Book - Before We Met by Lucie Whitehouse

Love the cover!

Hannah is a British woman in her 30's who was living and working in New York City when she met Mark Reilly, also British, and a successful businessman who owns a well-known software company. The two soon fell in love and Hannah gives up her friends and career to move back to London, due to the closing of Mark's company office in New York. 

The two got married and Hannah settles in Mark's apartment. Fast forward to a few months later, she is still unemployed and he is often travelling for work, especially to New York, where he still has clients. One day, Hannah decides to surprise her husband and went to pick him up at the airport. She waits for a long time, but there isn't any sign of Mark and he isn't picking up his phone. 

Concerned, Hannah decides to contact Neesha, his personal assistant, and his colleagues, who all thought Mark was in a romantic getaway in Rome. On the next day, Mark calls Hannah apologizing extensively, justifying what happened with a bunch of excuses, and promising her he'd come back home on Tuesday.

But something still feels off to Hannah. On a whim, she manages to get inside Mark's company building and get access to his desk, only to find evidence that her money was completely wiped out of her account. Here, is where things really get tricky. Is Mark's company in trouble? If so, why didn't he tell her directly? But it makes no sense, because he is still keeping the same lifestyle as before. And on a conversation with Neesha regarding who Mark might be talking to, she told Hannah a woman named Hermione has been calling and he always closes the door while talking to her...And Mark's family, why does she know so little about them? Dead parents, a estranged brother, and that's pretty much it.

Although Hannah is feeling bad for betraying her partner's trust, she can't shake the feeling that something isn't right and starts looking for answers. Their life will never be the same.

At the beginning, the story was going back to the time the couple met in NYC, which I thought was kind of slow and bland, but as the narrative progressed I started to find it very intriguing. It wasn't predictable, at times I thought the story would end a certain way but after all the ending was completely different. I definitely recommend this novel for fans of domestic and psychological thrillers. This is my first book by Lucie Whitehouse and I'll definitely check out more of her! 

Rate: 4/5

Book - No Exit by Taylor Adams

Darby Throne is a sophomore college student in Colorado who was planning to spend Christmas alone in her dorm room, away from her estranged mother. However, after learning from her sister that her mother is dying of cancer, Darby drops everything and heads to her hometown in Utah.

But the weather conditions are not favorable and she finds herself in a severe snowstorm. In the early evening, she finds a rest stop to wait for the weather conditions to improve. There, the girl meets 3 other people: Ashley (a guy), a talkative accountant, and Ed and Sandi, two cousins on their way to visit family. They are soon joined by Lars, a quiet guy who doesn't say much about himself. There is zero cell reception there, so they have to entertain themselves talking to each other and playing games.

Eventually Darby goes to the parking lot and spots a small hand in the back of a van. At first she thought she was dreaming, but she looks again and sees a little girl inside of a dog cage with duct tape over her mouth. This is where the story really begins: Who is the owner of the van? Do these people know each other? Is there anyone Darby can trust? What I can say here is that Darby is not just going to ignore what she saw. She is going to react. 

This book is really intense! I found it so addictive, I read it in less than a day. I do not agree with all of Darby's decisions but I can understand where she was coming from. It all made sense considering what she reveals about her past and what she has become. 

The story is not told in the first person, so the narrator is not an unreliable one, as sometimes happens in this kind of stories. But it stays on Darby's side, portraying her like a hero and the others as villains in a very comical way (e.g nicknaming and mocking them) and, at the same time, scary and absolutely convincing. 

I absolutely recommend this book if you love thrillers full of action, unpredictable twists and well developed characters. Reading this was a very cinematic experience, it would work perfectly in a movie or a miniseries! 

Rate:5/5

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

My Summer To-Read List

I love a good summer read! This season is definitely the best for a reading catch up! ❤ Here are my choices:

• The Bookseller by Cynthia Swanson (current read)

I'm a sucker for stories with bookstores or libraries involved and this book was a bargain, so I had to buy it at Lisbon's book fair last month! 

It was published in 2015 but it's set in 1962, in Denver, where Kitty Miller runs a bookshop with her best friend, Frieda. She dated Kevin, a doctor, for a while, but it didn't work out. Now she just does what she pleases, without having to justify herself to anyone. 

Eventually she begins to have very lucid dreams about an alternate reality.
At night, she is Katharyn, a married mother of two small children, living in a nice house surrounded by good friends. In the beginning, Kitty was convinced this was a product of her overactive imagination, but as time goes by and her dreams start to look like reality, she is overwhelmed by confusion. 
Ultimately, she has to figure out if she can choose who she wants to be and what's real and what's imagined. 

• No Fences in Alaska by Glen Sobey

A free e-book version of this Young Adult novel was provided to me by NetGalley, which I'll review when I finish reading it.  

Harper, a 16-year-old teenager from Texas, has a complicated relationship with her conservative parents. She has already engaged in sexual activities and uses drugs with her older boyfriend. 
After a confrontation with her father, her boyfriend's betrayal and the discovery that she's pregnant, Harper needs to get away from the mess her life has become.
She calls her grandfather, Cooper, who she hasn't seen in 10 years, and although he's dealing with problems of his own, he's willing to give her granddaughter the help that she needs. 

• V by Thomas Pynchon 

This is another novel I bought for a lower price at the book fair. I was going to buy Inherent Vice, by the same author, as I recognized it because of the movie with the same name, but I ended up finding this one's premise more interesting. 

V, first published in 1963, is the debut novel of Thomas Pynchon, and tells the story of Benny Profane, a discharged US. Navy Sailor and his return to New York, where he spends an idle existence with his friends.
However, Benny's life is turned upside down when he meets Stencil, an ambitious young man on a mission to discover the identity of a woman named V., who met his father during the war and disappeared without a trace. 

• The Piano Teacher by Elfriede Jelinek

Elfriede Jelinek is an Austrian author, and I've been wanting to read The Piano Teacher ever since I visited Vienna in May and did some research on Austrian books. I wonder what great stories are out there in non-English books. 

This is the most famous work of the author, for which she was awarded the 2004 Nobel Prize in Literature. 

Erika Kohut is a thirty-eight year old piano teacher at Vienna Conservatory who lives a seemingly boring life with her controlling mother. However, she has a side no one knows: she secretly visits Turkish peep shows at night to watch live sex shows and sadomasochistic films. 
At the same time, one of her teenage students becomes obsessed with her and it origins a dark and strange relationship between them. 

• My Lovely Wife by Samantha Downing

In this book, which has been described as a mix of Dexter with Gone Girl, we are introduced to Millicent, a real estate agent, and her husband, a tennis pro at the local country club. They live an apparently ordinary life in the Florida suburbs with their two teenage children. They do date nights, family dinners and have plenty of friends. 
However, this kind of life is too dull for them. They needed something new and exciting, so they found an unconventional hobby to keep their marriage alive: murder. 

I love a good psychological thriller. This is definitely going to give me the chills! 

• Valencia and Valentine by Suzy Krause

This novel caught my eye as I read it's recommended for readers of Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, which I absolutely loved. It tells the story of Valencia, a debt collector with OCD and many fears, especially flying and turning thirty-five. 
In order to confront this, her therapist suggests that she flies somewhere before her birthday. Meanwhile, she begins a telephone romance with a man from New York that might actually not exist...

Valentine is a lonely old woman who desperately needs company. She's happy when the new cleaning lady is willing to listen to her story - a life of adventures around the world with her husband until he disappeared without a trace. 

The book's premise ends with the guarantee that the life of these women has more in common that we might think. 

Book - The Girl He Used To Know by Tracey Garvis Graves

“I want to work at a library someday," I said. "I want to spend every waking day of my adult life surrounded by books."

The Girl He Used To Know begins in 2001, when Annika hears a familiar voice while grocery shopping in Chicago. She instantly recognizes him - It's Jonathan, her ex-boyfriend who she hasn't seen in 10 years. 

The story is told by the perspectives of both characters and goes back and forth between 1991, when they meet as students at the University of Illinois and 2001, the year they reconnect and start hanging out again. 

Back in the old days, Annika was a very shy young woman who'd feel extremely nervous in social situations. Her roommate Janice was a life savior, teaching her the ways to navigate through life. Annika's favorite hobbies were reading in her dorm room and going to chess club. One day, she is introduced to Jonathan by one of her playmates.

The two soon begin a romantic relationship. Jonathan was Annika's first boyfriend and everything she could ever ask for. He was loving and kind, and understood Annika's quirks and the challenges of dating her. The two were happier than ever and even made plans to live together in New York after they graduate. Until something tore them apart.

Ten years later, she is a librarian and he works in finance. Now that so much time has passed, they're forced to talk about what happened and confront their feelings. 

This book addresses something which is easy to capture at the beginning but is only mentioned far ahead in the story. It's also a story of true love, loneliness, second changes and forgiveness. 

I think the author made such an effort for Jonathan to be likable that he ended up being too nice, always knowing what to say and do, which I found unrealistic. The story also has a crazy coincidence at the ending, which ultimately added very little to the point of the story. 

This a cute romance novel. I wasn't blown away, but I recommend if you like books with peculiar characters. 

Rate: 3.5/5

Book - Sometimes I Lie by Alice Feeney

When starting reading this book, there are 3 things we learn:

1. I’m in a coma. 

2. My husband doesn’t love me anymore. 
3. Sometimes I lie. 

Amber, a 35-year-old radio presenter, wakes up in a hospital bed. Although everybody thinks she's in a coma, she can hear the voices of the nurses, her husband, Paul, and her sister, Claire, but she can't move or speak to them. Amber doesn't remember why she is there, but she has a suspicion her husband is involved in it. 

The narrative goes back and forth between the present, in which Amber is paralyzed, the days before the incident that put her in the hospital and the pages of childhood diaries. We learn that she is at war with her boss, Madeline, and is doing everything she can to make her leave the radio show. We also find out that Paul is hiding something from her and that Claire was her parents' favorite child, making her feel neglected growing up. We also get to know someone from Amber's past, someone she hasn't seen in many years. 

We know that Amber, as a self-proclaimed liar, is an unreliable narrator and her current state of being high on drugs and partially amnesiac only adds up to the situation.

But slowly, she regains her memory and the truth, or at least the truth given by Amber's perspective, begins to unfold. Is Amber and her sister who they say they are? Who is that someone and what's their part in this story? Is there more about Madeline than just a work dispute? And above all, why is Amber lying in a hospital bed?

Sometimes I Lie is a slap in the face. I felt claustrophobic by Amber's descriptions of being awake but unable to move and wished I could shake her off and make her respond to people. 

The beginning is a bit dull due to the rambling between work situations and present-day illusions and familiar conversations. However, it's only a matter of time until the story gets very interesting and full of unpredictable twists. 

This book left me feeling so confused I ended up reading other people's interpretations. Considering how the story ended I think it can definitely continue in a sequel and would turn out perfectly in a movie as well!
Rate: 4.5/5

Book - Her One Mistake by Heidi Perks

                                                  

This book was previously called Now You See Her

Harriet is a stay at home mom living with her husband, Brian, and her 4 year old daughter Alice. Her only friend is Charlotte, a mother of three who is separated from her husband, Tom. 

The two are polar opposites, with Harriet being shy and reserved and Charlotte a social butterfly who befriended the other moms from her kids' schools and participates in many events in which Harriet didn't fit. Her other friends don't understand why Harriet and Charlotte are so close, but they do have a special bond, although Harriet never shares much about her past and home life.

Harriet has never left Alice with anyone. However, one day she asks Charlotte to look after Alice while she attends a bookkeeping class. Charlotte takes Harriet's daughter and her own children to a school fair. While the kids are playing, Charlotte is distracted scrolling through social media and loses sight of Alice. When Charlotte realizes it, she starts looking for her in the whole area but can't  find the little girl. Soon the police is involved, the case is on the news and Charlotte has to deal with harsh judgement from strangers and her own friends. 

Harriet can't face her too and Charlotte struggles to deal with the guilt. Days pass and still no sign of Alice. But what really happened that day?

This book is a fast-paced psychological thriller with surprising and unpredictable twists. It's told by an omniscient narrator and from the perspectives of both women and it goes back and forth to the day of the disappearance and the present. The book's subject is quite unsettling and the discoveries later on are even more. I couldn't help but feel bad for all that has happened to Harriet.

I absolutely hated Brian's character from the beginning, for reasons you have to find out for yourself. But overall I think this a good read and I will definitely check more books by this author.

Rate: 4.5/5

Book - Seven Days of Us by Francesca Hornak

                                              

In the previous post, I mentioned that I was reading Seven Days of Us, which I've managed to finish this afternoon. The premise caught my attention because it's not about a couple, as I assumed from the title, but about an English family, the Birch, and is set in Christmas 2016. The family consists of Andrew, a journalist who writes about restaurants, Emma, a stay-at-home, and their two adult daughters, Olivia and Phoebe. The story is told by multiple POV.

The eldest daughter, Olivia, who is in her early 30's, is a doctor who volunteers in humanitarian missions abroad and was in Liberia treating an epidemic. She is finally home for Christmas after many years. The problem, though, is that the entire family is required to stay in their old country house for a quarantine of 7 days.

Olivia and Phoebe, who's 3 years younger, don't get along and barely talk to each other - they're way too different. Olivia wants to travel to places in need of her medical help and doesn't want to spend much time with the family, but Phoebe is very close to her parents, especially Andrew. She is engaged to George, her boyfriend of 6 years, and all she can think about is in planning her wedding.

On the other part of the world, in America, a man named Jesse discovers that Andrew is his biological father. He was conceived when Andrew was working as a war correspondent in Beirut, in 1980, and was put for adoption when he was a baby. Desperate to hear from his biological father, Jesse sends him several e-mails, but Andrew doesn't know what to do, specially because he was already in a relationship with Emma when he was in Beirut. But in this dysfunctional family Andrew is not the only one hiding secrets...

Moving on to my opinion, I couldn't connect with the characters, I found them annoying. Although they're grown women, the daughters are treated like teenagers, specially Phoebe, who acts like one during almost the entire book. Besides, her relationship with George looks like it was taken from a Young Adult novel... She is spoiled and selfish, but her parents tolerate this behavior because Olivia has always been distant. Her recent experience made her feel angry and misunderstood, but her lack of effort to interact with her family eventually gets annoying.

The story has some far-fetched coincidences, it feels just too over the top and most events are predictable. I wasn't really a fan of the teenage-y writing style either, or the translation, as I've read it in Portuguese. I won't say it's bad - It's very entertaining, and even though it's over 350 pages long, it kept me so hooked that I've read it in just a few days. Besides, it features some important aspects of our society. 

Rate: 3/5 

Book - The Woman in the Window by A.J Finn

                                               

                                               

So I've finished reading this book more than a week ago and my ideas aren't so fresh, but anyway, I'll give it a go.

This first-person psychological thriller is about Anna, a former child psychologist who had a traumatic experience in her recent past and now lives a reclusive life in a three-story house in New York City, spending her days drinking wine, watching old movies, and engaging herself in online activities such as chatting with strangers in a forum for agoraphobics, playing chess and learning French. Besides, she also spies and photographs her neighbors from her window. She developed an obsession with the Russell's, a couple with a son who moved to the house across her's.

She is alone almost all the time, except when she sees her tenant, David, who lives in her basement, and when her physiotherapist, Bina, visits every wednesday. However, Anna speaks everyday on the phone with her husband and daughter, who live elsewhere, and soon starts being visited by Ethan, the Russell's son.

One day, convinced she witnessed her neighbor's wife, who she has met before, getting stabbed in her own house, she becomes completely paranoid about it, but due to her chaotic existence and drunk behavior no one believes her, not even the police, and later then found out the woman is alive and well. 

So, is Anna mistaking reality for a scene of a movie she saw or it really did happen and the woman was someone else? 

In the beginning I found the book too slow, the description of Anna's daily life and how many bottles of wine she had been drinking was boring and nothing particularly interesting was happening, so I took longer than I usually do to finish it. Actually I was pretty close to giving up. However the story started to get really intense, and it managed to keep my interest. And when I thought it was all solved, an unexpected revelation came up and it was chilling to read the last parts. Basically, the ending part compensated the dull beginning. 
An upcoming movie based on this book is premiering this October. 

Rate: 4/5

I am reading in Portuguese for the first time in a while! Just started Seven Days of Us by Francesca Hornak. It seems promising so far :)

Book - Then She was Gone by Lisa Jewell

  

Ellie Mack was a 15 year old girl who disappeared after she left her house to go to the library. She was the youngest of 3 children and was very close to her mother, Laurel. After she went missing, her parents' marriage fell apart, her father got a new partner, her brother moved away, and her sister Hanna grew cold and distant because she felt unappreciated. 

Laurel now lived alone with her thoughts, with a simple routine of going to work 3 times a week, visited her mother in a old people's home and cleaning Hanna's apartment. The media portrayed Ellie's disappearance as a teenage runway, which felt odd because the girl had no reasons to do it. Summer was just around the corner, she was studying for her final exams and she had a loving boyfriend. Was it an accident or a kidnapping instead? Her mother is unable to move on without finding out what really happened to her daughter. 

One day in a coffee shop, Laurel meets Floyd, a nice man with two daughters who quickly grew close to Laurel and started a romantic relationship with her. When Laurel is introduced to Floyd's younger daughter, Poppy, a clever and precocious 9 year old, she is amazed by the resemblance with Ellie and is intrigued by the unusual way Floyd protects and worships the little girl. 

A new clue appears on Ellie's case, a bag with some of her belongings. Laurel's haunting thoughts come back again, and she starts to realize that there is a connection between Ellie and Floyd's family and that there are secrets to reveal.

Mysteries and thrillers are one of my favorite kind of books and although it's easy to figure out what that connection is really early in the book, I still enjoyed it very much. Yes, most of it is predictable and unbelievable, but the writing is very captivating and you never know when it's going to be a sudden twist or revelation. 

Have you read more books like this? Tell me one in the comments!
Rate: 4/5

Book - The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty

"My darling Cecilia, if you’re reading this, then I’ve died..."

The first book I've read by this author was What Alice Forgot and I enjoyed it, so I decided to read another one. 

This book focus on the lives of 3 different Australian women. Cecilia and Rachel both live in Sydney and Tess lives in Melbourne. Cecilia is a 40-something happily married mom of 3 young daughters. Tess is a slightly younger woman from Melbourne whose husband's said he's in love with her best friend, who happens to be her cousin. After learning this, Tess moves to Sydney with her son to be closer to her mother. Rachel is a school secretary in her 60's and her daughter, Janie, was murdered in the 80's by an unknown killer. She lives everyday in deep pain and becomes obsessed with the thought that a school teacher, who was the last one to be seen with Janie, killed her.

One of Cecilia's daughters has an obsession with the Berlin Wall, and she told her daughter she had a piece of the Wall in the attic, from when she was there many years ago. She went to the attic to get it and instead she found a letter in a envelope from her husband who wrote to only open it at the event of his death. She later confronted him and he begged her not to open. She couldn't resist her curiosity and she did it. What she found a very shocking and life changing fact for the 3 women and the others evolved.

I really liked this story. Although the mystery of the letter is revealed not so far ahead in the book, the big revelations are not made until the very end, and the final part was bittersweet. I feel it all was well put together, except the events and all the details concerning Tess, which I think it had little to do with the main focus of the story. I could connect with the indecisions and doubts of the characters. It explores love, loss, guilt, revenge and ethic behavior. 
 
Have you read it? If you have read and enjoyed more books like this one, tell me in the comments. :)
Rate: 4.5/5 

Book - Where'd You Go, Bernardette by Maria Semple

"Just because it's complicated, just because you think you can't ever know everything about another person, it doesn't mean you can't try."

Where'd You Go, Bernardette was very popular when it came out in 2012 and a movie adaptation is coming this March. I loved the book's cover and I enjoy chick-lit and light reads, so I decided to read this on kindle.

Bernardette Fox is a woman in her early 50's who lives in Seattle with her husband Elgin, who works at Microsoft, her daughter Bee, a 15 year old school prodigy, and their dog. The book starts with Bee asking her parents to take her on a Christmas trip to Antarctica and them promising her they'd go. 

Bernardette is a wacky character who doesn't like social interaction and is despised by the parents of her daughter's school (a group of upper class moms she calls gnats who desperately want to be the perfect parents) because she doesn't contribute to school activities. She avoids talking to people so much she hired a personal assistant from India to help her with her basic needs. Nonetheless she gets along with her daughter very well, who is portrayed in a very childlike manner, although she is a teenager.

The storytelling is unconventional, being entirely told in the form of letters, e-mails, notes, and occasionally from Bee's perspective. I feel like apart from Bernardette, all of the characters were undeveloped and some of the writings came from people completely unfamiliar, which made it harder for me to empathize with them. 

When I started reading this book I didn't think it'd take so long to get to the main point: Bernardette's disappearance. More than half of the story is an explanation of why she acted like she did, her loss of control, her reckless behavior and conflicts with the people surrounding her. 

The ending part was abrupt, predictable, full of unnecessary information (which got me bored), and obviously unrealistic, but I get the book is a satire of an outcast in an upper class neighborhood and is not supposed to be believable. It also has references to the Seattle area and Microsoft that I didn't get. I did like the writing style, although some of the letters were too big.

The first part was entertaining and I kept reading because I was curious to discover more about Bernardette and what would happen to her, but after I knew where she was it became completely dull. I was disappointed.

Rate: 3/5

Book - Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

                                           

This is the first book I've read in my new Kindle, and my last read of 2018. It takes place in the 50's and 60's and follows the story of Kya, a girl who lives in the outskirts of a small town in North Carolina, in the marsh. She was abandoned by her siblings and mother, who left to escape an abusive father. Her father ended up leaving Kya as well so she is left on her own from a young age and soon learned to survive alone, selling mussels to the owner of a local store.  The residents spread rumors about her because of her lifestyle and school was proved to be a terrible experience. Nonetheless she was a smart girl with great talent. The book goes back and forth between when she's growing up, her experiences with love and loss, her passion for the wildlife of the marsh and when she's being charged with the murder of a man she knew. I loved everything about this book! It has beautiful descriptions of nature, and it explores loneliness and prejudice. I imagined beautiful scenarios in my head and felt an emotional attachment to Kya. The writing style is beautiful too.  Rate: 5/5

Book - First Review - The Flavours of Love by Dorothy Koomson

                                                               

           

So, this is my first review in the blog. I published this in my Goodreads account yesterday. (https://www.goodreads.com/mariainesmbd).

*spoilers*

I read this book recently, and it was a quick reading. I read it in 3 or 4 days. 
It's entertaining, but unrealistic. The flirt between Saffron and her daughter's teacher made no sense, due to the circumstances in which they met. And later, the love triangle between her, the teacher and Fynn felt forced as well, considering her husband was Fynn's best friend, was murdered not so long ago and the case was still unresolved. Very cliché.
 
Basically, I think the book was too long and full of information that wasn't really relevant to the story (e.g Saffron's eating disorder). I feel that Saffron was taking everything that was happening too lightly, specially regarding her daughter's pregnancy. She keeps avoiding the situation and speaks to her like nothing has happened, even though it's a big deal and she's just fourteen.

What happened with Imogen's husband and Phoebe didn't made much sense as well since the baby's father was Curtis after all. It was irritating how Saffron treated her daughter like she was a grown-up, even when she had information about Joel's death.

I didn't like the first-person narration, it had too many long unnecessary descriptions. I think Aunt Betty was the only likable character, but the reason she came to Saffron's place was just stupid. The thriller part was pretty much the only interesting part because although it is revealed in the beginning who killed Joel, it was difficult to predict if the murderer would eventually get caught by Saffron while spying her and it was what kept me going.
 
I wouldn't recommend this book. I have read other books by this author, My Best Friend's Girl and Marshmallows for Breakfast and they're better.
Rate: 2/5