heamarhar's reviews
102 reviews

Hated every character and was disappointed at the ending. However, I couldn't stop reading and loved the suspense. Give and take, I guess!

There's a lot to unpack here.

I loved Sneha's growth throughout the book, learning to accept ideas she first brushes off as too radical (I am glad I apprehensively stuck with it after her pronoun and communism rants). I struggled a bit at first with the lack of quotation marks. Besides that, the writing itself is beautiful and smart. I enjoyed the inside jokes and callbacks to previous chapters. Sneha is a flawed character, not completely likable by many standards, but the few moments she lets her friends and family in are quite moving. I think Tig deserved better as far as friendship and character development are concerned. I found myself quite surprised by the scope of topics the characters discuss (either in passing or at length): immigration, deportation, CSA, queerness, race, class, wage theft, poverty, learning disabilities, police brutality, friendships, love, family, identity, intimate partner violence, trauma... Just to name a few. (Don't get me wrong: in no universe would I recommend this book to anyone interested in gaining a nuanced view of social issues, I'm simply saying it was refreshing to read a book with such a diverse cast of characters with so many differing opinions and backgrounds. A good portion of this book centers around Sneha's idealization of whiteness and struggle to come to terms with her own identity - FYI).

Flaws and all, I think this was a lovely, emotional read and I'm glad I picked it. Sorry for the text wall. Might sort that out later, probably won't!

This was great. I kinda saw it coming but I had fun following along as everything was revealed! Very quintessential Lisa Jewell. I now officially forgive her for the anticlimactic and uncharacteristically boring book The Girls in the Garden. This made up for it!

Holy shit! Have you ever watched Grave Encounters? Did you love it? Did you love the sequel as much as I do? Have you ever wanted to experience a creepy found footage horror movie in the form of a book? Read this. Yes, the characters are archetypal, but it all comes together and gets fleshed out in the end. Might be the beers I had while finishing the book, but I LOVED it.

I LOVE this author's writing style. It's relatable and made me laugh out loud at some points. This was a great one-day read. Who doesn't love suspense, body horror, birds, bugs, flowers, and a witty mom/daughter duo?

3.5 stars rounded up. This collection of stories is brilliant if you are able to turn off the logical part of your brain while reading. A lot of the stories drop you into unfamiliar territory and leave little room to figure out where you are, how you got here, and what is going on. My best example would be Our Town's Monster. If you know, you know. Or you don't know, I guess? I loved the lack of exposition, and I'm not being facetious when I say so - going into a story with zero context makes it 10x more unsettling than if I knew every minute detail. The best example of this is It's Against the Law to Feed the Ducks. We aren't ever told what is going on in the outside world, but that only enhances the macabre atmosphere.


I do feel like I would have gotten more out of this collection if I had first read A Head Full of Ghosts to understand more about Merry and Marjorie, two sisters who make appearances in a few stories.

Uh... I'm going to need 1-2 business lifetimes to process everything that happened here...

Insanely twisty! Had me on the edge of my seat every time I picked this up. My jaw dropped to the floor at least 4 times. I loved it. It was a little cheesy at first but it's for good reason. So much fun. I wish this was a police procedural show I could watch with my mom on A&E.

What else did you expect? Did you think I was going to give Emily Henry anything less than 5 stars? I read this in maybe 5-6 hours and didn't put it down once. I laughed, I cried, I explained/gushed about the storyline to a confused Ben... The usual.

If you need me, I'll be waiting for news of her next book.

3.5 rounded up.

Kind of a wild ride with good suspense and atmosphere.

However... I found this pretty predictable based on some "Chekhov's gun" type of foreshadowing sprinkled throughout the book. Authors, please stop mentioning "insignificant" things over and over again, cause people are gonna figure it out and be bored later!!

I liked the ending because it took some risks I don't think a lot of other similar books would have taken. Overall, not a bad story. I would love to watch a movie of this (and I know I say that a lot, but I mean it!).

Beautiful beautiful beautiful. Also more horrifying every day as we inch closer to a similar surveillance state.