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As you may know, John Marrs has quickly become one of my new favourite authors of all time. His mystery/thriller novels are practically perfect in every way (movie reference, anybody?)! For the second half of 2020, I am going to try to get through all of John Marrs backlist publications, making this one the second Marrs book I have read this year. And boy oh boy, it did NOT disappoint!

Synopsis (Goodreads.com):

Eight self-drive cars set on a collision course. Who lives, who dies? You decide.
When someone hacks into the systems of eight self-drive cars, their passengers are set on a fatal collision course.
The passengers are: a TV star, a pregnant young woman, a disabled war hero, an abused wife fleeing her husband, an illegal immigrant, a husband and wife – and parents of two – who are travelling in separate vehicles and a suicidal man. Now the public have to judge who should survive but are the passengers all that they first seem?

This book was UNREAL. With every John Marrs book I read, I am more and more impressed by his writing and unpredictable plot twists. He seems to have gotten the thrilling aspect down to a tee, and his plot twists for exceptional mysterious aspects.

The Passengers features a very interesting cast of characters. Quickly, readers realize that everyone involved in this event has a secret to hide, and while I was expecting the secrets to be very basic (murder, money laundering, etc.), these ones were actually very complex and unexpected. Each of the secrets helped to further develop the characters, and they added to the uniqueness of this book.

Within this story, I found so many tropes that I love to read in novels, including an element of tech, majority of the story taking place over a small period of time, and a romance element that does not take over the whole story, just to name a few. Since this story was so plot driven, it was necessary for Marrs to include a lot of different tropes to help advance the plot of the story, and I thought that the ones he chose were not only interesting, but also executed so well.

I think this book would make a phenomenal movie adaptation, as the majority of the story takes place over only a few hours during one day. The technological aspect would be so interesting to see play out on TV, and I know the characters could easily be cast. I hope that after The One gets put on Netflix, Netflix will think about creating The Passengers into a movie!

And of course, I ended up giving this book 5/5 stars. Out all of the John Marrs books I have read so far, this one was my favourite!

Good Night Book Owls!

Welcome back to Reading, Reading, Reading!

If you are a frequent reader of my book blog, you will notice that I rarely read Sci-Fi novels. That being said, when I was first approached by Raquel to read her novel, Hamartia, I thought that the premise sounded very different from most Sci-Fi novels. Since the synopsis peaked my interest, I accepted to read and review it… and I am so glad I did!

Synopsis (Goodreads.com):

Grace’s nine-year-old son, Jordan, is dying. First, the Metagenesis disease will tear his soul from his body, and then it will kill him. Desperate for a cure, Grace agrees to take part in an illegal clinical trial cloning souls. Supported by her best friend Kay, the two embark on the ultimate “Vegas Vacation” to the past in search of the right soul to clone, racing against time to save Jordan’s life. But someone is trying to stop them and when they discover why Grace must make a choice: let her son die or kill her husband. If she kills her husband, she triggers widespread Metagenesis, sealing the fate of the human race with a new plague.
Humanity is counting on Grace choosing to let her son die.

Right off the bat, the story takes place starting in Toronto travelling to Las Vegas 80-years in the past (Las Vegas circa 2000). This was so coincidental, as the last trip I took before COVID was to Las Vegas from Toronto! The overall world building was one of my favourite things to read in this story, which stemmed from Rich’s stupendous writing.

Rich’s writing is fantastic, especially for a debut novel. At times, I thought that the writing was a little ramble. Rich includes a lot of detail in this story, which is appreciated, however I didn’t think that all of it was absolutely necessary. This also goes for some of the character dialogue. However, her word choice and overall writing devices were written incredibly well.

In my opinion, the best part of this novel were the characters and character development. As readers, we see the characters go through a lot in this story, and I really enjoyed reading them develop. I especially enjoyed Grace’s character and all of the emotions she goes through throughout this story. I felt really invested in Grace’s story while reading this novel, which helped me read this story very quickly.

Since I was a bit nervous to read a Sci-Fi novel, I was incredibly impressed by how thrilling it was! There are quite a few plot twists in this novel that I did not see coming at all, which added to my overall enjoyment of the novel. Rich did a great job of incorporating an equal amount of sci-fi elements – especially time travelling – along with both emotional and thrilling elements.

Overall, I was incredibly surprised by this novel (in the best way!), and rated it 4/5 stars! Thanks very much to Raquel Rich for giving me a copy of Hamartia to read and review, I apologize for how long it took me to finally read it!

Good Night Book Owls!

Welcome back to Reading, Reading, Reading!

The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides has been staring into my soul since it arrived on my shelf at the end of last year. I have had this book on my TBR since November 2019 (you can find it on multiple TBR posts on my blog!), and have been quite intimidated by it, only because of the massive hype in 2019. It was a #1 NYT bestseller, won several book awards, and earned the #1 Mystery/Thriller of 2019 on Goodreads! Oh, and did I mention it is a DEBUT NOVEL?!?!?!?!?!

Synopsis (Goodreads.com):

Alicia Berenson’s life is seemingly perfect. A famous painter married to an in-demand fashion photographer, she lives in a grand house with big windows overlooking a park in one of London’s most desirable areas. One evening her husband Gabriel returns home late from a fashion shoot, and Alicia shoots him five times in the face, and then never speaks another word.
Alicia’s refusal to talk, or give any kind of explanation, turns a domestic tragedy into something far grander, a mystery that captures the public imagination and casts Alicia into notoriety. The price of her art skyrockets, and she, the silent patient, is hidden away from the tabloids and spotlight at the Grove, a secure forensic unit in North London.
Theo Faber is a criminal psychotherapist who has waited a long time for the opportunity to work with Alicia. His determination to get her to talk and unravel the mystery of why she shot her husband takes him down a twisting path into his own motivations—a search for the truth that threatens to consume him…

This book was MIND BLOWING.

Most people’s ratings are strictly based off of their thoughts on the final (again MIND BLOWING) plot twist. What was interesting about this novel, is that you will either love or hate it depending on how you read it. Without going into much detail or spoiling the entire plot line, the plot twist at the end will shock you if you don’t think about the timeline presented in the book. That is ALL I will tell you… and I feel like even that is sharing too much!

Although I absolutely loved the plot twist, the stand out feature of this novel was the writing. I could not believe that this was a debut novel. The writing in this book was so simple, yet so elegant. Everything was written for a reason and only provided just enough detail for readers to visualize the [wild] events that were taking place. After completing the book, I read a few reviews that criticized the writing style, but I feel like those reviewers were used to a more outgoing first person narrator. This book is technically written in first person POV from the psychotherapists’s perspective, but there are also journal entries written from Alicia herself, which were fantastically written, as well. Normally when reading books written in this way, I will favour one POV/writing style better, but in this book, I enjoyed them equally!

The characters were really interesting and very well developed. Theo and Alicia’s characters contrasted each other, but as you continue to read the novel, you learn that they are actually very similar internally.

Overall, I gave this book a 5/5 stars (my second 5-star book out of my last three reads!), and would whole-heartedly recommend it to anyone who enjoys Mystery/Thriller novels!

Good Night Book Owls!

“I lost myself in him, and instead of trying to convince myself that someday everything would okay, I focused that, right now, it already was.” – Beach Read, Pg. 288

Welcome back to Reading, Reading, Reading!

It’s book like Beach Read by Emily Henry that remind me why I fell in love with reading in the first place. There are certain emotions you feel when you’ve been transported into the world of a book, totally transfixed in the story and with the characters. It’s one thing to see the story play out for you on the screen, but it’s another to play a story in your head, in total peace and quiet. This book was an absolute delight to read, and I will continue to scream about it from the rooftops for the rest of my life.

Synopsis (Goodreads.com):

A romance writer who no longer believes in love and a literary writer stuck in a rut engage in a summer-long challenge that may just upend everything they believe about happily ever afters.
Augustus Everett is an acclaimed author of literary fiction. January Andrews writes bestselling romance. When she pens a happily ever after, he kills off his entire cast.
They’re polar opposites.
In fact, the only thing they have in common is that for the next three months, they’re living in neighboring beach houses, broke, and bogged down with writer’s block.
Until, one hazy evening, one thing leads to another and they strike a deal designed to force them out of their creative ruts: Augustus will spend the summer writing something happy, and January will pen the next Great American Novel. She’ll take him on field trips worthy of any rom-com montage, and he’ll take her to interview surviving members of a backwoods death cult (obviously). Everyone will finish a book and no one will fall in love. Really.

I think I’ve come to the conclusion that I enjoy books that make me cry more than books that make me feel butterflies in my stomach. Sure, passionate romances are great (when written well), but there is something about feeling perplexed with emotions that makes me appreciate a well written novel. Clearly, this one was no exception. The writing in this novel was perfection. There were a few times where I stopped and re-read specific passages, as they often held a deep meaning. The more passionate love scenes were beautifully written with not only physicalities, but also emotions, kept in mind. While the gave me butterflies, they seemed realistic and truthful. Near the end of the novel when January begins to read letters her Father had left for her, the writing style changed effectively, which took my reading experience to a new high.

Truthfully, the title of this novel is actually quite deceiving. This is not your quintessential lovey, swoon worthy, romance novel, but rather a book that showcases the power of past trauma and how it can impact future relationships. While it isn’t highlighted in the plot, the characters have both experienced an immense amount of hardships, which contributes to their hard-exterior, yet soft interior, personalities. They are so alike yet so different in an abundance of ways.

I really didn’t want this book to end. I became so attached to not only the two main characters, Gus and January, but also the side characters that were equally important to the story. All of the characters were incredibly layered and written with distinctive voices. One of my favourite parts about this book revolved around January’s father. While January finds out that her Father wasn’t the great man she had always thought he was, she learned to understand his issues and separate his secrets from the way he treated and raised her. I am incredibly close with my Father and consider him to be one of my best friends(hi Dad! I know you are reading this!!), so I immensely enjoyed reading about January’s relationships with her Father. I think it’s hard to come by a novel where you whole-heartedly enjoy all of the characters, and that is another reason why this book was (is!) so special.

This book mostly takes place inside/outside of a lake-front house, which is one of my favourite settings to read books take place in. While I am not a big “outdoors” person, I have always loved homes that back onto water-fronts, and reading this book reminded me of that.

I appreciated that while this was technically a hate-to-love romance (although I haven’t seen it publicized as one), it was about characters who misunderstood eachother, and through the process of individual growth and maturity, they learned and connected with one another. Words cannot describe how lovely it was to read this first hand.

And of course, I rated this book 5/5 stars (I would have given it 6 stars if I could have)! I hope you enjoyed my review of Beach Read by Emily Henry! If you’ve read this book, let me know your thoughts on it in a comment!

Good Night Book Owls!

Welcome back to Reading, Reading, Reading!

Over the past few years, Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng was at the top of my TBR list, and appeared on over five different monthly TBR’s in the past two years! In June, I was in the mood to pick up a character-driven novel, and was immediately drawn to finally read Little Fires Everywhere! To say that I had high expectations for this book would be an understatement, and unfortunately, it did not live up to them in my opinion.

Synopsis (Goodreads.com):

In Shaker Heights, a placid, progressive suburb of Cleveland, everything is planned–from the layout of the winding roads, to the colors of the houses, to the successful lives its residents will go on to lead. And no one embodies this spirit more than Elena Richardson, whose guiding principle is playing by the rules.
Enter Mia Warren–an enigmatic artist and single mother–who arrives in this idyllic bubble with her teenaged daughter Pearl, and rents a house from the Richardsons. Soon Mia and Pearl become more than tenants: all four Richardson children are drawn to the mother-daughter pair. But Mia carries with her a mysterious past and a disregard for the status quo that threatens to upend this carefully ordered community.
When old family friends of the Richardsons attempt to adopt a Chinese-American baby, a custody battle erupts that dramatically divides the town–and puts Mia and Elena on opposing sides. Suspicious of Mia and her motives, Elena is determined to uncover the secrets in Mia’s past. But her obsession will come at unexpected and devastating costs.
Little Fires Everywhere explores the weight of secrets, the nature of art and identity, and the ferocious pull of motherhood–and the danger of believing that following the rules can avert disaster.

I will describe this book in one word: underwhelming.

Like I stated above, I had SO many high expectations for this book. Thinking back, maybe that was unfair, but when you hear about a book that is loved by millions of people internationally, you believe that it will be your next new favourite book. In my case, that did not happen. Now, I am not saying that this was not a good or enjoyable book. I quite enjoyed it, but I have definitely read better books before (both literary fiction and books from other genres).

I want to get all of the negative things I have to write about this book out of the way, so if you are only in the mood to read positive things (which I understand might be possible since we are in such depressing times), then skip to the next paragraph. Upon reading the Goodreads synopsis, you would think that this book centres around Mrs. Richardson digging into Mia Warren’s troubled past. However, I would argue that that is not the first main plot of the story. In fact, everything that is shared in the synopsis does not begin to unfold until 150 pages into the story. One of the main things that I did not like about this book was the fact that there were too many different plot lines and stories to follow, especially when this is supposed to be a character driven novel. I enjoyed all of the plot lines once they were fully introduced, but I thought that it took way too long to get to all of them. I also didn’t really love the writing in this novel. A lot of reviewers have cited the writing as something they have adored about this book, but I did not think that it was anything special. Throughout the novel, I thought that Celeste Ng had some very rambly sections, as well as some sections that I would have liked more information on. Had she balanced those out evenly, I think I would have enjoyed the story a lot more.

However, there were a handful of things about this book that I really enjoyed. Mainly, I loved many of the characters in this novel. In my opinion, this book is a master class on character development. I have NEVER read a book with such clear characters that flawlessly developed when the story concluded. Interestingly enough, my favourite character was Izzie, the character in this novel that I believe goes through the least amount of development. I would have loved to have read more about her thoughts and opinions on everything going on, and would love to read a short story in her perspective in the future,

Truthfully, I think that most readers will, in fact, enjoy this book (probably a lot more than I did). One of the key factors influencing my dissapointment of this book may be my age and lack of experience in the adult world. I would be interested in going back to this book in about 10-years, and seeing if I would enjoy it more then. If I am still blogging then, I will read and review it again if I remember! Overall, I gave this book 2.5/5 stars.

I would LOVE to hear your thoughts on this book, so if you have read it, let me know in the comments and we can discuss it!

Good Night Book Owls!