Book - It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover

Lily Bloom is 23 years old and moved from Maine to Boston 2 years ago to work at a marketing firm. On the night her father dies, after she returned from Maine to give a speech at his funeral, she meets Ryle, a gorgeous neurosurgeon. Handsome, seductive and smart, more cliché is impossible.

She somehow managed to get in a random building near her house to think about the situation and was sitting on the ledge when she heard Ryle kicking a chair in the distance. This is the first scene of the book. I find it so ridiculous and unrealistic I couldn't help but wonder if the whole book was going to be filled with these kind of situations.

Moving on, they spot each other and begin a conversation. Ryle tells Lily he has no desire to get married and have children and is into one night stands, while she is still looking for the one. Although they enjoyed talking to each other, they decide to not meet again due to their differences.

Fast-forward months later, Lily is now pursuing her dream of opening a flower shop with her inheritance money, and, while she's remodeling the store, a bored housewive named Allysa walked in offering to help, which led to a very close friendship between the two. Once again, very out of the blue. This girl lives with her husband, Marshall, an app develop who makes millions, so the couple is super rich. And super annoying. I seriously disliked these characters. Not only the way Lily met Allysa is far-fetched but her relationship with her husband felt extremely childish. But the worse is yet to come. 

Lily hurts her ankle while working at the floral shop and Allysa called her brother and husband to come and help. That's when Lily finds out Allysa's brother is Ryle! And then the complicated love story begins. Seriously? I mean, this could have made more sense if the story was set in a small town...But it's Boston! What are the odds? If only that was the last coincidence though...

There's also a side love story with a boy named Atlas told through Lily's high school diaries. Wait, unsend letters to Ellen DeGeneres...Yep, she was a bit of a fan girl. 

I know this is an unpopular opinion but I definitely have a problem with books like this one. The point is to portray domestic abuse from two different perspectives, which per se is an interesting idea. The thing is, the writing is too bland and superficial for me to be able to feel some kind of empathy for the characters. I just didn't care about what happened to them.

However, I did enjoy reading the development of Lily's relationship with Atlas.

It was one of the parts that felt more genuine because the rest was just artificial. The end fitted well within the story but was so damn predictable I just wished the author had been more creative and thought of something else. 

This is the first book I've read by Colleen Hoover. It's a very light read, I finished it in less than a day. I started it with good expectations because it has a high (4.40/5) Goodreads review rate. However, I am very disappointed. I probably won't read another one by this author again. 

Rate: 2/5

Book - My Lovely Wife by Samantha Downing

Millicent and her husband are your typical couple: They live in Florida suburbs with their two teenage children, Rory and Jenna. He works as a tennis instructor at the local country club and she as real estate agent. They also have a good social life. 

However, after 15 years of marriage, the couple became bored and decided to spice up their union with an unusual hobby: murder.

We learn that they do not commit the murders together. The unnamed husband, goes to bars impersonating Tobias, a deaf man, in order to find potential victims for Millicent to kill. 

One day, Tobias sees on the news that the body of one of the women Millicent killed the year before were found. However, he was shocked to find that she was not dead for long. In fact, she was just killed, which means that Millicent was holding her captive. 

Confused, Tobias confronted his wife about this, and she told him it was a surprise because it coincided with Owen Riley's (a local serial killer who murdered several women years before) anniversary of disappearance. 

Hyped by the possibility of using Owen as a scapegoat, Tobias starts sending letters to the news reporter claiming to be Owen and threatening more killings. At the same time, the couple starts thinking about the next victim. But this convenient solution has its faults and the consequences are unimaginable. 

This book starts extremely slow and has way too many domestic life scenarios and references. That includes flashbacks from the past, e.g, about the circumstances Millicent and her husband met and when and why they moved to their neighborhood. I feel that most of these were unnecessary and a bit boring. 

The couple's kids also play a role in the book, as Rory finds his dad sneaking out to go to bars at night wearing a suit and thinks he is cheating on Millicent. Jenna develops anxiety about the supposedly serial killer Owen being out. There is also a side story regarding Millicent's past that led to them becoming engaged in murder. 

I can't say this wasn't entertaining, but I've certainly read more suspenseful thrillers. The end is what I thought it was going to be, however I wasn't expecting the final twist. And although the characters, specially Millicent, are portrayed as smart, considering how the story went I have to say they're not as bright as it seems. Much of the way they act and their decisions are non-nonsensical. On a positive note, I liked the author's writing style and the fact that she didn't name Millicent's husband gives the book a more creepy vibe. 

Note: As the book is told by the husband's perspective and he is not present in during the captivity and murders of the victims, there aren't any graphic descriptions of those moments.

Rate: 2.5/5