I was pretty uninspired by my February books. I only really enjoyed one of them, which is a bummer. The one book I loved was the only one I actually knew nothing about and wasn’t that excited for! You never really know what you’re gonna end up loving, I guess.
I’m hoping that March brings me more inspiring books.
CREAM PUFF MURDER (Hannah Swensen #11) by Joanne Fluke
Is this is the same exact story as the previous 10 books? Yes. 100%. Did I still love it? Absolutely. My only real bone to pick here is that this is the second book where Hannah is absolutely obsessed with a diet. Every book has lines about how Hannah isn’t “thin” like her mom and sister. I geeeeeeeeeeet it. As a woman who has spent FAR too much of her time hyper focused (obsessed, disordered) on my weight, I don’t really want to read about it. If more of her books continue down this path, I might have to give up.
Cozy Mystery wise – Hannah always gets the job done and gives great baking recipes. No, I don’t understand how a book with a bunch of baking recipes is also a book that spends its entire time talking about a diet.
SMOKE GETS IN YOUR EYES: AND OTHER LESSONS FROM THE CREMATORY by Caitlin Doughty
I have seen Caitlin Doughty’s books out and about in the world. I’ve heard fantastic things about them. Perhaps if I’d never been told about any of her books, I would have enjoyed this one a lot more. I was instantly turned off by Doughty’s “I’m not like other girls” attitude. She consistency reminded the audience that she’s a 23 year old girl who works at a crematory which is just so totally weird and unexpected cause girls her age just like totally work at Sephora or something.
Once I got past her attitude and read the stories, I was intrigued. Granted, there’s a few times I want to shake her and say, “Did you forget that this is an actual human being??” In order to work with dead bodies, I do suppose you have to arrest your feelings of the body you’re handling being a human… and you being in that situation eventually. All in all, I enjoyed the book but I have zero intentions of reading any of her others.
THE SEARCHER by Tana French
I love Tana French. She’s one of my favorite authors. Her Dublin Murder series is fantastic (10/10 recommend all of them – go read them). This one… falls a little flat. Which is a huge bummer. If the book was 100 pages less, it’d be way better. There’s SO MUCH DETAIL that’s just so unnecessary and does absolutely nothing for the plot. I don’t even want to get started on how horrific that ending was. I felt like I wasted my time when I finally finished.
Tana French is fantastic but this book definitely was not.
THE LOVE HYPOTHESIS by Ali Hazelwood
This book is super duper popular… And I really don’t know why. Don’t get me wrong, I love the “fake relationship to real relationship” trope but this wasn’t it. It was finnnnnne but it took me almost 200 pages to actually start getting interested in the book. I had a similar issue with the crematory book… The whole “I’m not like other girls” trope is washed up. Omg a super smart girl who doesn’t wear make up and has never had a serious relationship and she doesn’t wear dresses – SO UNIQUE. You don’t neeeeeeeeed a pick me girl to make your romance work. It felt too try-hard for my taste.
THE THURSDAY MURDER CLUB by Richard Osman
I think the reason I liked this book so much is because when I’m old, I want to live in a retirement home that has a murder club where we talk about cold cases and try to solve them. That is literally the coolest thing ever. This book is told from several points of view, which I normally don’t care for. It worked for this book though. Each person had such a distinct voice and personality that I was never thrown off trying to figure out who’s brain I was in. There were a bunch of twists and turns that I often wouldn’t be anxious about who actually committed the murder(s) – which I’m typically trying to unravel the ending every step of the way.
Have you read any of these? If so, what did you think? Are any of these on your “want to read list”?
Writes with Wolves 