself and sent to a world where his family doesn't exist. Instead he has invented a box that lets him travel to alternative universes. There are essentially three parts to this book-Jason being kidnapped, him universe-hopping to try and find his world and his eventual return to it.

By far my favourite part of this was the last third. I did not expect the twist of there being multiple Jasons and I loved the way this was handled. Up until that part, it was an enjoyable but not particularly engaging story. Jason as a character could have been far more annoying than he was and I was so happy that he didn't cross the line into an unlikeable male protagonist. I was however slightly disappointed with the way his wife was handled. Instead of universe-hopping with some random female scientist, why not make it the alternative version of his wife? It would have added another level to the whole 'do I sleep with her?' dilemma and also given his wife more character depth. Instead we get Jason immediately sleeping with her with barely any moral quandary and then she gets shot. Sure, it might have harmed the last third but she could have died in an alternative universe in some way and then had that bit play out the same.

For a book that isn't usually my taste, I really enjoyed reading this. It posed some interesting questions regarding 'what is the self?', and the ending did not follow the same predictable route as the rest of the book which gave it a breath of fresh air. The characters weren't amazing but they weren't cardboard cut-outs either. Overall, if you like the sound of the blurb then I would definitely give this one a try.

Overall Rating:

.5

White Lies by Lucy Dawson

I received an ARC from Net Galley and publisher Bookouture in exchange for an honest review.

Now this was a good one.

I read a lot of thrillers and yet I haven't really read anything like White Lies. The story starts with our doctor protagonist Alex sleeping with a random guy she meets in Ibiza, only to return home to realise that she has accidentally slept with a teenage patient of hers. The story flips perspectives so you hear her side first, followed by Jonathan's and then some other characters' as well for good measure. This is the kind of thriller that makes you doubt everything the characters say, but in a really enjoyable way that means you can't put the book down. I loved how the reader was made to doubt Alex and how this was mirrored by the doubts of both the media and her husband in-story. I also liked how Alex was kept at a little bit of a distance from the reader in comparison to the other characters, despite her being the first POV we get. Not returning to her head after we hear Jonathan's side continued that doubt and kept the reader guessing in a really effective way.

In general, the writing style here is very good. All the characters are well-developed and have a unique voice to them. The only minor gripe I had was that the author seemed to have certain vendettas which unfortunately leaked their way into the story. For example, at one point a character complains about how people can become famous on Youtube for doing nothing, and this is mentioned again later by a different character. It's not plot-relevant and it seems like Dawson just wanted to rant a little about social media. There are a few little moments like that with the teenage characters as well which just seem a bit off. However, I have read far worse-written teenage characters, especially in thrillers.

Overall, this was a nice little surprise in a genre I am very familiar with. The actual mystery aspect isn't too complicated which bumped down the rating a little, though there was still an unexpected moment or two. The strength of this thriller is the characters and how you get invested in finding out which ones you can trust, and it is this that drives the book rather than lots of surprising twists and dramatic happenings. I thoroughly enjoyed it and would definitely seek out more from the author.

Overall Rating:

.5

The Merry Spinster by Mallory Ortberg

This book was so disappointing! Look at that beautiful cover. It has a cool (if not overdone) premise to match-twisted retelling of fairytales. Alas, many of the stories in this are just not up to scratch.

This is a relatively short collection and so I'm going to do things a little differently to how I normally review short stories. Instead of going over each story in detail, I'm just going to talk about them generally in comparison to each other and similar things I've read.

So the first story is definitely one of the strongest and unfortunately this led to a large part of my disappointment. 'The Daughter Cells' is kind of like if Lemony Snicket retold The Little Mermaid and all the dark joy that implies. It had a bunch of quotable stuff and used the fairytale to make matter-of-fact, humourous commentary on society. I was hoping all the stories would have this tone and while they kind of do, very few have such a coherent and detailed story to go along with it.

'The Thankless Child' is next (a retelling of Cinderella sort of) and I enjoyed it enough until the ending happened. It was very abrupt and I had no idea what it meant, despite reading it twice. This highlights one of the main issues with many of these stories-they don't appear to have a point. This could be because they are all mixes of several tales (the inspiration for each story is listed at the back which is very cool) and so having not read a lot of the original tales, it may be that stuff gets lost for me. However, I don't believe this is a valid excuse as the story really should stand alone.

'Fear Not' was amusing, yet confusing again and forgettable (although it was inspired by the Bible and so felt like one of the more unique tales). 'The Six Boy Coffins' was finally another story that had a decent plot and a clear ending. This was extremely powerful and again, it used the fairytale element to make a comment about society in a very strong way.

'The Rabbit' follows this and was my favourite story in the whole collection. It is a seriously creepy retelling of The Velveteen Rabbit and I think the simplicity of focusing on one story works in its favour. I will not be forgetting that one anytime soon.

'The Merry Spinster' was a very pointless retelling of Beauty and the Beast with an amusing writing style but it really went absolutely nowhere. I don't even remember 'The Wedding Party' (I finished this book two days ago) and the remaining four stories are all very similar in that they are creepy but again, ultimately pointless or unclear in what they are trying to say.

Overall, I wish I could love this collection more. It has a few really good stories and it shows so much promise in terms of Ortberg's writing style. I just wish it wasn't so hit and miss.

Overall Rating:

.5