Doubleday – Review: 2 Stars

Thanks so much to the author, BookSparks, and Doubleday for the complimentary finished copy of this book in exchange for my honest thoughts and participation in this blog tour. All opinions are entirely my own. { partner } All of my reviews can also be found on Instagram @Tackling_TBR and on Goodreads.

TW : teenage pregnancy, excessive drinking during pregnancy, alcoholism, domestic violence and abuse, discussion of suicidal thoughts, stalking, guns

Unpopular opinion time.

You guys, I was so excited for this book when I received it. Getting to read a story about two women in such different stages of life and of different ages building a relationship and friendship was automatically really intriguing to me – I love stories that are centered around and focusing on it’s characters, and especially showing female friendships.

But unfortunately, this book really fell short for me. As excited as I was to start it, and with how short this book is (the hardcover is only 192 pages), I was betting that I could finish it in only a day, maybe two and that it would be a perfect final read of the month. BUT. It took me about four days to finish this book simply because I was having to basically force myself to keep reading it. I would put it down when it was time to head to bed, or when it was time to have dinner, or whatever the case was, and I just found myself not wanting to pick it back up.

Let’s get into what I didn’t really enjoy from this book. Like I said above, part of why I was so excited for this read was because I was expecting more of a friendship between the two women. Now, according to the book description on the inside flap, “her world is further upended when she becomes obsessed with Jenny… .” So maybe that’s on me, instead of on the book. Maybe I ignored the use of the word “obsessed” in the book description, or maybe I misunderstood it, I’m not sure. But I didn’t feel like I was really prepared for what was coming when I got into this story. Things like our main character driving to Jenny’s house in the middle of the night and watching her through the house windows, all the way to literally breaking into her house and watching her sleep. We were only about half a step away from Joe Goldberg from You, and I just wasn’t ready for that kind of crazy when I picked this one up. And again, maybe that’s on me. But I just didn’t enjoy this read, and I think that this was at least a big part of that.

Overall, I know that my negative opinion of this book is definitely not the norm (there are a TON of very positive reviews on goodreads and on retailer sites), and just because it didn’t work for me doesn’t mean that it won’t be the perfect book for somebody else, but unfortunately I just don’t know that I can overall recommend this book to friends. Unless I knew that this was exactly the type of read they were looking for. I just found it to be a really slow read, that wasn’t really what I was expecting it to be, and I just really didn’t enjoy this particular reading experience. I think that the best reading environment for this book would be in a bright, sunshine-y room with an entire box of pizza for yourself.