mew_reviews's reviews
31 reviews

So GOOD!! Reminds me why I love reading! I love these character, I love wild schemes and lives on the line. It makes me think I can read more fantasy though and I definitely can’t. 

Oh this book made me nauseous. 

FANTASTIC audiobook. I love a full cast.

This book did make me super nauseous during lunch, so four stars. Unique, lil freaky book.

Thank you to Simon & Schuster for the physical review copy! These are my honest, unhinged and unaltered thoughts. 

This book will not be for everyone, but it might as well have been written for me. Or for anyone who enjoys watching the dumpster fire that is reality TV. I truly cannot put into words how much I LOVE rich people behaving badly…. And rich people getting what they deserve. 

I also love reading about unlikable people. These characters were about as shallow as a kiddie pool that’s sat out in 90° weather all week. 

I would recommend reading this through the lens that all reality tv and books about reality tv will be a bit campy. One thing that kept this from being a 5 star read was a character googling something I felt was unreasonable for their character and their supposed motives for doing so. But ya know what the Bachelorette producers let Jenn Tran get up on stage and watch her proposal next to the man who broke her heart and has an abusive past. Soooo maybe tv producers just don’t have a soul or empathy? 

Shout out to Birdie for being the baddest, pot stirring, lying, martini slinging lady to ever grace the pages of a book. Re-gifting gifts with the original gifter and gifted there? Diabolical. 

Add a Gossip Girl-esque online troll? Sign me UP. 

AND it’s queer? Ugh, Astrid you might as well have tied this up with a bow just for me. 

There were also a LOT of deaths in a short span of time. To a point where it almost got a bit comical. If it was reality tv, let me tell you I would BINGE the whole season in a day. I did binge almost the whole book in one day, it was quite demented in the best ways. 

The transcripts interspersed through the book were a great touch! 

I would recommend to those who enjoy campy mysteries with mixed media elements and a variety of unlikable characters. 

S.A. Cosby knows how to write. This is my second book by him and it did not disappoint. Razorblade Tears is still my top pick from him because who doesn’t love vigilante justice?! 

This is a tale of a Black sheriff solving increasingly grisly murders in a town with a racist past (and present). I should have known this wouldn’t be a five star read for me because I don’t love cops, but this was still well done. 

This book starts out with a shocking school shooting and the aftermath that shakes the town. How well do you really know the favorite teacher? 

RTC & edits needed.

DNFing at 66%. I have bookclub in 4 days and I truly refuse to read or listen to another page or minute of this book. Anytime I tried to read this book I would fall asleep with my Kindle clicker in hand. I could only get through five pages at a time. 

I am not hooked at all. The premise is SO good, but the pacing is so abysmally slow I could cry. 

So much of this book is from a child’s perspective and if I had known that from the start, I wouldn’t have read it. That’s my failing, not the books. I really don’t enjoy reading POVs from children. 

Life is too short to read books that don’t work for you. 

Counting this towards my reading goal because I went past 51%. 

If I never read the words Rosie colored glasses again it will be too soon.

This started out really promising as the DonorConnect emails were so interesting! I did have some guesses and they ended up being right taking away from the overall excitement of the book.

I did fall asleep a few times while reading this book which is not ideal.

Maybe a readers enjoyment will correspond with how much a reader can tolerate hearing about Taylor Swift in a book. Seven was too many for me in a book not about Taylor Swift.

Also, no closure for the cat other than the Author’s note.

Both main characters are unlikable, but interesting to read about.

Changing to a three from two stars because this was fun. Actually, wait I just remembered that mess of an ending and back to two stars.

Instagram review: 

💕💻 Cross My Heart 💻💕

Average Goodreads Rating: 3.74 stars 
My rating: 2 stars and a cat who loves a laptop mouse 

Brief Premise: Rosie starts anonymously messaging the husband of the woman whose heart now beats inside her chest. Was her heart donor’s death an accident or are the rumors left by anonymous accounts on the husband’s instagram page true? 

Why did this book get a below average rating from me?

1. Every theory I had was correct, which was pretty disappointing. Other readers may have different luck guessing. 
2. Rosie-colored and Rosie-colored glasses were said way too many times. 
3. There was no closure for what happened to the cat other than the author’s note. Which while I appreciated knowing that the dog and cat both did not come to any harm I needed a bit more detail on Sickle. 
4. The ending jumped the shark a bit and the “big reveal” was too melodramatic for me with the villain explaining everything.

The Good:

Whew, the Donor-Connect Emails at the start had me HOOKED. Both Rosie and the donor’s husband were giving off unhinged vibes left and right. I would look forward to reading this at night after work. 

TLDR: The premise and cover were incredible! The execution and the ending just were not for me, making this a below average read.

This was good, but the single mother and corporate romance tropes don’t do it for me. Also, I know it shouldn’t be cringe to me but I need to avoid books with singer love interests. I somehow didn’t get the ick here which is a testament to Kristina Forest’s writing and ability to make her characters feel like your friends. 

I was really surprised by how much this book delved into religious trauma. I can’t say that that is something that I normally enjoy reading about, but it was overall handled well and dealt with care. 

Overall a good ending to the Greene Sisters trilogy!

Oh, this was depressing and I don’t think I was ready or in the right mindset to read this book. I think I still have a lot of secondary trauma from my work as a PD and this was not the right time for me to read this. 

My problem with this book is that Matthew’s ideas for how to solve unaffordable housing and the eviction crisis are so far out of reach. 

I was a public defender for misdemeanor cases in a big city. My average case load was 460 cases and I saw all of my active case clients each month. I only took one day off a week and I almost burned out and switched to teaching after not even a year. The idea of giving people government paid attorneys for eviction proceedings when Public Defenders offices across the nation don’t even have enough attorneys to have more than one misdemeanor attorney assigned to a courtroom is honestly a really tough pill for me to swallow. 

And, yes, both the criminal and the civil eviction legal systems need serious reform, but if we are going to talk about attorneys… can we please make sure that there are enough funds for the public defenders first. We are already fighting for scraps as is. 

Even if there could be government appointed attorneys for evictions, they would likely be in the same position I was. With way too many cases and clients and not enough resources to truly fight for clients without burning out and having awful work life balance. 

An easier middle ground here would be to get more social workers in place at Public Defenders offices. OR to have one or two attorneys with a non-profit organization with a room at small claims court which are not appointed, but are there as resources for any person facing eviction who would like to talk to an attorney. I have seen that as an option before and was surprised at how many people facing eviction chose not to speak to a lawyer. Those attorneys do rely on county funding or are earning probono hours though. However, with the current administration in place any hope at achieving any type of meaningful housing or criminal legal system reform is slim to none. 

Raw, gritty, and vulnerable. I loved it. 

Severe pacing issues throughout. I also wish an editor would tell Mr. Sager that this is not how woman think. 

Overall, a decent thriller once it got going. Nothing too special.

I thought there would be more slasher-like details for this book than there were.