My March 2018 Book Reviews

I read two pretty good books this month and one dud.  I was very excited that it was my turn to pick a book for book club and it was pretty well liked!  And we never agree!

The Identicals by Elin Hildebrand

I enjoyed this book more than I thought I would. In the past, I was a huge fan of Hildebrand’s work. She writes books that are fun, light, and entertaining. After reading many of her books, I started to get bored with them. But, I keep reading them. After reading The Rumor last year, I started falling in love with her work.

The Identicals was an entertaining story of two twin sisters who were split up when their parents divorce, very Parent Trap. Harper lives on Martha’s Vineyard with their father, and Tabitha lives on Nantucket with their mother. The sisters live separate lives with their “assigned” parents, and now that they are older, they are no longer welcome in the other’s life.   Harper lives a life of a single woman with a dog who has difficulty keeping a job and a partner. Tabitha is a single mother who lives on Nantucket trying to live up to her mother’s expectations.

When their father dies, they are forced to come together to deal with his estate, and this leads to them switching islands to take care of things. This book showed the struggle of two women trying to pick up the pieces of the mistakes that they’ve made.

I liked this book; it was difficult at times because I had a lot of issues with the different actions of the protagonists. There were times I favored one twin, times I favored the other, and times I wanted to yell at them both.

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

This was my book club book this month, and I’m happy to say that it was my pick.  I really liked this book.  Full disclosure, through the first 60 pages of the book I was bored and not into it.  But after that I binge read the book in one sitting, not going to bed until I finished.

This novel is the story of two families.  The Richardsons are a wealthy Shaker family.  Their matriarch, Elena, is a woman who thrives on rules and routine.  They own a second property, a duplex, that they rent out to people and families that Elena deems appropriate.  When Mia Warren and her daughter Pearl move into the upstairs of the duplex, Elena doesn’t realize how much of an impact this is going to have on the lives of her entire family.

This story is about interpersonal relationships, how your decisions affect others, and about uncovering secrets.  This story was so interesting and had a lot of twists and turns that I didn’t see coming.

The fact that I couldn’t go to bed (on a school night!) until I finished says a lot, I was pleasantly surprised by this book.

My rating: 4.5 Stars

Hardcore Twenty-Four by Janet Evanovich

I usually enjoy the Stephanie Plum series.  I read them once a year when there is a new one, and I need a break between deeper books.  They’re a nice “palette cleanser,” I found this one to be pretty bad.  Of all of the books, I think it was my least favorite.

The storyline was about a bunch of zombies running around Trenton and “The Burg” stealing brains.  Meanwhile, Evanovich brings back the character of Diesel who I don’t remember ever reading about.  After some research, I guess he has made a few appearances and was in an attempt at a spin-off series that Evanovich wrote.

This book included more of the Ranger and Morelli back and forth, which is getting old.  The book had some scenes that made me uncomfortable where they were trying to build some sexual tension. It just didn’t come through the page the way it was meant.

This book was stale and unnecessary.  I’m beginning to think that Stephanie may need to retire, or maybe they should stop cranking out books every year and slow down to focus on a better story.  They are beginning to all feel the same.

I give this book 2 stars out of 5.

Also, Check Out:

February Book Reviews

The Best Books I Read in 2017