gardenofbookworms

[gardenofbookworms]

hi everyone! if you've been keeping up with our reviews you'll have noticed that our posting schedule has been...well, we haven't really been sticking to it. both of us talked a little while ago and we agreed that we just don't have enough time anymore to read and review books for this blog, and it was getting hard to read things for our own entertainment (like sequels) at the same time.

that said! we'll still aim to post at least one review each per month, and we won't be dropping the monthlies anytime soon. is it a bit shady of us to make this announcement on the day of bee's review? maybe. and we're sorry TvT

sorry for any inconvenience and thank you for sticking with us so far,

bee and rose

[gardenofbookworms]

week #47 recommendation: bee

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

▪︎ romance novel ▪︎

where do you find the secrets of the universe? in the desert? in the rain? in a dog? does it have anything to do with love?

ari is fifteen and feels like he is falling behind. at this age, you should already have the world figured out, right? and how is he supposed to ask anyone if they have? not like he knows anyone apart from his parents. until he decides to go for a swim (despite the fact that he, uh. can’t swim) and meets dante, who is supposedly allergic to air. this kid is weird. but so is ari, and they spend their entire summer together just hanging out and talking. trying to figure out what it means to be mexican, what’s real and what isn’t, and who has the right to shoot birds with bb guns for fun. trying to figure out the secrets of the universe. with two perspectives that are different in nearly every way, it’s not long before they have to figure out something. 

▪︎

reading this book and listening to sad music was a bad, bad idea (three days grace, if you were wondering). i have read this book before, but holy shit was it worth reading again. ari doesn’t feel like he’s doing life right, can’t figure out his parents, and is frustrated with himself for it. he has anger and doesn’t know what to do with it. he gets mad at his parents and dante and the world and he gets mad at himself for doing that. and god is it painful. especially when faced with dante, who seems like such an easygoing person, who’s a teenager but is crazy about his parents. who is? seeing ari finally come to terms with himself and dante is just—ahhhhhhhhhhh.

[gardenofbookworms]

week #47 recommendation: rose

The Assassin's Blade by Sarah J. Maas

▪︎ fantasy novel ▪︎

*warning: i tried my best, but this contains spoilers for the throne of glass series

epically long, epically awesome book series are the hardest to finish. not because they're long and boring, but because once you get to the end, you're done. it's over, and you know everything, and you'll never ever be able to read it for the first time again. but sometimes—sometimes—it's not over. because there's a prequel.

celaena sardothien has a LOT of history. over and over again, her path has been inevitably tied to hundreds of others', for better or for worse. and many of those knots led to debts; specifically, people indebted to her. which is helpful, yeah? when it comes to fighting a war against an unbeatable enemy and stuff, it's great. and funnily enough, a lot of those debts happened in the span of one year. one year, in which celaena's entire life was upended once, then again, and again and again and again. see, debts have a way of doing that. debts... and love. so this book is what happened before—before endovier and the competition and the king's champion and aelin and the crown of fire. before all of that, celaena was just a cunning, lethal sixteen year old assassin. nothing abnormal about that, right?

▪︎

as i said earlier—long, awesome book series are the hardest to finish. so after i finished the final book in this particular series last weekend... oh, it was torture. never going to get to read aelin's story for the first time again, never going to hate rowan for a bit for the first time again, never going to—okay, i could keep going, but i have to actually review the book at some point. so. i'm so, SO happy this book exists, because i would have been mentally dead for weeks not having anything good to read. but reading the stories behind all of the debts that force aelin's allies to her aid in the main series? so entertaining, without even mentioning the other thing. which is to say: sam. they're so cute together, even when they're in their fighting stage, and not at all what i expected (in a good way). which the great thing about backstories, right? everything is there, but it's always so different from how you imagined it... and so. much. better.

[gardenofbookworms]

week #46 recommendation: bee

Odin’s Child by Siri Pettersen

▪︎ fantasy novel ▪︎

hirka knew from the beginning that she and rime, grandson of one of the twelve great councillors, lived in different worlds. and she’d never cared. right up until the point she found out…well, there were no wolves.

meaning, there were no wolves that stole her tail when she was a child. it was just a story her father told her, told everyone, to make sure no one ever found out that she was deadborn. a threat to the council, the seer, and everything everyone could possibly believe in (well, excluding ravnhov. we all know mannfalla has never been able to get their attention). she was the rot. a disease. and for that reason, she can’t go to the rite—a ceremony meant to protect everyone from the blind and to prevent an invasion. but if she doesn’t show, people will start to wonder. kolkagga would be sent to hunt her down. and there’s already a dying council member out for her blood.

▪︎

at first i thought the pretense for this book wasn’t my thing. but then i started taking more interest in the concept of the rot, and eventually giving the worldbuilding the appreciation it deserved. i liked how even though hirka’s the protagonist and she’s supposed to be “special”, kuro (a raven) didn’t miraculously get attached to her right away. even by the end of the story he’s not permanently stuck to hirka’s side. and then we have the revelation that is vetle. i’ve seen there’s a sequel to odin’s child, and i’m hoping that whenever i get around to reading it, more of his nature is revealed to us. it doesn’t seem right to drop his lore and then not say anything…i must know more…

[gardenofbookworms]

january's monthly: from bee and rose

Bloom by Kevin Panetta

▪︎ fiction graphic novel ▪︎

there’s something so inexplicably tempting about getting away from your own life, even if it’s just for a moment. 

this is the goal ari strives towards while trying to escape to baltimore with his band. he knows, though, that getting away from his parents’ bakery isn’t going to happen anytime soon. ari’s parents are short on money, and he’s going to have to help out if there’s going to be any food on the table.

thankfully, ari has a solution: hire another chef, to help his parents out instead of him. but the town seems to be full of crazy people, and they’re all who show up. there’s people ranging from having “no experience” to “hearing messages from god”—very helpful, right? 

to top it off, ari’s dad is laughing at him, just for trying to get away. what does he think ari is, a circus clown? the only thing ari feels he can do is escape to the city with his band for a bit…even if it’s not the best decision. 

but someone knocks on his door when he comes back—a completely normal person! asking after the job! meet hector, an amazing baker who’s staying in his aunt’s house and has recently broken up with his boyfriend. he’s practically ari’s opposite—he loves to bake, after all. meanwhile, ari can’t seem to escape it. it’s quite literally his life. but all things considered, maybe it’s not so bad with hector around.

and so begins a new chapter in ari’s story. sure, he still hangs out with the others and works at the bakery, but everything feels a little more comfortable now that hector’s involved. somehow he seems to make everything more manageable, and suddenly ari isn’t as eager to leave anymore. but with every relationship comes trouble—trouble that, in this case, could potentially burn ari’s sweet new life to the ground.

▪︎

from bee

the first thought i had when i saw ari—and rose can vouch for this—was that HE’S SO BABY. the first panel we see him in, he just looks so squishy…i realize that sounds a little weird. please trust me when i say this is a compliment to panetta’s illustrations. my initial impression of him was that he was a shut-in type, but as i started reading more i found out that he’s more outgoing than i originally thought? that was a nice surprise.

plus there’s ari’s band, and if you know me you know i am uh. prone to band drama. anyway, i do think they should’ve been harder on cameron (because boy is he a bitch). and then we have ourselves hector, who has this ambiguous but super sweet relationship with his friends (?) from back home. we said earlier that he’s ari’s opposite, and it’s true—not only their feelings about baking, but the way they approach relationships and lots of other things too. luckily, opposites seem to attract, and even if they crash and burn ari and hector will be able to pick themselves back up.

from rose 

▪︎

this is exactly the kind of book you come across while going on a late-night graphic novel spree—and can i just say, it’s so much better than all the other ones i found that night. the entire book ranges from sweet to angry to romantic to downright chaotic, and it’s all the better for it. hector is somehow simultaneously everything ari needs in his life…and everything he wants to get away from. and what better relationship to have than that, right? 

to top it all off, all of ari’s other relationships are complicated as hell. his dad just can’t understand why he doesn’t want to stay at the bakery, and his band can’t understand why he doesn’t just leave (and one of his bandmates is kind of a bitch about it…but whatever, right?). hector is the only person who ari feels like he can relax around, even if it’s just a little bit, and you totally feel that throughout the entire book. whenever someone else walks into the room, it’s like everything becomes ten times more complicated. but whenever it’s just the two of them? oh, they’re adorable.

bonus: spotify playlist!

[gardenofbookworms]

ANNOUNCEMENT

hello from bee and rose! with upcoming exams for the both of us, we'll be really busy for the next two weeks and won't be able to post any reviews during that period. we'll be back on january 29th with rose's review, so please wait for us until then!

[gardenofbookworms]

week #45 recommendation: bee

Crank by Ellen Hopkins

▪︎ fiction free verse novel ▪︎

it’s quite literally a law—what goes up must come down. but how do you stay up, or at least delay the crash? answer: fly with the monster.

kristina met the monster on a trip to albuquerque. they were introduced by adam, the neighbor’s hot boyfriend, and she’s never been able to let go of its hand since. on that trip, kristina’s perfect track record is slashed apart and made new by kristina’s wilder, more enticing self—bree. she returns home to reno, not as ready to transition back to normal life as she thought. it’s been a month, but the monster is still watching her, taunting her, prompting her to do a toot, just a little one, with chase from the water park. if there was any chance before, there’s none now—kristina slips away from her family and old friends, opting for new ones that can supply her with crank. what brendan does is going to change her life, and kristina will wish she’d never been on her period that time in albuquerque.

▪︎

this might be a weird point to start off with, but i think one of the most realistic things in this book was kristina’s recurring periods. it might have just been setting up for that ending, but still—i liked how it was actually an inconvenience to her, and especially her having sex. past that, i like how her relationship with her mother was written with the free verse. by stripping all the unneeded words away, you’re really getting just whatever’s at the core (namely frustration). despite that, there’s a lot of uncertainty kristina has about coming clean to her family, and there’s this one scene in the kitchen where she comes really close. that make it or break it moment put me on edge.

[gardenofbookworms]

week #45 recommendation: rose

Let it Snow by John Green, Maureen Johnson, and Lauren Myracle

▪︎ holiday romance novel ▪︎

snowstorms tend to be quite chaotic. the most chaotic snowstorms are those that make the people living through them go crazy. they're the ones that result in multiple feet of snow, an abundance of dares, extremely late holiday gifts, risky shortcuts, late-night parties at a fast food restaurant... and so on and so forth.

that's exactly the kind of snowstorm that has just hit gracetown, burying everyone there under several feet of snow on christmas eve—and stranding one particular train on which one particular girl rides. this sets off a chain of events over the next few days, a chain of events that seem absolutely insane and unrelated, and yet are, undeniably so. from now to the end, three stories will be told: one girl will fall in love as she takes a risky shortcut with a stranger, three friends will journey through the snow-covered roads to win a race to their local waffle house, and the fate of an adorable tiny teacup pig will fall into the hands of a lovesick barista at starbucks. it's all positively insane, and romantic, and chaotic, and all-around mind-boggling—but hey, that's what snowstorms are for, right?

▪︎

this has to be one of my favorite holiday romances ever, if only for the irony that comes from seeing tiny references to characters from other mini-stories in each story (so that didn't make as much sense as i wanted it to, but if you reread enough times, you'll probably figure it out). each author tells their character's story a little differently, with small differences in tone and level of emotion and writing style in general. but none of that takes away from reading all three stories together; if anything, each one feels a lot more authentic than it would if one author had written all three of them. and no matter who's telling the story, one thing is always the same: the humor. the things that happen to these characters are so absurdly implausible that they're all absolutely hilarious—and yet they all make complete sense, because, as we've established: snowstorms. cause. chaos. don't agree with me on that? well, i didn't either, at least not at first. but a book like this will make you look at what happens after a snowstorm like never before...

[gardenofbookworms]

week #44 recommendation: bee

I Kill Giants by Joe Kelly and JM Ken Niimura

▪︎ fiction graphic novel ▪︎

all great weapons have to have a name. coveleski, for example, is the giant killer.

barbara thorson has absolutely zero interest in motivational speeches—she kills giants for a living, after all. it’s what she tells the new “therapist”, sophia, and pretty much everyone who asks. things are escalating, and a huge titan may be on its way…which isn’t good, because titans are way bigger than normal giants and also, a lot worse. but with coveleski, barbara doesn’t have anything to be afraid of. not the titan she’s about to fight. not taylor, the school bully. not losing sophia when they’ve only just become friends. and not her mother, either.

▪︎

guys…barbara is so tiny…not just physically, but she’s only in fifth grade too…i think that’s what makes her “giant killer” act so important. she doesn’t know any other way to cope with the circumstances in her life, so she turns to science fiction (which, honestly, valid. her imagination is really fucking cool). barbara…please go live out your childhood to the fullest…it’s okay…you don’t need to fight giants…just go out for pizza…after i finished this book i knew that she would stay with me for a while. and because i can’t go one graphic novel review without doing this, i’m gonna compliment the art. every time the characters touch, you get the sense that they’re fused together. 

[gardenofbookworms]

week #44 recommendation: rose

Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas

▪︎ fantasy novel ▪︎

the world is a shithole. celaena sardothien has known that her whole life. she's been well aware of it through all her years of training to become a deadly, formidable, unstoppable assassin. but she isn't just any assassin. no, she's the adarlan's assassin.

and then, after years of terrorizing the continent and its rulers, she was captured. and sent to slave away in the brutal labor camp of endovier. there, every day is another struggle for survival. every day sees celaena's rage building and building inside her. rage at the world, at the land in which she lives... but mostly rage at the man who rules it all, the king of adarlan. so when his son, crown prince dorian havilliard, shows up at endovier with an offer for celaena's freedom... well, let's just say she's not his biggest fan. but how can she turn down the one man who has the power to free her? so with him she goes, to participate in a competition at the castle, a competition that will determine her fate for years to come. to win, she must defeat twenty-three other competitors and become the king's champion—his assassin, his lackey, his slave, whatever word you prefer. and then after four years, she'll be free, to do whatever she wants. celaena has no doubt that she will win. she's adarlan's assassin, after all; how could she not? but there are other things in that castle, things willing to kill and maim and torture everyone and everything there just to get what they want. and in the end? well, she might just be the only thing stopping the world from going to hell, again.

▪︎

i started this book expecting something not half bad—not great, but not exactly terrible either. but within the first few chapters... i was hooked. i read the whole book within two days, and could not wait to start the second. sarah j. maas writes with the most beautiful kind of suspense; everything is clear and explained, and yet still leaves you hanging on every word, needing to read the next chapter, unable to put the book down, even when it's three am. and the characters. the angst. the painful number of frustrating oblivious interactions celaena has with both chaol and dorian. the dog. it's enough to make me want to tear my hair out, to be completely honest with you. but it's so worth it, because there's always some new tidbit of information waiting around every corner, some new little piece that'll make everything snap together... and then shatter it all again. there are an endless number of twists and turns, an endless number of questions that have yet to be answered, an endless number of things that you just have to keep reading to find out. so, needless to say, my initial opinion of this book was wrong. dead wrong. it's not not half bad, or good, or great. it's fucking incredible.

[gardenofbookworms]

week #43 recommendation: bee

Black by Ted Dekker

▪︎ science fiction/thriller novel ▪︎

it’s quite like a fever dream. except thomas hunter’s dream has an ongoing plot, and every detail is real enough that he can recall them all.

he’s not even sure which world is reality, and which is the one in his head. every time he falls asleep in denver, he wakes up in a strange world divided by a river, divided by good and evil, divided between the black and colored forests. strange bats try and help thomas regain his memory after he stumbles out of the black forest, and although it all seems surreal, none of it feels out of the ordinary. and every time he falls asleep on this planet—or is it earth?—he wakes up in denver. it’s just a matter of which is real and fake, until he learns from the bats of a virus that has the capability to ravage the world in three weeks. now thomas has to consider the possibility that the two worlds are connected—and furthermore, he’s got to make everyone believe him.

▪︎

after i finished black i immediately looked for the sequel and found that it’s part of a circular series—currently i am very, very excited to read the other books. at first it seems obvious that the world with the bats and elyon would be the dream world, right? but as i read more, i slowly started imagining both realities as actual realities, despite how insane the two situations are. and then elyon. oh god, elyon (that was a pun, by the way). the way dekker writes thomas’s experiences in the lake is breathtaking. here we have a grown man submitting himself to love for a…child? and there’s tanis, who’s a bit of a nuthead but i like very much. i’m looking forward to seeing what his fate was in the next book…

[gardenofbookworms]

week #43 recommendation: rose

Make my Wish Come True by Rachael Lippincott & Alyson Derrick

▪︎ holiday romance novel ▪︎

four years ago, caroline beckett's best friend (and first crush), arden james, up and left their small, christmas-driven town of barnwich for a career in hollywood. now, arden is hollywood's favorite infamously hot and reckless teen actress, and caroline has spent her high school years creating the perfect portfolio to help her become get into a top-notch journalism program. everything's going great for both of them—arden is landing role after role, constantly in the press (although not always for the best reasons), and caroline is living out a happy life in barnwich and ignoring every single piece of news about arden.

and then the unthinkable happens. arden auditions for her dream role, the one she's been striving for her entire career, does beautifully... and is told that she's too "artificial" for it. so she and her agent flip the story, spilling out arden's background as a girl from a small town with a small flourish: this whole time, she's been secretly pining away for her childhood crush, caroline herself. now, arden's heading home for the holidays for the first time in years. and even though convincing caroline to play along is easier than she expected, the two still have to somehow make it through their twelve days of (fake) holidates looking like they've been secretly in love with each other for four years without letting their real feelings spill over and making everything messy and complicated. easy, right?

▪︎

to me, this book will forever be proof that you should always listen to your hopeless romantic of a friend when it comes to holiday romance novels, because they know better. but anyway, all of that to say: i LOVED this book. for me, holiday romances tend come off as either far too cheesy, way too focused on the holiday and not so much on the romance, completely lacking in world-building beyond the stereotypical, or all of the above. but. this book falls into none of those three categories. the entire story is painfully realistic; even though arden's a hollywood star, her character never feels outlandish or overdramatic, and her feelings are just as messy as anyone else's. and even though we see plenty of barnwich's christmas-y side, the town still has so much life outside of that. edie's diner was my personal favorite, because there's so much life there, no matter what time of year it is. and finally, the romance itself. it's so frustrating to see how oblivious both caroline and arden are, and all their cute little moments together will leave you wanting to bang your head into a wall. but they're so perfect together, and it's impossible not to be rooting for them until the end.

[gardenofbookworms]

week #42 recommendation:

Baby Teeth by Zoje Stage

▪︎ suspense/thriller novel ▪︎

suzette jensen (pronounced yensen, thank you very much) throws her all into providing a good life for her daughter, hanna. but what if that kid just doesn’t fucking deserve it?

hanna’s getting to be out of control—it was already established that she hated her mother and absolutely adored her father. suzette is starting to feel abandoned again, like in her teens when she was first struggling with crohn's disease and alex was the only support she had. but about hanna. there’s something fundamentally wrong about that kid. it’s not just tantrums over a toy—she set a garbage can on fire, cut suzette’s hair, sent a boy to the hospital, and won’t say a word unless she’s acting as marie-anne. is this all just a result of really, really bad parenting? has suzanne missed some really obvious technique that therapists were hinting at all those years? is she just going insane?

▪︎

i looked on goodreads after reading this book and was genuinely surprised. i honestly thought the rating would’ve been higher—i even went to see what people thought of the medical aspects, and overall there were pretty good reactions? anyway. i’m super excited to share this book because it’s probably the one i’ve enjoyed the most over the past couple weeks. there’s suzanne’s unending fight with pressure and her own body, and her constant worrying whether she’s doing good as a mother and wife. and then her and alex’s guilt at the end, i just—aughhhh. plus we get half the story from hanna’s perspective, and i think the reasons behind her actions were not only explained well, but are also apparent and consistent throughout the book. i adore the word choice used from her perspective, they really make it seem like you’re looking into a seven-year-old’s mind.

[gardenofbookworms]

week #41 recommendation: rose

Kill Joy by Holly Jackson

▪︎ mystery novella ▪︎

pip is your classic high school good girl—she's got great grades, wants to go to one of the best colleges out there, may or not be slightly homework-obsessed... and yet somehow, she ended up researching a very, very controversial topic for her research project: the murder of andie bell. but how'd she get so into murder mysteries in the first place? well, it all started on a dark, stormy night, when pip and her friends were playing a murder mystery game. to her friends, it's just a game. but to pip? it's something a whole lot more.

▪︎

villain origin stories are always fun. obviously, this is not a villain origin story, but it is an origin story. and it's so fun to see how easily pip shifts her focus onto a murder mystery, even though it's fake. to her, it's just like any other homework assignment, and she's more than happy to get as invested in it as she does her homework. whether she likes it or not, she knows what she's doing, and you know what they say... do what you're good at, right? so why not research the real-life murder that happened right in her town? especially when she isn't completely sure that the person who did it... actually did.

[gardenofbookworms]

week #40 recommendation: bee

Bone Gap by Laura Ruby

 ▪︎ magical realism novel ▪︎

finn’s friend miguel has always said that the corn whispers. that it looks alive alive, not just alive like all plants. finn has never believed him. but isn’t it fair? no one’s ever believed finn, anyway.

not even when roza goes missing, after being found in finn and sean’s barn and charming the whole town. further than that, no one even seems to care—including sean, finn’s older brother who was practically head over heels for her. finn knows what he saw: a man who moved like the cornstalks. but no one who’s not on meth would describe a kidnapper like that. but then the man shows up again, finn’s beautiful, mysterious horse steps on him, petey finds the kittens under his bed, and roza is imprisoned in a castle. charlie valentine (which isn’t his real name, by the way) finally gives finn a hint, and now he’s impossibly close to getting roza back. but when everyone hangs upside down, could he really find her?

▪︎

i didn’t expect to like this book as much as i did—it was kind of a quick read, and it started off with a boy who loved a girl that was missing. not exactly my thing. but as i got into it, i found myself loving the writing style. the dialogue is amazing—real, truthful, and sometimes very comical. eventually i came to like petey and finn together as well. a teenage love…plus a horse…and bees…i enjoyed petey’s side of the story a lot, especially when she realizes something about finn. which, actually, i did suspect beforehand (i’m very proud of that). and finally, the gap itself. it did take me a while to realize “oh, this isn’t finn’s world, is it?” basically, it’s where the concept of, like, things that should be impossible are discarded and everything is under the control of one man who keeps asking the same question. enjoy!

[gardenofbookworms]

week #40 recommendation: rose

A Good Girl's Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson

▪︎ murder mystery novel ▪︎

five years ago, popular, pretty high school senior andie bell went missing in the dead of night. a few days later, her boyfriend, sal singh, walked into the woods and killed himself, right after confessing that he had killed her. and there's no doubt about that, because it's always the boyfriend... right?

everyone knows the story, including pippa fitz-amobi, now a high school senior herself, five years after the tragic murder that continues to haunt her hometown. most people believe it, too... but not pip. see, she thinks there might be a bit more to it all—the police only investigated for a bit, after all, and andie bell's body has never turned up in the five years since she died. so if she's really dead, where is she? and sal was always so kind to her... how could he have murdered his girlfriend? there has to be something wrong with the story. there just has to. so pip does what any high school senior invested in a local true crime case would do: research the case, and make an attempt at solving it, all for her senior capstone project. brave, right? even more so when she starts to unravel the dark web of secrets that led to andie bell's disappearance... and watches her whole world be nearly destroyed in the process.

▪︎

this book was on my tbr list for far, far too long before i finally got around to reading it. and quite honestly, i'm not sure why i let myself put it off for so long—once i started, i couldn't put it down. jackson's writing is so full of suspense, with little hints dropped every couple of pages and plenty of red herrings to keep you on your toes. the clues are everywhere, in the places you'd never expect, and yet also the ones you would. no one is not a suspect. no one. even being able to see that throughout the entire bokk, it's impossible to see the ending coming. on another note—i love the whole new layer ravi (sal's younger brother) and pip's relationship brings to the story. the two of them are constantly having fun together, joking around and teasing the best ideas out of each other. yes, they are solving a murder, but they're also developing a friendship, and what better backdrop than that, right? and who knows, maybe they'll even become something more than friends in the end...

[gardenofbookworms]

week #39 recommendation: bee

Before She Knew Him by Peter Swanson

▪︎ thriller novel ▪︎

hen and lloyd’s new neighbors are just like any other couple. they’ve even been invited over to dinner, and mira (the wife) is already growing on hen. matthew, however…well, it’s not every day you move in next to a murderer.

okay, but he’s got reasons. dustin raped a girl, and he was going to keep doing it if he wasn’t stopped. no, he’s not a white knight—matthew is just someone with a very strong sense of justice. or at least, that’s what he tells himself. it’s what he tells hen, too, after she’s caught on to his act. together they’re caught in a strange sort of relationship where they’re the only ones who can understand each other (except richard, of course). hen knows that eventually this has to end—whatever those other men have done, matthew is a dangerous person who should be in prison, if not jail. but after that incident in college, who’s going to believe her?

▪︎

it’s been a while since i read a thriller i really enjoyed (no, this says nothing about me). matthew’s urges are described perfectly, the sick excitement that must come from spilling your own secrets. the way he divides crimes into two categories—him, who kills men, and richard, who hurts (or more?) women. and then there’s the marriages. hen’s own disinterest in hers in the second half of the book is really interesting, that feeling when you just know that it’s not going to get any better so it’s best to cut it off. and then she doesn’t get a chance to cope with lloyd later on—which might’ve been what she wanted, but was ultimately unable to happen.