tiggum's reviews
729 reviews

Dumas's writing is still great but the plot goes nowhere and I could do without ever reading the qord "coquette" again. And once again the fact that this is only part two of four means that there's no conclusion. Hopefully things pick up a bit in the next volume.

I can't believe this book was first published in 1990. I would have guessed at least 20 years earlier. The characters feel very early-to-mid 20th century and the cultural touchstones all went over my head because of how dated they were. At one point the protagonist compares another character to James Dean (died 1955) - or one of the children of "Ozzie and Harriet". I looked that one up and it's a sitcom from the early 60s.

It's also weird that the protagonist ends up not being the one who solves the mystery. And I thought there were a few too many characters who weren't really fleshed out properly so when the killer was revealed I wasn't really sure who they were. Their motives and such are quite clear so it does all make sense but I didn't get the feeling that it would have been possible to figure out ahead of the reveal, just because you don't get enough opportunity to get to know everyone.

There were a couple of other quirks that I didn't really care for as well: the protagonist is a real snob about food and I found that irritating, and her husband has this habit of using bits of French - but in ways that never felt natural. Like, he refers to their baby as "my petit chou" rather than "mon petit chou" and that's pretty repesentative of the types of things he says. It rang false for how people throw bits of other languages into their speech.

But overall I didn't mind the book. I wouldn't recommend it, but I wouldn't recommend against it either. It's fine. Read it if you want.

Too American, too '90s, and trying way too hard to be cute.

I love books about awful people. Really digging down into them and exposing the full scope of the shittiness before seeing them reap the rewards of their terrible decisions. Plus the book is really funny in places. Bunny's essay is a particular highlight.

Satisfying mystery, likeable characters.

The mystery is good and the characters are fine. I really liked the way the author put me in the mind of the protagonist, how strongly her emotional state was reflected in the way the other characters and situations came across. When she first arrives in the Whitlock house, it and its inhabitants really seem vile, but as she gains more confidence and familiarity that feeling shrinks away and the sisters shrink to more human proportions and even become somewhat relatable. The only part that didn't resonate with me at all was the romance; I spent the whole book thinking "I hope she doesn't end up with X" (because it's telegraphed pretty clearly, honestly) and of course she does. But otherwise the climax and wrap-up were very satisfying.

Much shorter and simpler than I was expecting. Left me with questions about how the society depicted was supposed to function, what other people did within it, especially the ruling class, and what position, relatively speaking, did Beatty occupy within the heirarchy? He obviously knew a lot more than his subordinates, but it wasn't clear whether that was due to his own research or if he was part of the conspiracy at a high level. Not really relevant to the story being told, but just evidence of how fascinated I became by the book as I normally don't give two shits about "lore" or "worldbuilding".

This book is stressful, frustrating and exhausting to read.

You know those people who have to micromanage everything but they're terrible at it so even though they're constantly busy they never seem to get anything done? This book is like a window into such a person's mind. It's a nightmare. I wanted to tell the protagonist to stop, take a moment, pick one thing to focus on and get it done. Because the entire book she's rushing from one half-finished task to another - and very few conversations go uninterrupted.

On top of that, the mystery gets almost no focus and my reaction to finding out who the killer was was "Wait, who is that?" There are too many characters and they are not distinct enough. Aside from the protagonist almost no one is fleshed out at all. And the protagonist's confusion and lack of focus is very much reflected in the way the book is written so, just as she has trouble figuring out who anyone is, so did I.

Overall I didn't like this book but I didn't hate it. The only story I actually liked wasn't even about love or death, and most of the rest were about sleazy old men who hate their wives.

Bridal Flowers: Even though the author grew up in England, her writing reads very American-writing-English. It's also painfully unsubtle and the protagonists far too sure of themselves. 1/5
Away for Safekeeping: This one seems like it would make a good Poker Face episode, with some minor changes. 3/5
A Girl Like You: A woman who literally exists only to be a prop in men's stories. 1/5
Company Wife: Saw the ending coming a mile off. 1/5
Secrets: Not much to this one. 2/5
The First One to Blink: Stretching so far for a novel idea that you reach right out of the realm of plausibility. 2/5
The Tunnel: Another one that seems like it would make a good adaptation, but lacks depth on the page. 3/5
Till 3:45: This is the one I liked. A fun little adventure. 4/5
A Night at the Love Nest Resort: I can see what they were going for but it doesn't work. They seem to have had two conflicting ideas and tried to do both. 2/5
Tea for Two: I'm not sure what the point of this one was supposed to be. 1/5
April in Paris: Yet another entitled narcissist. This book is full of them. 1/5
The People's Way: Racist garbage. 1/5
Love at First Byte: This one is trying so hard to be clever but it isn't. 1/5
The Collaboration: A very unsatisfying conclusion, both to this story and to the book as a whole. 1/5

Gave up on this one very quickly. Mitchell's bland, conservative, upper-middle-class perspective on inequality (you should be glad you're not a medieval peasant), censorship (you can't say anything these days) and everything else irritated me.