February 2024 Reads and Reviews

Tell all ya friends and neighbors!

february 2024 reads graphic

I have been back on the book reading train for almost 2 years now and I’m finally making a decision.

I have GOT to stop reading books based on social media hype. It has steered me wrong TOO many times. Even from trusted people I follow.

It’s why I feel weird even giving reviews because I don’t ever want to hype up a book and then you end up hating it and blame me lolz.

ANYWAYYYY, here’s my reviews for books I read and you may or may not like them for February!

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february 2024 reads graphic

The Children on the Hill – Jennifer McMahon

Amazon rating: 4.2 stars

Goodreads rating: 3.86 stars

How I read it: Audiobook

Read if you like:

  • Psychological thrillers
  • Multiple POV
  • Family secrets
  • Podcast element
  • Dual timelines

What I loved: I liked getting the story from both timelines; they were both interesting

What I didn’t love: Predictable

Book Blurb

1978: At her renowned treatment center in picturesque Vermont, the brilliant psychiatrist, Dr. Helen Hildreth, is acclaimed for her compassionate work with the mentally ill. But when she’s home with her cherished grandchildren, Vi and Eric, she’s just Gran—teaching them how to take care of their pets, preparing them home-cooked meals, providing them with care and attention and love.

Then one day Gran brings home a child to stay with the family. Iris—silent, hollow-eyed, skittish, and feral—does not behave like a normal girl.

Still, Violet is thrilled to have a new playmate. She and Eric invite Iris to join their Monster Club, where they dream up ways to defeat all manner of monsters. Before long, Iris begins to come out of her shell. She and Vi and Eric do everything together: ride their bicycles, go to the drive-in, meet at their clubhouse in secret to hunt monsters. Because, as Vi explains, monsters are everywhere.

2019: Lizzy Shelley, the host of the popular podcast Monsters Among Us, is traveling to Vermont, where a young girl has been abducted, and a monster sighting has the town in an uproar. She’s determined to hunt it down, because Lizzy knows better than anyone that monsters are real—and one of them is her very own sister.

My thoughts

Some people categorized this as “horror”, but I definitely did not feel that way.

Although there is a lot of talk of “monsters”, I didn’t feel that anything was particularly descriptive or “jump scare-y” enough to classify this as horror at least for me.

When I first chose this book, I thought it was going to be WAY different than it was (I went in blind). I was thinking more along the lines of kids escaping from an abusive situation like Those Girls by Chevy Stevens that I read last month, but ’twas not.

I thought this was a very unique storyline, though, and it kept my attention but I guessed that twist SO early on. I could just tell by the way things were worded and vague language.

Still made for an interesting listen on audiobook!

My rating

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Before She Finds Me – Heather Chavez

Amazon rating: 4.2 stars

Goodreads rating: 3.84 stars

How I read it: Audiobook

Read if you like:

  • Hitman trope
  • Psychological suspense
  • Dual first person POV
  • Continuous timeline

What I loved: The unique plot, unpredictable

What I didn’t love: Sometimes a bit difficult to keep up with

Book Blurb

Julia Bennett has worked hard to create a stable life for her daughter, Cora, in Southern California. So when Cora leaves for college, the worst thing Julia expects on move-in day is an argument with her ex-husband and his new wife. But a sudden attack leaves the campus stunned—and only Julia’s quick actions save Cora’s life. Shaken in the aftermath, and haunted by a dark secret, Julia starts to wonder: What if the attack wasn’t as random as everyone believes?

Newly pregnant Ren Petrovic has an unusual career—she’s a trained assassin, operating under a strict moral code. Ren wasn’t on campus that day, but she knows who was: her husband, Nolan. What she doesn’t know is why Nolan has broken their rules by not telling her about the job in advance. The more Ren looks into the attack, the more she begins to question: Who really hired Nolan? And why did one woman in the crowd respond so differently from all the rest?

Julia and Ren each want answers, but their searches quickly pit them against each other. One woman is a hired killer, but the other is a determined survivor. And both mothers will defend their families to the bitter end.

My thoughts

Okay, this was one of the most interesting plots of a book I’ve read in a while.

The points of views of the 2 main characters kept me interested in the stories and somehow got me rooting for both of them, although one was the “bad” one.

I really enjoyed this story and for the first time in a long time, I didn’t see the twist coming which says a lot because I feel like I can see a twist coming from a mile away.

My rating

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Truly Devious – Maureen Johnson

*Available on Kindle Unlimited

Amazon rating: 4.3 stars

Goodreads rating: 3.94 stars

How I read it: Audiobook

Read if you like:

  • YA *eye roll*
  • Dual timeline
  • Dark academia
  • Cozy mysteries
  • “Locked room”/single location

What I loved: The past timeline

What I didn’t love: The present timeline, characters, the ending, the way the story drug on and on

Book Blurb

Ellingham Academy is a famous private school in Vermont for the brightest thinkers, inventors, and artists. It was founded by Albert Ellingham, an early twentieth century tycoon, who wanted to make a wonderful place full of riddles, twisting pathways, and gardens. “A place,” he said, “where learning is a game.”

Shortly after the school opened, his wife and daughter were kidnapped. The only real clue was a mocking riddle listing methods of murder, signed with the frightening pseudonym “Truly, Devious.” It became one of the great unsolved crimes of American history.

True-crime aficionado Stevie Bell is set to begin her first year at Ellingham Academy, and she has an ambitious plan: She will solve this cold case. That is, she will solve the case when she gets a grip on her demanding new school life and her housemates: the inventor, the novelist, the actor, the artist, and the jokester.

But something strange is happening. Truly Devious makes a surprise return, and death revisits Ellingham Academy. The past has crawled out of its grave. Someone has gotten away with murder. 

The two interwoven mysteries of this first book in the Truly Devious series dovetail brilliantly, and Stevie Bell will continue her relentless quest for the murderers in books two and three.

My thoughts

This was one of those books that had a TON of hype.

First of all, it’s YA. I had no idea. And it was very much written as such.

Second, just no. There were 328905 people in this book and I could barely keep up. Mainly because this story line was SO MISERABLY BORING.

I liked the timeline from the 1930s, but there just wasn’t a lot of it. The past timeline could have been summed up in 5 sentences and then we could have moved on.

This is a series so the very end was SUCH a cliffhanger, but this was so close to being my first DNF of 2024 that I didn’t care nearly enough to read any of the others.

If you read them, just do me a fave and let me know who murdered the guy.

My rating

Rating: 2.5 out of 5.

First Lie Wins – Ashley Elston

Amazon rating: 4.4 stars

Goodreads rating: 4.17 stars

How I read it: Audiobook

Read if you like:

  • Single POV
  • Strong FMC
  • Twisty suspense
  • Cat and mouse trope
  • Multiple timelines/flashbacks

What I loved: Read a lot like a movie/TV show so it was vivid

What I didn’t love: A bit of a stretch plot-wise

Book Blurb

The identity comes first: Evie Porter. Once she’s given a name and location by her mysterious boss Mr. Smith, she learns everything there is to know about the town and the people in it. Then the mark: Ryan Sumner. The last piece of the puzzle is the job.

Evie isn’t privy to Mr. Smith’s real identity, but she knows this job will be different. Ryan has gotten under her skin, and she’s starting to envision a different sort of life for herself. But Evie can’t make any mistakes–especially after what happened last time.

Because the one thing she’s worked her entire life to keep clean, the one identity she could always go back to—her real identity—just walked right into this town. Evie Porter must stay one step ahead of her past while making sure there’s still a future in front of her. The stakes couldn’t be higher–but then, Evie has always liked a challenge…

My thoughts

I have read about 3 or 4 Reese Witherspoon book club picks and have been severely disapointed in all of them, so quite frankly I almost skipped this one because it had her seal on it.

However, I’m real glad I didn’t. I actually really enjoyed this!

I will say there are a lot (LOOOOOT) of characters (and aliases) and sometimes it took me a second to catch up to who was doing what where, but I still really enjoyed this.

It was unlike any other book I’ve read and I could totally see this turning into a Netflix movie or series. I was able to totally immerse myself in this story and in Evie’s life, especially with the single POV.

The story seems like a stretch, but there were some twists that I didn’t see and really enjoyed finding them out! Overall, this was a really fun read and while I may still be nervous to pick up a Reese book, it has given me hope that maybe her picks will start getting better.

My rating

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Tell No One – Harlan Coben

Amazon rating: 4.4 stars

Goodreads rating: 4.08 stars

How I read it: Audiobook

Read if you like:

  • Unreliable characters
  • Action packed
  • First and third person POVs

What I loved: Interesting storyline

What I didn’t love: SO many characters

Book Blurb

For Dr. David Beck, the loss was shattering. And every day for the past eight years, he has relived the horror of what happened. The gleaming lake. The pale moonlight. The piercing screams. The night his wife was taken. The last night he saw her alive.

Everyone tells him it’s time to move on, to forget the past once and for all. But for David Beck, there can be no closure. A message has appeared on his computer, a phrase only he and his dead wife know. Suddenly Beck is taunted with the impossible—that somewhere, somehow, Elizabeth is alive.

Beck has been warned to tell no one. And he doesn’t. Instead, he runs from the people he trusts the most, plunging headlong into a search for the shadowy figure whose messages hold out a desperate hope.

But already Beck is being hunted down. He’s headed straight into the heart of a dark and deadly secret—and someone intends to stop him before he gets there.

My thoughts

I’ve read several Harlan Coben books and they’re very clearly written by a dude.

What I mean by that is they’re action packed and feel like a Liam Neeson movie. Not necessarily a bad thing, but reads more like an action fueled suspense rather than true thriller to me.

I did enjoy it, but I felt like there were some weird racial undertones I wasn’t too crazy about in the way that Dr. Beck (older white dude) interacted with one of his patient’s fathers. It’s not to say that Harlan ascribes to that, but it’s just the way it was written that made me be all “meh”.

Still an overall good read I thought, though.

My rating

Rating: 3 out of 5.

No One Will Miss Her – Kat Rosenfield

Amazon rating: 4.2 stars

Goodreads rating: 3.76 stars

How I read it: Audiobook

Read if you like:

  • Multiple POV
  • Back and forth timeline
  • Unreliable narrator

What I loved: Loved the FMC

What I didn’t love: Big time predictable

Book Blurb

On a beautiful October morning in rural Maine, a homicide investigator from the state police pulls into the hard-luck town of Copper Falls. The local junkyard is burning, and the town pariah Lizzie Oullette is dead—with her husband, Dwayne, nowhere to be found. As scandal ripples through the community, Detective Ian Bird’s inquiries unexpectedly lead him away from small-town Maine to a swank city townhouse several hours south. Adrienne Richards, blonde and fabulous social media influencer and wife of a disgraced billionaire, had been renting Lizzie’s tiny lake house as a country getaway…even though Copper Falls is anything but a resort town.

As Adrienne’s connection to the case becomes clear, so too does her connection to Lizzie, who narrates their story from beyond the grave. Each woman is desperately lonely in her own way, and they navigate a relationship that cuts across class boundaries: transactional, complicated, and, finally, deadly. A Gone Girl for the gig economy, this is a story of privilege, identity, and cunning, as two devious women from opposite worlds discover the dangers of coveting someone else’s life.

My thoughts

This was a fun listen.

I felt like I could relate to the FMC in that she was kind of the poor girl nobody looked at and she just wanted to prove to everyone that she was somebody.

There was also one of my new favorite insults in this book that made me literally laugh out loud – trash bitch. I will be keeping that one in my back pocket fa sho.

Overall, good not great.

My rating

Rating: 3 out of 5.

The Other Mothers – Katherine Faulkner

woman's hand holding kindle with the other mothers cover

Amazon rating: 4.2 stars

Goodreads rating: 3.85 stars

How I read it: Kindle

Read if you like:

  • Catty women
  • Unreliable characters
  • Psychological thriller/suspense
  • Multiple first person POV
  • Alternating timeline

What I loved: Catty women

What I didn’t love: Catty women

Book Blurb

In this whip-smart novel that “pulls out all the psychological thriller stops—and then some” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review), a young nanny is found dead under mysterious circumstances. New mom, Tash, is intrigued. She has been searching for a story to launch her career as a freelance journalist. But she has also been searching for something else—new friends to help her navigate motherhood.

She sees them at her son’s new playgroup: the other mothers. A group of sleek, sophisticated women who live in a neighborhood of tree-lined avenues and stunning houses. The sort of mothers Tash would like to be. When the mothers welcome her into their circle, she discovers the kind of life she has always dreamt of—their elegant London townhouses a far cry from her cramped basement flat and endless bills. She is quickly swept up into their wealthy world via coffees, cocktails, and playdates.

But when another young woman is found dead, it’s clear there’s much more to the tight-knit community than meets the eye. The more Tash investigates, the more she’s led uncomfortably close to the other mothers. Are these women really her friends? Or is there another, more dangerous reason why she has been so quickly accepted into their exclusive world? Who, exactly, is investigating who?

My thoughts

If you love a story about a lot of women doing shady things to each other, this is the one for you.

There were a lot of characters to keep up with, so I had to slow down a few times and reread some sections to remember who was who, which will usually always make me lower a rating for a book at least a half a star.

This was also a book set in London so it was difficult for me to put myself in the story like I normally do because I was unfamiliar with a lot of the towns and language used. That may be a me thing because I usually have difficulty with any books with British accents because my brain can’t make it past the accent.

Even though I read this on my Kindle, I knew it was set in London and the characters/settings also reiterated that. Again, if you like women being bitchy to each other, then you’ll probably enjoy this, but again, I feel like we are playing it super fast and loose with the word “thriller” these days which is just annoying.

Nothing in this got my heart rate up which is what makes a thriller to me.

My rating

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Top Reads of February

I usually do a top 3, but this month I’m going to shorten that to a top 2 since I only read 7 books.

My top 2 for this month are First Lie Wins by Ashley Elston and Before She Finds Me by Heather Chavez.

SHOP ALL BOOKS

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