By now you are probably aware of how far behind I continually am when it comes to posting reviews. This morning, however, when I logged on to GoodreadBy now you are probably aware of how far behind I continually am when it comes to posting reviews. This morning, however, when I logged on to Goodreads I saw this little diddy was right up there on the heading ticker which was just the nudge I needed I guess to write something up real quick.
The best way for me to describe Friends in Napa is that it is Big Little Lies meets Keeping Up With the Kardashians meets The Big Chill - and if that sounds like a Frankenmashup to you, well . . . .
If you too are a trash goblin and are experiencing some unseasonably warm weather and enjoy reading some pure stabby fluff on the deck, or like the same stuff Kelly Kapoor likes, then definitely give this a go.
The premise here is a fairly familiar one: There’s a dead body and you meander your way to the big reveal while meeting these various “friends in Napa” and watching their various skeletons fall out of closets. It’s vapid in the best guilty pleasure way possible and I gobbled it right up.
I really dug All the Dangerous Things and was so excited when my turn for this one came at the library I pushed all of my other checkouts to the side in order to start it right away. And then I spent three days waiting for something . . . ANYTHING . . . to happen.
This was pretty much a you had me at hello for a couple of reasons . . . .
First, the cover. As much as I despise face covers, I don’t mind this creepy peeper whatsoever. Also, I’m a HUGE fan of authors who stick with the same font/format for their books. I have soooooo many problems recalling names and titles, but I can remember cover art nearly every time.
These bishes were everything I wanted them to be. Like grown up Mean Girls – or even better since they were not only wealthy, but Londoners, a gaggle of Caroline Stanburys . . .
But what is it about you might be asking. Lemme tell you. Tash is trying to navigate her way through balancing motherhood while simultaneously trying to gain a name for herself as a freelance journalist. Her latest story involves looking into a supposed accidental drowning – as requested by the dead girl’s mother. In order to get some free time to work, she enrolls her son in a playgroup containing a group of cliquey, well-to-do mothers. When they take Tash under their wing, she leans right in to keeping up with the Joneses only to discover they knew the deceased as well.
If you like a quality Lifetime Stabby Stab/Desperate Housewives sort of whodunit I’m telling you this is a winner. So satisfying to my little garbage addicted persona! The only complaint????
Come on, authors! You think we’re amateurs? We know all about this stuff – and don’t even get us started on petechiae. Or maybe I should make a note to myself if this is how police investigations/forensic pathology works across the pond and if I ever decide to murder someone, make sure to do it over there ; )...more
Despite not loooooooving The Last Housewife (to me it really was just a cut and paste of the actual Nxivm headlines from a few years ago), I really dug In My Dreams I Hold a Knife so I requested the library to buy this immediately after being denied the ARC. I didn’t know anything about it before beginning – and then I saw the cover blurb by Clare Mackintosh . . .
Yep. That was pretty spot on. Kudos to you, Ms. Winstead, for having the backing behind your fan fiction and for willingly admitting your love for all things Twilight even all these years later. ...more
Here’s another selection with a paltry Goodreads’ rating that I thought was pretty dang decent. The story here is about three lifelong pals
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Here’s another selection with a paltry Goodreads’ rating that I thought was pretty dang decent. The story here is about three lifelong pals on the cusp of growing up. At 15 Xavier, Robert (“Bobcat”) and Charlie are stoked that it’s summer break, that they have their first jobs as lifeguards together and that maybe they are old enough to spread their wings a bit and get out from under their parents’ thumbs. But then the body of a dead young woman is discovered in their upper-class neighborhood and the boys definitely seem to be hiding something. The question left to answer is . . . .
What happened on the greenbelt?
This was a more than satisfactory whodunit for me. The alternating of narrators between the three mothers and the police detective investigating the potential murder and the various backstories and skeletons of all the characters kept me wanting to turn pages. If you like a book that asks “how far would you go to protect your child” or “how well do you know your child?” this will most likely keep your interest as well.
I’m going to keep this real short because simply put, this book was . . . . not good.
If you’re looking for a brainless “thriller” this summ
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I’m going to keep this real short because simply put, this book was . . . . not good.
If you’re looking for a brainless “thriller” this summer, then maybe (?????) add this to your TBR, but for real don’t ever attach my name to the recommendation. I’m Not Done With You Yet was the basic bitch of fatal female friendship stories. There’s a little obsession, there’s a wibbly wobbly timeline, there’s (not even kidding) 34 mentions of being a sociopath, but there’s oh so very little plot and then the narrator changed but the voice was so similar I had to backtrack and see that I was indeed reading from a different perspective.
Good news is, Jesse Q. Sutanto has already written about obsession (literally – the title is The Obsession) and it was a pretty decent YA approach to a story like You. Even better news is you can skip her additions to the thriller genre altogether and get one of her zany murder mysteries instead because both Vera Wang and The Aunties are laugh-out-loud funny.
This one leaves itself open for a sequel, but please god no . . . .
I mean we’re talking the holy grail of house covers right there, kids. Unfortunately the book itself was mostly a flop for me. The main problem was that this was marketed as a whodunit, but you don’t even get a dead granny until 30%. And granny didn’t even need to be murdered for this story. This one is all about the various skeletons that end up falling out of the cupboards when a group of longtime friends get together for a girls’ trip. Granny provided the chateau and was the catalyst behind certain skeletons, but again, she could have been dead to begin with and the ladies could have been coming together either for her funeral or reading of the will without any of the stabby even occurring. But it is what it is. Take this to the pool for some mindless summertime fun if nothing else. (Just be forewarned that this author comes off as a real Francophile who likes to toss in an obnoxious amount of super basic French words to her narration.)...more
For fans of Big Little Lies! Okay, so I have yet to find a neighborhood stabby I enjoyed quite like I did Liane Moriarty’s take on things, but this isFor fans of Big Little Lies! Okay, so I have yet to find a neighborhood stabby I enjoyed quite like I did Liane Moriarty’s take on things, but this is a pretty decent selection if you’re looking for some poolside fun this summer.
The story here takes place in a village about an hour away from Cork City. Ciara is the Instagrammer with the most influence, and all the other mammies in the ‘hood follow her parenting, style and child-rearing advice religiously. Oh, and also she’ll be dead before the end of the prologue. The remainder of the story is figuring out just who did the whodunit where . . . .
And I had no idea who it was going to be because it could have been anyone.
This didn’t have the humor or snark or likeability factor when it came to the characters like others I have loved in this sort of category, but it certainly kept me turning pages!
Did I just read this nearly 750 page book in two days? Tell me you’re crazy without telling me you’re crazy. In my defense, I didn’t realize how long Did I just read this nearly 750 page book in two days? Tell me you’re crazy without telling me you’re crazy. In my defense, I didn’t realize how long this was before I requested it from the library. I simply saw B.E.E. had a new release and Mitchell said he would hurt me if I didn’t get it immediately. I think I was like a billion and a half down the wait list too, but ended up getting this within a week of asking for it so I think it’s safe to say others either were intimidated by the sheer volume or realized pretty darn quickly this wasn’t for them and returned it. And to whoever you are I say THANK YOU for letting me get my grubby little mitts on it post haste.
Now on to the book. Simply put, this is about . . . .
“the memories I had of the Trawler and more specifically of Robert Mallory.”
Written as a nonfiction narrative, this one is for the Bret Easton Ellis superfan. I mean, if you ever wanted to crawl around inside this fella’s brain, The Shards is the one for you! After finishing I did a Google to see what was said about this “true story” before it was released and I am amazed at how many people were duped. Dear Dummies: YOU LITERALLY HAVE A COMPUTER ATTACHED TO YOUR HAND ALMOST ALL THE TIME. It’s not hard to find out these cases didn’t actually happen. Not to mention he is an author who previously wrote a “true story” about fucking vampires. And also . . .
I was a storyteller and I liked decorating an otherwise mundane incident that maybe contained one or two facts that made it initially interesting to be retold in the first place but not really, but adding a detail or two that elevated the story into something legitimately interesting to the listener and gave it humor or surprise or shock, and this came naturally to me. These weren’t lies exactly – I just preferred the exaggerated version.
I just found out this was initially released as a serial story – new entries were written every two weeks and read by Ellis himself on his podcast. My first reaction to that? Oh yeah, I would have read the crap out of this as a serial. Followed immediately by, ewwwww, B.E.E. even YOU have a podcast?
With that knowledge now is the time to disclose that while I’m the first to say “don’t you have an editor?!?!?!?!” – on this occasion I’m giving a pass – because there literally was no editor nor any intention that this would be released as a physical book when it was initially created.
But I wasn’t kidding when I said this is for the superfan. Basically it reads like a high school journal written by someone with extreme literary chops and covers Bret Easton Ellis’ senior year at Buckley in 1981. Ellis more than dabbles in sex (both of the hetero and nonhetero varieties) and drugs, works on his debut novel Less Than Zero, finds himself a member of the “me too” movement nearly 40 years prior to its time and develops a bit of an obsession with the new boy in school who he believes might just be a serial killer. Oh, and also? It is QUINTESSENTIALLY 1980s. We’re talking popped collars, Topsiders, ray bans and a detailing of every single song that was playing at any moment throughout his days. It certainly is not a book for everyone, but it was most definitely for me. All the Stars.
Whistling tunes we hide in the dunes by the seaside . . . . ...more
^^^Oh look, it’s an image of me with my Currently Reading stack. At this point I’m afraid to even look and see how many things I’m supposed
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^^^Oh look, it’s an image of me with my Currently Reading stack. At this point I’m afraid to even look and see how many things I’m supposedly still trying to finish. (In case you don’t know me – I only read one book at a time, but at this point in the year it usually says I’m reading 50 or 60 at once because I suck at posting timely reviews).
I’m going to keep this one short and sweet. It’s been two years since the Sophie Foundation added a new member to their elite rankings, but Jessa might be just what the club is looking for. Gabby can’t leave the suspicious “suicide” of her husband alone – which is making her the prime suspect by the police in what would have been a closed case. Eventually these two former college classmates’ paths will cross again.
Okay, so I’ll be the first to admit that revenge stories just really aren’t my jam. That being said, I thought this was one of the better ones I’ve read. The very obvious motive could have been disclosed about a billion pages sooner and I could always live without soap opera drama (in this case the daughter that was simply thrown in for a *gasp* twist and everything that had anything to do with that part of the storyline). I previously gave this author a 1 Star so I’m glad I enjoyed this one. I’ll eventually get around to Pretty Little Wife....more
I recently read The Writing Retreat by this author’s sister and commented that, although I did not enjoy that selection, I had liked We Were Never HerI recently read The Writing Retreat by this author’s sister and commented that, although I did not enjoy that selection, I had liked We Were Never Here by Andrea Bartz. When I saw this early copy on NetGalley I didn’t hesitate to request it. I mean, look at the cover alone . . . .
The premise here is that Kelly (hey, girl, hey!) has been told by her fiancé that he would like to “pump the breaks” on their upcoming nuptials . . . . and it’s not because they’re in the middle of the pandemic. Kelly shares her story with Sabrina - a former high school friend turned influencer/bestselling romance novelist she has reconnected with over social media – and Sabrina offers Kelly a spare room with she and her husband Nathan in their Virginia mansion. And then they become a throuple????
Yeah. I’m pretty clear that romance in general tends to hinder my enjoyment when it comes to stabby good times, but this was some serious Lifetime Movie of the Week stuff. I’ll go with 2 Stars because it is coming up on pool season so I could see people losing themselves in this bit of nonsense.
ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. ...more
Oh my word. I really dug My Sweet Girl and was super excited to get my hands on an early copy of Amanda Jayatissa’s new release. I started
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Oh my word. I really dug My Sweet Girl and was super excited to get my hands on an early copy of Amanda Jayatissa’s new release. I started it months ago and did something I never do – I put it aside. I wasn’t feeling it and I figured it was a mood thing. Then Book of the Month chose it and Pub Day came around and people all over the ‘Gram were loving it so I thought surely it truly was wrong place/wrong time when I had made my first attempt.
I’m sorry to report but this “wedding gone wrong” (which is one of my favorite mystery/thriller tropes) was a total snoozefest. Literally NOTHING happens until the 80% point and then the reader only gets info finally dumped on them via a change in narrator from the unwanted guest Amaya to the bride-to-be Kaavi’s perspective and a rewind that covers a quick recap of the three months between the engagement and the wedding week. Waaaaaaaay too little, way too late for me. I stuck with it because I have not figured out how to DNF still, but this was a real Sophomore Slump. #zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you, NetGalley!
Despite being someone who never wants to leave her house, somehow I ended up fictionally on the high seas not once but three times between Saturday and Sunday.
The story here is about Jake and Virginie who have pooled all of their dollars in order to buy a small sailing yacht. The plan was to take off for Thailand, but when their neighbor at the marina tells them about a hidden paradise called Amarante, the two decide to really embrace their adventurous side and change their destination. The “locals” (every visitor is allowed a two-month stretch if approved by the authorities) greet them with open arms, but any reader knows some things are simply too good to be true.
Once again, this one is all about the atmosphere. There is a LOT of sailing and boat talk, but as a gal who is addicted to all things Below Deck that was A-okay with me. And at least this one gave credit where credit is due and compared itself to . . . .
Much like the rest of the country, where I live it has been brutal this summer with temperatures at or near 100 for weeks on end. Saturday we were graMuch like the rest of the country, where I live it has been brutal this summer with temperatures at or near 100 for weeks on end. Saturday we were granted a one day reprieve and I flat out told my family . . . .
This one even moreso than the other two. Kenna has traveled to Australia on a mission to stop the impromptu wedding of her best friend Mikki to Jack – a dude who might be an abuser, and definitely appears to be a user who is quickly milking Mikki of her trust fund. Surprised by Kenna’s visit, Mikki and Jack invite her to tag along to a remote beach where their “Tribe” surf some of the wildest waves known to man – a place where it also appears was the last place various backpackers have visited.
Aside from Kenna’s random insta-horniness towards potentially dangerous dudes I really dug this one. Please note before going in that it is not a thrilling thriller. Readers need to be interested in the atmosphere and the surfing to truly dig The Swell. I'll allow the Point Break comparison due to all of the surfing, but And Then There Were None is a pretty big stretch.
3.5 Stars - rounded up for the sheer escape....more
Let me just go ahead and knock this one out real quick since stories like these are kind of a dime a dozen. One of the Girls (that my brain is still iLet me just go ahead and knock this one out real quick since stories like these are kind of a dime a dozen. One of the Girls (that my brain is still insisting was called “Only Us Girls”) is a pretty formulaic tale of a hen gathering gone bad. Six narrators – including bride-to-be Lexi, her lifetime BFF Bella, her new BFF Anna, her other childhood BFF Robyn, Bella’s partner Fen and soon to be sister-in-law Eleanor all tell the goings on of this Greek getaway. Skeletons fall out of closets, someone dies. The end. The person I wanted to die ended up being the one dead and the only character I liked remained likeable throughout so that was a plus. The others ran together so much that I really had to pay attention to the chapter headings indicating exactly who I was reading about. And what is the point of going to some fabulous destination and never actually doing anything???? I was hoping for at least a teensie bit of . . . .
But these basic bitches just sat around the villa eating tzatziki and hummus by the spoonful (literally) and getting wasted. At the end of it all this felt like a mashup of other popular books and wholly unoriginal.
I was expecting to dislike the “bridezilla” in this one, but oh my lord the other leading female was just as insufferable. These weddings g
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I was expecting to dislike the “bridezilla” in this one, but oh my lord the other leading female was just as insufferable. These weddings gone wrong stories seem to be one of this summer’s most popular themes (I currently have two that I can think of all downloaded and ready to go - One of the Girls and You’re Invited for those interested) so it goes without saying there will be some duds in the mix. The same goes for all plots that gain traction simultaneously – another popular one this summer appears to be returning to the family summer home where drama rather than romance ensues – “final girls” were recently all the rage – as was one author stealing another’s story and releasing it as their own. Your mileage will vary when it comes to which of the on trend novels works for you. This one obviously did not for me and we’ll see how the others pan out. ...more
And what better way to do that than a fictional trip to the Greek Isles!
That’s just what Liv plans on doing in Little Nothings. Although on the brink of financial ruin, Liv, the hubs, their daughter and a whole gaggle of other families all whisk away on a fab getaway. The others are all used to this sort of lifestyle, but Liv has been just trying to keep up with the Joneses for quite some time. Over the course of the trip it becomes crystal clear that no matter how much Liv tries to fake it ‘til she makes it, she will always be an outsider . . . and that’s just not acceptable.
This was another brain candy selection and another round of turning my pasty chub into a more palatable tan chub for the summer. If only I had a schmancy drink with an umbrella to imbibe whilst I was reading. I really need to work on getting a butler.
Oh, and I may gripe incessently about my dislike of face/people covers, but this one is an exception to the rule. I want to go to there. ...more
As I said below in a comment to my pal debra I’m going to go ahead and blame my wrongreading on the fact that I am addicted to Every Single Housewives of Every City Ever. (And do you know Dubai is next???? Motherfucking DUBAI!!!!!!! The opulence better be dripping off of those bitches.)
If you aren’t addicted to all of the Househoes, maybe this will work better for you. For me? The “drama” was severely lacking (I mean not one table was to be flipped!) with an overdone trope of someone is dead, but you don’t know who that dragged on and on as a nonstop trip through Dullsville until the final 20 or so pages. I kept thinking the entire time I was reading that I would definitely be recommending Big Little Lies and telling my pals to take a pass here if they had not yet read that one.
But rather than bashing a book that didn’t work for me, let me give you a little refresher course on the type of asshole I am and why I found this one lacking. The other night the Hoebags of Beverly Hills premiered and I. WAS. THERE. FOR. IT. Since I only watch the show and don’t follow any of the ladies in the off season I was completely blindsided that the main topic was going to be Dorit Kemsley’s house getting burglarized. I then went to Reddit to find my tribe and discuss the fact that the entire set up was stinkier than rotten fish. I mean:
1. Kyle already cornered the market on all of her Birkins and mother’s jewelry being stolen a couple of years ago.
2. Who the fuck has an alarm system for a multimillion house that doesn’t have some sort of “rest” feature that allows the people who actually live there to walk around inside without tripping the system at night????
3. It was common knowledge Dorit was on the chopping block and was most likely not going to be invited back to “hold a diamond” and neeeeeeded some sort of storyline to keep her relevant.
4. These crooks show up with nary a dufflebag to carry their wares and have to take a comforter to lug it all down the street.
5. Who then leave her phone at the exit gate (with a flashing light serving as a beacon) so she can call 911?????
6. And finally, the Kemsleys are effing grifters. Dorit's entire tenure has been muddied with lawsuits, bankruptcies and an unfathomable amount of debt to a poor like me (seriously $2MM to the Bellagio???? not to mention the million plus to the IRS). What a lucky break to be able to claim all of these missing valuables with the insurance back at the end of October and pay off some of that money!
Save your “you’re disgusting” or “OMG way to blame a victim!” comments. I know I’m a piece of shit, but I still have a whiff of residual stank in my nostrils from this start to the new season so this book simply paled in comparison to what I’m used to watching on a weekly basis. And I haven’t even watched Atlanta’s debut yet!
An Honest Lie was definitely one of my most anticipated reads this Spring and when my NetGalley request sat as “pending” for eternity (than
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An Honest Lie was definitely one of my most anticipated reads this Spring and when my NetGalley request sat as “pending” for eternity (thank you, NetGalley, for finally allowing users to delete unresponsive requests!) I made sure I was first on the library waiting list for pub day. The story here takes place in the past and the present. In the present our leading lady Rainy is a pretty well-known sculpture artist who lives with her boyfriend Grant on Tiger Mountain and begrudgingly associates with all of his pals at various happy hours, dinners, etc. In the past “Summer” and her mother live outside of Las Vegas . . . . in a cult . . . .
Obviously the past narrative is where it’s at. The present was lackluster from the jumpstart with undeveloped characters and a “girls trip” to Las Vegas which was obviously only a ploy to get Rainy/Summer back to her roots. Rainy is once again Tarryn Fisher herself – her physical appearance is pretty much identical and she lives in the same place Fisher has recently moved to. That being said, the story flowed alright for the first 200 pages although it wasn’t nearly as dark as I would expect from a cult book – especially one with ACTUAL SPOILER(view spoiler)[a potential child pornography ring (hide spoiler)] subplot. The last 100 pages, though? What a slog. There just wasn’t really anything there. The bad guy was obviously the bad guy. Rainy did the typical bimbo move of running straight to danger with not much of a plan on how she was going to get out of things alive. The stuff with the “friend” was paper thin. I’ve really enjoyed Tarryn Fisher in the past and I will definitely read what she comes up with next, but this one was a swing and a miss.
Oh, and a nickel’s worth of free advice: Having your best friend write your cover blurb is kind of like telling everyone you know how smart and pretty you are because your mom says so. It’s tacky – like 5 Starring your own book. Lovers of Verity should definitely seek out Fisher’s stuff. Lovers of the New Adult instalove stylings CoHo is most well-known for will probably not be fans. ...more
That's really all there is to say about this. You looking for a treat? You loved everything Inventing Anna? Or are you like me and can't ge
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That's really all there is to say about this. You looking for a treat? You loved everything Inventing Anna? Or are you like me and can't get the smart television to cooperate so you can't ever watch any Netflix programming, but enjoy stories about con artists and high-fashion lifestyles? If so, check this out. A tasty bit of brain candy for sure....more
Kelly (and the Book Boar)
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