Happy Sunday, my fellow book worms! Are you still in PJ’s with a cup of coffee in one hand and a book in the other? I know I am. Today, I have another volume of Overrated Reads for you, so you can happily skip over them while putting together your fall reading list. Here we go (in order of disappointment):
Blonde Hair Blue Eyes by Karin Slaughter
This is the (very) short prequel to Pretty Girls. I loved Pretty Girls, I loved it so much I didn’t want it to end. So when I saw that the author wrote a short prequel, I jumped on it. Pretty Girls is the story of three sisters in Atlanta, the eldest sister, Julia, disappeared 19 years prior to when the book was set. We never got to meet Julia, it was all about the other two sisters. And that’s what Blonde Hair Blue Eyes intended to do — to introduce us to Julia. We get to meet her a few days up to her disappearance.
I didn’t like it. It probably would have been best to never have ‘met’ Julia, and leave it up to my imagination. Oh well. The book was only 115 pages, so no harm no foul.
The Widow by Fiona Barton
The story is about a woman, Jean Taylor, who’s husband was accused of abducting a little girl one afternoon in London. Several years later, Jean’s husband is dead. Now it’s finally time for Jean to start talking about what happened all those years ago.
This was a recommendation from The Skimm, so I really wanted this to be a good book. And it had tons of potential. But it fell flat on it’s face. Zero likable characters, dragged on and on, and frankly, was boring as anything.
The Nest by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney
This is another debut author, who was granted quite a hefty advance (read: north of one million) for her first novel. The hype was definitely there, and much like The Widow, had lots of potential that was never quite reached. I thought there were way too many characters, and the author barely skimmed the surface when it came to getting to know them. Needless to say, no character development at all (which is a peeve of mine).
Entire plot in two sentences: Four dysfunctional, selfish, overprivileged adult children in New York City are on the brink of receiving their 2 million dollar inheritance, until the eldest child get’s into an ‘accident’ which reduces each share to 1/10 of what they were expecting. They’re bummed out, because they were all counting on the money due to poor choices, the end.
And that wraps up the third volume of overrated books! What are you currently reading?