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A review by multicoloredbookreviews
Beautiful Savages by Julie Capulet, J. Capulet
mysterious
medium-paced
3.5
I've only read two of this author's other books before picking up this one (Devil's Angel & Wild Hearts), and right out of the gate, the prose of Beautiful Savages felt so much more polished and professional.
I much preferred the style of this book compared to her other two that I've read. The 3rd person narration over the 1st of the work under her other penname.
But while each chapter was headlined with the name of one of the multiple people that made up the huge cast of characters of this story, as a way to set the scene, I don't know if that was wholly necessary—since the type of 3rd person used alternated between limited omniscient, or close third, and fully omniscient, where we closely followed a selected character, but at times, bits and pieces from alternate POVs sneaked in. There was a scene in particular, between two of the siblings, were I lost track of whose POV we were on that chapter because of the switching, which muddled things a bit.
I'm not much of murder mystery reader, so the rare ones I read are always a bit of a novel experience and Beautiful Savages wasn't the exception. The small snippets of the interrogations at the end of each chapter were fun, even if maybe I'd have followed them better if a had a list handy to match each character to the number assigned to them to protect their identities.
As for the characters themselves and the development of the relationships between each of the five Savage siblings and their partners, some I liked better than others. Marlowe in particular I really, really disliked. She was a nasty and bitchy to Eros the whole book for absolutely no reason whatsoever.
In general, though, even if all the "love stories" were kinda silly, laughably far-fetched and not very deeply developed, but they were fun nonetheless. My favorite couple were Athena and Wyatt, with Artemis and Cooper in second place. The other three felt too rushed or not sufficiently set up. Apollo and Daisy specifically transitioned from working relationship to more absolutely out of nowhere, I wish their relationship had been given a bit more time to mature and a smoother transition. But then again, developing 5 whole ass love stories from scratch in a single book is a huge undertaking, and to the author's credit, even if the book was over 500 pages it felt super short.
The one thing I'll say is that there was a HUGE plot hole:somehow, Daisy's brother managed to get on a commercial fight with a fire arm. C'mon now, I'm willing to suspend my disbelief to a certain point, but that's ridiculous.
In any case, I didn't guess who the killer was until we got to the very last chapters and there was some good romance, so if you enjoy murder mystery with a side of love, I'd add this book to your TBR.
I much preferred the style of this book compared to her other two that I've read. The 3rd person narration over the 1st of the work under her other penname.
But while each chapter was headlined with the name of one of the multiple people that made up the huge cast of characters of this story, as a way to set the scene, I don't know if that was wholly necessary—since the type of 3rd person used alternated between limited omniscient, or close third, and fully omniscient, where we closely followed a selected character, but at times, bits and pieces from alternate POVs sneaked in. There was a scene in particular, between two of the siblings, were I lost track of whose POV we were on that chapter because of the switching, which muddled things a bit.
I'm not much of murder mystery reader, so the rare ones I read are always a bit of a novel experience and Beautiful Savages wasn't the exception. The small snippets of the interrogations at the end of each chapter were fun, even if maybe I'd have followed them better if a had a list handy to match each character to the number assigned to them to protect their identities.
As for the characters themselves and the development of the relationships between each of the five Savage siblings and their partners, some I liked better than others. Marlowe in particular I really, really disliked. She was a nasty and bitchy to Eros the whole book for absolutely no reason whatsoever.
In general, though, even if all the "love stories" were kinda silly, laughably far-fetched and not very deeply developed, but they were fun nonetheless. My favorite couple were Athena and Wyatt, with Artemis and Cooper in second place. The other three felt too rushed or not sufficiently set up. Apollo and Daisy specifically transitioned from working relationship to more absolutely out of nowhere, I wish their relationship had been given a bit more time to mature and a smoother transition. But then again, developing 5 whole ass love stories from scratch in a single book is a huge undertaking, and to the author's credit, even if the book was over 500 pages it felt super short.
The one thing I'll say is that there was a HUGE plot hole:
In any case, I didn't guess who the killer was until we got to the very last chapters and there was some good romance, so if you enjoy murder mystery with a side of love, I'd add this book to your TBR.