hollanddavis's reviews
881 reviews

Rereading this, I am once again 15 years old having the time of my life. The nostalgia is real, but the story is also holding up. I’ve already queued up the next one.

This is what I want from a who Holiday-Who-Done-It: whimsical enough characters to keep me interested, love interests with enough banter (and tension) to keep me giggling, and blizzard to keep them all in place. 

Carter managed to write tropes like miscommunication,  “I’d take a bullet for you”, and the “We don’t talk about Tucson” without it being cringey, which is a big green flag. 

As a murder mystery, I was thoroughly entertained, but I also read this in a day a never once tried to put the clues together. I was along for the ride and enjoyed every second of it. Had I sat with it for any length of time, or if I was a regular with the genre, maybe it would’ve been obvious, but I don’t care. That’s not what I was looking for. I got my “Oh, damn!” moment during the reveal. 

Concise. To the point. Well written. How do Garraway’s points seem so obvious but so profound to hear at the same time? I’m thinking “Duh” but also “I gotta right this down” simultaneously. Truly beneficial to someone of any age. 

My only gripe (and this is not picky, I know) is that his only example of inappropriate workplace attire was a miniskirt. Like, come on. It’s small, but you couldn’t say sweat pants or uncollared shirts or sneakers to try and cover a larger demographic? But I digress. Overwhelmingly, this was a very informative and helpful book. Would recommend 

It took me approximately 10% of this book to remember who and what and where everybody was, but it was an interesting story once I got all of my ducks in a row. Somehow I had a hard time getting emotionally invested in these characters (surprising because Mische was my fav in the first book), but it was still a well written exploration into grief and guilt and shame. I’m interested in finding out where this story goes next.