Hey all! So, today's a bit of a weird one because I didn't really love any of the books I read this month 😠This rarely happens for me and when it does it feels so... oddly personal? Reading one book and not loving it, sure that happens. You just brush it off and move on. But reading three books in a row that you don't really like... that's tough. That's enough to put you in a reading slump. Or make you question if you're the reason the book isn't stellar, not the book itself. It makes you worry that you'll never find a good book again. Or that maybe your favorite genre isn't your favorite anymore. So much doubt! Ugh, I absolutely hate when I have a reading month like September, it really makes my insides feel wonky. But without any further ado, let's get down to the business at hand. The books in question.
"A Girl Like That" by Tanaz Bhathena
Sixteen year old Zarin leads an interesting life. She's an orphan, a bright student, and likes to take risks. And for a woman in Saudi, that's not the best thing to be labeled. And though Zarin likes to live life on the edge, many parents urge their children to avoid her, lest they get mixed into her shenanigans. At least, that's what Porus' mother reminds me constantly. But he can't seem to keep his distance from her no matter how much his mother, employer, and friends urge him to stay away from the young trouble maker. And when Zarin and Porus are found dead in a car together along the highway, many more secrets and truths come to light regarding Zarin's real life. And it's not nearly as adventurous or glamorous as it seems.
At it's surface this seems like a great book. Learning about life for women in Saudi Arabia is definitely interesting and the reason I was able to finish reading it is because I fell in love with the characters. But before we could get into all that, there's about a hundred pages talking about life in Saudi, surrounding countries and the intricate balance of politics and religion containing all of it. That was extremely dense and hard to sift through. And though it was good information, I didn't see how it applied to the story at hand. A lot of the information was not used in context of our characters and instead freely given so that "we would just know". I would've been able to understand and appreciate the story just fine without those one hundred pages, to be honest. It really made it hard for me to stay engaged with the characters and continue the book. That being said, I thought the characters were really engaging, the story lines of multiple young women was just so well done, seeing the hypocrisy between the men and women and the patriarchal society was riveting. Just get past those first one hundred pages.
"The Housemaid" by Frieda McFadden
When Millie gets the opportunity to move out of her car and into a spacious home, she hardly cares that her room is super small and behind a door that locks from the outside. With her background, it's been hard to find and keep a job and she can't afford to lose this one. Even though the owner of the home, Nina, treats her like garbage, leaves messes everywhere, and fights for no good reason with her seemingly perfect husband. That's not Millie's business. But it doesn't take long for Millie to start hearing gossip about her employer, to feel sorry for the handsome husband Nina neglects, and for Millie to start thinking about what it would be like to be in Nina's shoes instead of her own.
This book held a lot of promise for me, unfortunately it fell completely flat. There was a promise of a huge plot twist, but by the time it came I had had enough of every character in this book. I didn't find any of them like-able, relatable, or interesting. So, when the twist came, (which was very reminiscent of an extremely popular psychological thriller except done at half the capacity) I just didn't care. I didn't care about any of the characters and the book lost what little appeal it had. I also do not like reading about infidelity, so that was a huge turn-off for me. I've read the other reviews for this book and to put it simply, people either loved it or hated it. There weren't many reviews in the middle of the road. So, this is just one person who didn't care for this book.
"It Ends With Her" by Brianna Labuskes
Clarke Sinclair, FBI special agent, has been tracking serial killer, Simon Cross, for years and she's not giving up until she finds him. No matter what it costs. But when Cross suddenly changes his pattern, picking up a blonde instead of a redhead and not following his typical timeline, Clarke knows the shift is personal. And every step she gets closer to Cross, she knows it's an elaborate trap set just for her. But she's not stopping for anything or anyone. This dance between Cross and Clarke ends now.
So, was this a decent book, yes. But, I had trouble with the characters. Clarke, at first, comes off as very relatable, damaged, slightly traumatized, with a heavy dose of PTSD. Mix that with her inability to back down, quit, or walk away, makes her seem like an amazing character. But the further I got into the novel the more I started to dislike Clarke. She never dealt with her trauma and instead seems to use it as a get out of jail free card a lot. She's not a team player and has a boner for taking down Cross on her own with zero concern for who gets hurt in the process. The amount of toxic love in this book is outstanding. Basically, everyone in Clarke's life enables her awful behavior and does nothing to get her real help or live up to the ultimatums they set for her. Conflict of interest is completely ignored throughout this entire book and it's extremely frustrating. I have to think that in a real world situation someone like Clarke would not be allowed to assist in this type of investigation that she had become way too engrossed in. I wanted to rate it four stars because I thought the serial killer plot was decent, but once I started looking back on it, I realized it wasn't that fabulous either. The clues were not given in a way for the reader to feel like they were a part of the investigation. We weren't given much on his previous murders in order to understand the urgency of the timeline or how they hadn't caught him, yet. In all honesty, it felt sloppy. And I think the race against time, the split POV's, and a headstrong, damaged, detective was supposed to smooth over the cracks in the book, but it didn't for me. I know the reviews are pretty good for this book, so I'm in the minority here, but I didn't love this one.
That's all I read for September! This was a little bit of a tough month for me, but I'm optimistic about my October lineup. October is my all horror month and I've got a great pile of books I'm excited about! Let me know if you've been reading any good books lately, and don't forget to check out my YouTube channel for weekly book content @alyxnwonderland . Happy reading!
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