47%
06.07.26Passable Heyer / Austen / Quinn fanfic that would have worked better if it hadn't tried so hard to shove in irrelevant historical events and 21st-century sensibilities.
Showing posts with label 47. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 47. Show all posts
How Not to Marry a Lord - Emma Orchard
After I Do - Taylor Jenkins Reid
47%
03.04.26I like TJR's vivid stories from the world of Evelyn, Carrie and Daisy but her contemporary relationship novels (see also this and this) might as well be by a different author. Everyone was just a cipher and, despite each person presenting a different aspect of long-term relationships versus independence, the ending was deeply conservative, with everyone ending up (spoiler) traditionally coupled up.
It also made America seem very foreign, highlighting their strange food (sweet potato at Christmas? Pigs in blankets with pastry at a baby shower?) and traditions and approaches to life.
The Ballad of Smallhope and Pennyroyal - Jodi Taylor
10.11.25
Perhaps it's my own fault for reading the original story of characters I didn't know from a series I haven't read but it was supposed to be standalone and, well, funny and exciting, but instead it felt like an in-joke that hadn't been explained with a very ragged plot. And it would have been much more interesting if they hadn't (spoiler) fallen in love at the end.
(This novel gets incredibly high ratings on Amazon and Goodreads but I've tried and failed to get on with Taylor's books before so clearly everyone else is wrong.)
The Perfect Guest - Ruth Irons
13.09.25
I think I was supposed to root for the very flawed protagonist in this domestic thriller but she was so unlikable and her actions so inexplicable that the best I can say is at least she did protag, unlike all those passive lit fic main characters. Almost as annoying were the endless detailed descriptions of every room and every outfit that kept stalling the plot. Just sum it up in a pithy sentence and move on.
I Found a Body - Becky C Brynolf
19.07.25
At first, the poor grammar made this really hard to follow, and then the confusing time-shifting plot and inconsistently drawn characters made it even harder. I still don't understand whodunnit or whytheydunnit or how someone who hadn't dunnit ended up in prison too. Nice cover, though.
People Pleaser - Catriona Stewart
47%
29.06.25Pretty run-of-the-mill 'perils of fame' story, with uninteresting characters and the murderer obvious from their first appearance.
The Theatre of Glass and Shadows - Anne Corlett
11.05.25
This was promising - after all, immersive theatre is inherently ripe for endless stories. And the author obviously loves the idea of it, spending page after page describing every detail. But I'm not a visual person and all that worldbuilding didn't necessarily progress the (ultimately very confusing) plot or make the dopey main character any less annoying. As with the otherwise very different Life of Zanna, an unsympathetic protagonist needs to have something for you to root for, but this one just kept running back to trouble and spurning potential friends for no good reason. And it needed a better edit - I started playing 'the older woman' - and, later, 'the other girl' - bingo. It's so distracting not to use the character's name or 'her'.
How To Solve Your Own Murder - Kristen Perrin
21.11.24
First of all, the murdered person does not solve their own murder (because she's, yer know, dead). Other examples of the many annoying things about this book are the endless punctuation errors, the wimpy, undeserving 'heroine', a plot and structure that made no sense, and the tiny village with its own two ambulances (complete with assigned paramedics), police station (complete with assigned detective who can't even find the cannabis farm), solicitors' practice, walk-in doctors' surgery, iPhone store and Oxfam shop.
The Rachel Incident - Caroline O'Donoghue
29.09.24
I didn't really get the point of this book. It read as if it was semi-autobiographical but that doesn't make the tedious non-dramas of self-indulgent young adults who behave like children any more interesting or deep. The quality of the writing was fine but I was left thinking, so what?
And I've only just realised the also-disappointing All Our Hidden Gifts is by the same author.
How To Kill Your Family - Bella Mackie
05.10.23
This was diverting enough but it could have done with another draft to make the relentlessly unsympathetic anti-hero(ine)'s motivations less muddled, to cut the dull details and weird cultural observations, to streamline the plot, to focus the humour and to sharpen the characters. (And another copy edit to get rid of the irritating comma splices; also distracting in Cat Lady - is this a thing now?) I think at the end you were supposed to shout 'The injustice!' but frankly she had it coming.
The Fraud Squad - Kyla Zhao
47%
This was trying to be Crazy Rich Asians, and to some extent Counterfeit, but was held back by the cliched and predictable plot, the weirdly overwrought writing style and the poor editing. There seemed to be too much focus on florid descriptions of flower arrangements and none at all on character development or elements that would help with sense and flow.
A Slow Fire Burning - Paula Hawkins
26.01.23
You don't have to like a book's characters - and these were universally unlikeable (a known problem with this author) - but you do have to be interested in what will happen to them - and I wasn't. The people and their stories just didn't hang together, to the extent that I wondered how much the author cared.
The Night Hawks - Elly Griffiths
47%
Notable only for the clunky 'Beware! Covid's on its way' references and the hilariously inaccurate local driving times. But still I read this series.
Madame Burova - Ruth Hogan
25.07.21
This was so awkwardly written that I had to check it wasn't self-published. So much exposition, so much cliché, so many unnecessary characters, so little of the editing it desperately needed to give it some sort of focus and depth. I didn't actively dislike it; it just wasn't very good.
The Firm - John Grisham
47%
If there were any keen readers of this blog, they'd know my opinion of Grisham's books is as exciting and unpredictable as his storylines (full of peaks and troughs). Unfortunately, this classic has dated badly over 30 years, crammed as it is with sexism, racism and tediously bickering alpha males, including the 'hero' himself, who I hoped would get eliminated by the mob but the plot didn't even make enough sense for that.
The Stepsister - Jenny O'Brien
47%
Shame about the poor research, editing, proofreading, characterisation and creaky plot. Even the cover looks more like Amsterdam than the story's setting, Delft (in the Netherlands, not Holland, dammit!).
A Rare Benedictine - Ellis Peters
17.08.20
Brother Cadfael's offcuts. I won't remember anything about it in a month.
The House Swap - Rebecca Fleet
12.04.20
'Dead-on domestic noir' is the only quote on the cover that is remotely accurate. It's a case study in the stock features of the genre: an unexciting plot driven by unlikable characters, unrelatable behaviour and unlikely situations.
China Rich Girlfriend - Kevin Kwan
11.02.20
The leftovers from the first book. Great cover, though.
The Fairy's Tale - FD Lee
12.01.20
Well-meaning and I didn't actively dislike it but ultimately it's a book in search of a decent editor who can wave their magic wand to sort out the incoherent plot, strange irrelevancies and weird mix of US/UK styles.
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