October 2021 books

The Invisible Woman by Erika Robuck
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The beginning and the end were super exciting and engaging: the middle dragged a bit. But ultimately, extremely worth reading.

I was a little bit confused because I started reading, and then realized early on that this was a true story. So I adjusted my expectations and forgave the plodding middle chapters because the author was clearly following actual events and couldn't just change things up willy-nilly. But then I read the afterword and...the author DID take some artistic liberties? But not in ways that improved the story?

So I'm left with something in-between: it's not as good as fiction because the author followed the real-life story for the most part, even when it wasn't as interesting. But it's not as riveting as a non-fiction biography-style book might have been, because you can't take everything in the book as being absolutely true.

Not sure what to make of it but as I said, it is worth reading.

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Just Last Night by Mhairi McFarlane
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I devoured this in ONE DAY. It was like a soap opera but with emotionally intelligent (or getting there) characters who aren't afraid to go to therapy! I loved it! But they do use the F-word a lot, this is Britain, oh and also I legit could not understand some of the sentences they said, it's fine, I figured it out using context clues.

This book belongs to a weird shadow genre my brain is creating called Lucy Foley Books But The People Aren't Terrible. The premise of this story could have easily ended up with people murdering each other, like they would in a Lucy Foley book, but instead they TALK and FEEL THEIR FEELINGS and FORGIVE. You Deserve Each Other is in this genre, too.

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When the Stars Go Dark by Paula McLain
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book was a way of dipping my toes back into thrillers/mysteries that involve children getting hurt - I wanted to give it a chance because it takes place in the 90s amid some high-profile abduction cases that I remember. I did make it through the book but this is at the very limit of what I can handle so I probably won't be trying to read a book like this again! To be clear, while kids do get hurt in this book, it is not graphic at all. But I still had trouble with what was implied.

Thematic issues aside, I found myself frustrated with this book in the same way as with The Invisible Woman. This book is fiction, but it clearly has autobiographical elements from the author's own life, as well as real-life abduction cases being worked alongside the fictional one. So I wasn't quite reading an examination of kidnapping investigation protocol in the 1990s, but I wasn't exactly NOT reading about that, either, and then there were these fictional people who are maybe based on real people...I wanted it one way or the other.

Stunningly gorgeous cover, though!

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Here's Looking at You by Mhairi McFarlane
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I read this because I really liked Just Last Night by the same author. This book wasn't nearly as good and I was uncomfortable with all the fatphobia in the plot, characters, and writing. Judging from how the characters in Just Last Night (a more recent book) are written, I'm guessing the author would do better if she were writing this book today. But it still left a bad taste in my mouth.

(Speaking of hypothetical changes being made to this book, I am a little bit confused by some of the blurbs and reviews because they do not match the book I read. I wonder if there was a plot element where the main character read romance novels, and the author cut it out for later editions? Because there are no romance novel readers in this book until the last two pages and it comes out of nowhere. Hmm.)

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Why Fish Don't Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life by Lulu Miller
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

DNF. I struggled through half of this book before giving up. I wasn't interested in either the present-day author story nor the century-old story of the scientist. My Goodreads friends really liked this one so I guess it just wasn't for me, right now.

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Agatha Arch Is Afraid of Everything by Kristin Bair O'Keeffe
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Pretty fun! I think this book would have benefited from me reading it BEFORE Finlay Donovan Is Killing It, not after. Because everything this book does, Finlay Donovan does better, and funnier, and with far fewer socioeconomic resources.

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The Bromance Book Club by Lyssa Kay Adams
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I had a ton of fun reading this book! It shouldn't have been so amusing to read about the particulars of men throwing off the shackles of the patriarchy - book clubs, hugs, painted nails, nurturing, etc. - but it was. And I think the book does a good job of playing that stuff for laughs but also, as a wink/aside, saying...shouldn't it be this way for reals, too?

This is one of the dirtiest books I've ever read, though, so don't go choosing it for your church book club or anything.



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Undercover Bromance by Lyssa Kay Adams
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I didn't like this one as much as the first one, and I'm new enough at romance novels to be unsure if this is a common complaint, but: there was too much plot?? I know, I know, just hear me out: I'm not sure we needed the sting operation AND the hidden backstories AND the CIA surveillance van AND the farm life vignettes. I had a lot of fun reading this but I also kinda just missed the guys and their book club!

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Bringing Down the Duke by Evie Dunmore
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This was a DNF for me but maybe it got better in the second half (I'd given up by then). The beginning hooked me with the promise of a plot about women's suffrage but then all the way up until the halfway point, when I stopped reading, the main character is...stuck at a duke's country estate. Like for WEEKS. And every once in a while she remembers she's supposed to be women's suffraging but that's it.

So it has promise as a sort of thinking woman's Bridgerton but - in the first half, at least - it doesn't deliver.

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