novellearts's reviews
1692 reviews

This story had a compelling start but the more I got through this book, the less intrigued I ended up. It just felt lacking to me.

3.75/5 stars. 

Klune consistently writes books that get you contemplating about what truly matters in life. He also never fails to leave readers with the most beautiful quotes.

My ratings so far for T.J. Klune books:

As primarily a horror/thriller reader, it's a huge change of pace for me to read a book like this. Even so, I enjoyed every second of this book. This was filled with more fun quirks that Klune's other books tend to have. This always makes his characters more tangible. They feel relatable, lovable, and real.
Klune succeeds in writing and developing his characters by adding something special to each of them.

The writing, pace, and structure was fantastic, as to be expected with any of Klune's books. This story was nicely balanced. It tackled some more serious topics while still maintaining an air of humor and lightheartedness. I love that every time I read a Klune book, I feel myself start reflecting on my own life. Another great read!

DNF @ 15%.

Not my cup of tea. Had to force myself to even get to 15% (85 pages).

I thought this was a fun read! Or a listen, if we're being technical. My BOTM box is running late this month so when Libby told me there was an audio copy available, I had to grab it. This was a fantastic book to listen to while I was having a Sunday cleaning spree.

I thought the main characters were interesting. Sloane is a compulsive liar with some other questionable quirks. She meets a man named Jay at the park with his daughter. Sloane helps them out when she hears Jay's daughter start crying after stepping on a bee. She tells them both that her name is Caitlin and that she's a nurse.

Sloane soon becomes intwined with Jay's wife, Violet, and develops a friendship with her. Things aren't what they seem though and Sloane is not the only one lying.

The characters were intriguing to me. I couldn't stop listening to this one because I needed to know what secrets were being hid. The story was also fun but once I got around midway, it started to remind me of another book that I've previously read. To my chagrin, I can't remember what book it was. I don't want to spoil the twist, but because of this other book that I had read, I could see where this book was going. Alternatively, there was a second twist that I wasn't expecting which helped make up for the first one.

I thought the ending of this book was incredibly satisfying too. I was so happy with the direction this book ended up going as opposed to where I assumed it was going. The second twist really brought everything together for me.

3.75/5 stars rounded up.

I think this book would be more like a 3.25 or 3.5/5 stars for me, but rounding it down to stay consistent with GR.

I want to start off with the positives for this book.

I obviously <b>must</b> mention how beautiful the cover is for this book along with the title. They’re both about as perfect as they could possibly be.
I loved the writing. I thought the prose was beautiful and the story concept was whimsical. I also really enjoyed the characters in this one. I felt like Camille could’ve used a bit more development as compared to Lark and Alastair but they were all pretty lovable characters. The visuals in this book drew me in along with the atmosphere and tone. I really loved the polyamorous relationship within this story. I don’t read many stories containing poly characters so this was a welcomed addition. I thought the sex scenes were also handled really well. The scenes were mostly just implied which is different from a lot of books I’ve read recently but I found that I enjoyed this switch. The writing allows the reader to understand exactly what is happening without explicit detail.

Ironically, I had some qualms with the polyamorous relationship between Lark and brother and sister (Camille and Alastair). There was never any incest between Camille and Alastair and they never all had relations together. It was always just a one-on-one between Camille and Lark or Alastair and Lark. But I still struggled with the idea of it. The other thing that I struggled with was the pacing. It felt slow to me until around 60% and it was hard for me to originally get engaged because of this. But once I got to that 60% mark, I whipped through the rest of the book.

I want to personally thank the author, Lyndall Clipstone for sending me this eARC through NetGalley.

2.75/5 stars rounded up.

While I enjoyed the writing of this book, I also felt this story suffered from too many characters and not enough development. I think it may have been easier to keep track of if I had physically read the book but I had the audio for this story. I did feel like this was a bit confusing and I didn’t always know which character was which.

The actual plot was enjoyable but I had a hard time feeling immersed and present throughout the whole story. This ended up being an “ok” listen for me. It wasn’t bad but it also wasn’t outstanding in my personal opinion.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ALC. All opinions are my own.

3.5/5 stars rounded down. 

I'm a bit conflicted on how to rate this one. This story didn't resonate with me how I expected it to. I had trouble connecting with the characters and the story in general.

That being said, I still thought this was a really brilliant book. I loved the writing, the structure, and the concept. The narration was also admirable but for whatever reason, I felt a disconnect during this book.

I think I want to land in the middle with a 3 star rating because while I struggled to connect to this one, there were so many things that I was still able to appreciate with this book.

I loved that this was based on a true story and I loved that this was something that I don't normally read about. The setting was another plus. I truthfully don't know how to explain my feelings on this one because they don't make much sense to me either. Perhaps I just wasn't in the right mood to read this at this time?

I think I would like to reread this later. This feels like a book that has the potential to have a higher rating from me later on when I'm in the right mood.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ALC. All opinions are my own.