I know that no two people read the same book. I’m sure a novel that I love and cherish is a novel that another person can’t seem to get through, and vice versa. Here, I’m targeting books that we’re given high praise and seriously pushed into the main stream as ‘must-reads.’
Don’t get me wrong, I totally understand how subjective my Overrated Reads series is, but hey! It’s my blog and my opinion. Take these brief reviews with a grain of salt.
OVERRATED READS | VOLUME NO. 7
Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
OK, this book had serious potential to be so wonderful. The writing was great, the characters were pleasant, likeable, funny, and had depth to them. The plot was very unique. Ursula Todd is born in 1910, she dies before she can even take her first breath of life. The same night, she is born again. As she grows older, she keeps dying at various stages in her life. She is reborn again, and again, and again. Learning to make different choices in the next life to avoid the death she just experienced. It’s a very interesting concept, but the author totally dropped the ball. The book felt long, because you’re basically rereading the same thing over, and over, and over again. Ursula does almost everything the exact same, so you literally are rereading the same dialogue, same scene, with one small change so she can avoid death by the skin of her teeth. The worst part? Ursula learns nothing. She doesn’t use her gift to her advantage — not even in the midst of WWII, it’s a bit mind-boggling. Especially since she’s in Hitler’s inner circle. Very bizarre. I closed this book feeling very disappointed in the author.
Copycat by Kimberla Lawson Roby
HOW DID THIS GET PUBLISHED?! I… don’t know where to get started. The plot, as you can imagine, is very SWF-ish, which can be great if the book is filled with deeply rich characters, bold twists, suspense, and strong dialogue. This book was anything but that. In fact, what it was filled with was a ton of Jesus, bible quotes / bible lessons, preaching, and church — so much church. At one point I was like wth is going on here? It turns out that the author is best known for her ‘popular Reverend Curtis Black Series.’ So that explains it. Ugh. At least it was under 200 pages so I didn’t feel that sorry for myself for wasting my time.
My Husbands Wife by Jane Corry
You guys. This book made me so angry, and that’s mostly due to the fact that I listened to this via audible, and let me just say — the narration was atrocious. The narrator was female, and it was laughable when she attempted to voice for a man. But more annoyingly, one of the main characters happens to be a nine year old Italian girl, and the voice she uses for her sounded like a muppet — it was so distracting. But more than awful narration, the plot WAS A MESS. There were wayyyyyyy too many twists and turns (most of which were totally pointless) to make any sense. Every storyline the author broke into felt like a jumbled mess which didn’t quite connect at the end nor did it help the books suspense. Also, none of the characters were likable. It was such an irritating read. Do yourself a favor and skip this one.