April ’23 Reads and Reviews
BOOKS
Here are all the things I read in April and my tiny lil’ thoughts for those who may be interested.
- The Prisoner – B.A Paris
- An Honest Lie – Tarryn Fisher
- Girls with Bright Futures – Tracy Dobmeier and Wendy katzman
- Lie to Me – J.T Ellison
- Every Thing She Feared – Rick Mofina
- Electric Idol – Katee Robert
- Every Last Fear – Alex Finlay
- What Have We Done- Alex Finlay
- Yours Truly – Abby Jimenez
- Dark Things I Adore – Katie Lattari
- The Missing – Kiersten Modglin
- An Unwanted Guest – Shari Lapena
- Top 3 Reads of April
- Monthly Giveaway
- SHOP ALL BOOKS
The Prisoner – B.A Paris
Amazon rating: 4 stars
Goodreads rating: 3.59 stars
How I read it: Physical copy (borrowed from my local library)
Read if you like:
- Short chapters
- Reads under 300 pages
- Alternating timelines
- Fast paced
- First person
What I loved: I love first person thrillers; super short chapters were great
What I didn’t love: The second half felt a little disorienting and different from the first half.
Book Blurb
“Amelie has always been a survivor, from losing her parents as a child in Paris to making it on her own in London. As she builds a life for herself, she is swept up into a glamorous lifestyle where she married the handsome billionaire Ned Hawthorne.
But then, Amelie wakes up in a pitch-black room, not knowing where she is. Why has she been taken? Who are her mysterious captors? And why does she soon feel safer here, imprisoned, than she had begun to feel with her husband Ned?“
My thoughts
I have seen some SUPER mixed reviews about this, but I LOVED Behind Closed Doors by the same author so I thought I wanted to give this one a shot.
I loved that it was super short so I felt like it was fast paced which is a win for me too.
This book is split into 2 parts and the first part has super short chapters (Not as short as The Silent Patient or The One by John Marrs, but close!)
The second half feels to drag a bit and I think this is the part that threw people off so much. It almost feels like a different book.
It’s not as fast paced and I feel like it drags on a bit, but I still was interested to see how this thing shook out.
My rating
An Honest Lie – Tarryn Fisher
Amazon rating: 4 stars
Goodreads rating: 3.5 stars
How I read it: Physical copy (borrowed from my local library)
Read if you like:
- Cults
- Catty women
- Alternating timelines
What I loved: The cult part rof this story was fascinating
What I didn’t love: These trifling hoes in this book
Book Blurb
“Lorraine—“Rainy”—lives at the top of Tiger Mountain. Remote, moody, cloistered in pine trees and fog, it’s a sanctuary, a new life. She can hide from the disturbing past she wants to forget.
If she’s allowed to.
When Rainy reluctantly agrees to a girls’ weekend in Vegas, she’s prepared for an exhausting parade of shots and slot machines. But after a wild night, her friend Braithe doesn’t come back to the hotel room.
And then Rainy gets the text message, sent from Braithe’s phone: someone has her. But Rainy is who they really want, and Rainy knows why.
What follows is a twisted, shocking journey on the knife-edge of life and death. If she wants to save Braithe—and herself—the only way is to step back into the past.“
My thoughts
I have read several cult books in the last year and they always truly fascinate me.
Even though they’re fiction, it’s a glimpse into how things like this happen and how they’re able to prey on such vulnerable people and it’s so frustrating to me, but makes for a super interesting plot.
I oved the alternating timelines in this book because you get to see why Rainy operates the way she does, revealing more and more of her past as she goes along.
I was really happy for her in the end and thought the book ended well.
Out of the three books of hers I’ve read so far, I think this one is my favorite.
My rating
Girls with Bright Futures – Tracy Dobmeier and Wendy katzman
Amazon rating: 4.5 stars
Goodreads rating: 4 stars
How I read it: Audiobook
Read if you like:
- Multiple POV
- Rich women behaving badly
- Catty women
- Dark academia
Content warning: Sexual assault
What I loved: How this book wrapped itself up
What I didn’t love: There were a lot of characters so it took me a while to catch on since it was an audiobook
Book Blurb
“College admissions season at Seattle’s Elliott Bay Academy is marked by glowing acceptances from top-tier institutions and students as impressive as their parents are ambitious. But when Stanford alerts the school it’s allotting only one spot to EBA for their incoming class, three mothers discover the competition is more cutthroat than they could have imagined.
Tech giant Alicia turns to her fortune and status to fight for her reluctant daughter’s place at the top. Kelly, a Stanford alum, leverages her PTA influence and insider knowledge to bulldoze the path for her high-strung daughter. And Maren makes three: single, broke, and ill-equipped to battle the elite school community aligning to bring her superstar down.
That’s when, days before applications are due, one of the girls suffers a near-fatal accident, one that doesn’t appear to be an accident at all.
As the community spirals out of control, three women will have to decide what lines they’re willing to cross to secure their daughters’ futures…and keep buried the secrets that threaten to destroy far more than just college dreams.“
My thoughts
Y’alllllll these elitist white moms.
I know there are circles where stuff like this happens, but this book made me so mad.
Don’t get me wrong – it was a super captivating story and I really enjoyed listening to it, but the lengths that some of these moms want to go to in order for their kids to attend a certain college makes me wanna pull my hair out.
I really loved how this book was wrapped up and how everyone seemed to get what they deserved, but the journey to get there had my blood pressure up a few times because I wanted to punch these women (and a couple of the men too).
My rating
Lie to Me – J.T Ellison
Amazon rating: 4 stars
Goodreads rating: 3.8 stars
How I read it: Audiobook
Read if you like:
- Domestic thrillers
- Multiple POV
- Chaos
- Past secrets
What I loved: I was invested until close to the end
What I didn’t love: Felt like a LOT of fluff; difficult to follow on audiobook with changing POVs at times
Book Blurb
“Sutton and Ethan Montclair’s idyllic life is not as it appears. They seem made for each other, but the truth is ugly. Consumed by professional and personal betrayals and financial woes, the two both love and hate each other. As tensions mount, Sutton disappears, leaving behind a note saying not to look for her.
Ethan finds himself the target of vicious gossip as friends, family and the media speculate on what really happened to Sutton Montclair. As the police investigate, the lies the couple have been spinning for years quickly unravel. Is Ethan a killer? Is he being set up? Did Sutton hate him enough to kill the child she never wanted and then herself? The path to the answers is full of twists that will leave the reader breathless.“
My thoughts
This was under recommended for me in my Hoopla app because I read one of J.T’s books last month.
However, this entire book SCREAMED a low rent version of Gone Girl for me and I definitely didn’t like it as much as I did his other one I read.
A lot of reviews say the same, but that there were more twists in it. I do agree with that, but the ending was also VERY confusing for me.
It felt super abrupt and left me literally like….OKAY WHAT? And not really in a good way.
This was one of those “it was fine while I’m reading it, but it’s not going to be the book I jump to recommend to people wanting a new read in this genre”.
My rating
Every Thing She Feared – Rick Mofina
Amazon rating: 4.5 stars
Goodreads rating: 3.9 stars
How I read it: Audiobook
Read if you like:
- Psychological suspense
- Unreliable characters
- Dark past
- Serial killer
What I loved: That I was wrong about what I thought I had figured out.
What I didn’t love: I felt the ending was super abrupt; some parts of this felt SO CHEESY
Book Blurb
“Every mother worries about their child. But Sara Harmon fears hers…
When a teen falls while taking a selfie at the edge of a cliff, the last thing she sees before plummeting to her death is Katie Harmon, the nine-year-old girl she was babysitting, looking down at her.
Investigators gather at the scene, and Katie’s mother, Sara, rushes to comfort her daughter. Yet there’s a small, secret ping of alarm in Sara’s heart that she cannot share—though rookie detective Kim Pierce senses it.
For years, others have tried to unravel this secret. From true-crime podcasters to a haunted journalist searching for a killer who vanished after being released from prison several years ago. And now, with detectives tightening the focus of their investigation, Sara is consumed by her darkest fear—that the babysitter’s death was not an accident.“
My thoughts
OMG.
So I thought I had this figured out from the first chapter and while I’m glad I didn’t have it figured out, this book read like a really poorly executed Netflix movie in my opinion.
I feel like it could have been good, but there was so much fluff and many parts where the lines were just SO CHEESY and I could almost see the poor execution of the cheesy lines on a film that had champagne taste with a beer budget.
It honestly felt like 2 different stories for a lot of it and I understand how they intertwine, but good lawd it was just…thick.
WITH THAT SAID, I binged this pretty quick but I think so much fluff could have been cut out and the storyline could have been fine.
It felt hella repetitive (okay we get it, you have a freaking past and don’t want to talk about it yet, but waiting until like 80% of the book to talk about it and then it not being that big of a deal is like…COME ON) and I liked it, but again, not a compelling enough story for me to recommend it to people.
My rating
Electric Idol – Katee Robert
Amazon rating: 4.5 stars
Goodreads rating: 4 stars
How I read it: Kindle
Read if you like:
- Dual first person POV
- Marriage of conveninece trope
- Super spice romance
- A*holes getting what they deserve
What I loved: Love the modern take on the Greek mythology; easy to root for the characters you love
What I didn’t love: Aphrodite
Book Blurb
In the ultra-modern city of Olympus, there’s always a price to pay. Psyche Dimitriou knew she’d have to face Aphrodite’s jealous rage eventually, but she never expected her literal heart to be at stake…or for Aphrodite’s gorgeous son to be the one ordered to strike the killing blow.
Eros has no problem shedding blood. Raised to be his mother’s knife in the dark, he’s been conditioned to accept that he’s more monster than man. But when it comes time to take out his latest target…he can’t do it. Confused by his reaction to Psyche’s unexpected kindness, he does the only thing he can think of to keep her safe: he binds her to him, body and soul.
Psyche didn’t expect to find herself married to the glittering city’s most dangerous killer, but something about Eros wakens a fire inside her she’s never felt before. As lines blur and loyalties shift, Psyche realizes Eros might take her heart after all…and she’s not sure she can survive the loss.”
My thoughts
*le sigh*
I just really like this series.
And if you’ve read any of my book reviews, you know that romance is not my genre of choice.
Rom coms are cute and fun, but it’s not what I reach for.
But after reading the first in this series last month, I was dying to read the second one.
I think I liked the storyline of the first one better, but I still really enjoyed this.
I have seen reviews that they thought the whole “I’m a monster, I don’t deserve anything good” schtick got old and repetitive, but to me, it just showed that Eros was having a hard time believing something good could happen to him after his past and quite frankly, I FEE