Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reid

like everyone else, i am obsessed with the hbo show. i love it, i can’t get enough of it. so naturally, i bought the book (and the sequel). i was happy to see that the show actually followed the book pretty well, and the changes that were made, were nothing that affected the plot.

rating: 5/5 stars

The Long Game by Rachel Reid

dear god this one made me cry. it was just as good as the first book for shane and ilya. it really went deeper into ilya’s backstory and mindset and i just loved every single page. (also, rachel just announced a third book for shane and ilya, unrivaled, that is coming out in september and i will of course be buying it.) (also pt. 2, i have not purchased the other books in the series and i am not sure that i am going to, but we shall see.)

rating: 5/5 stars

I’m Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid

i mean yeah, it was fine. there was that sense of anxiety throughout the book, but i just felt like i was waiting for something that never happened. the ending made me very confused and i had to re-read it probably three times because the name/pronoun usage switched over and i thought i had missed something but no… i did not. it did exactly what i thought it did.

rating: 3/5 stars

Do Not Disturb by Freida McFadden

it’s a freida book… of course i’m gonna like it. we know this by now. it wasn’t my favorite of hers, but i did still really like it. the twist didn’t shock me as much as her twists usually do, because to me it made sense, but it was still a twist. without giving too much away, i feel like the backstory behind the twist was more shocking than the twist itself.

rating: 4/5 stars

One By One by Freida McFadden

wow is anyone shocked? another freida book? me? yes. i liked this one a lot, again, not my favorite, but still really enjoyed it. i knew something fishy was up from the time the new boyfriend was introduced. this book did a good job at making sure that you were suspicious of everyone.

rating: 4/5 stars

Brain Damage by Freida McFadden

yeah i know, i need to read more authors. and i will… eventually. i’m pretty sure this is one of her first books. it wasn’t bad by any means, but her newer works are much better. i liked the story line, but it was actually kind of predictable based on how a certain character acts throughout the book.

rating: 2/5 stars

We Used To Live Here by Marcus Kliewer

okay, so here’s the deal: i LOVED this book. when i say i want to read a suspense novel, this is exactly what i’m talking about. the sense of dread and unnerving-ness of the whole book… superb. however, yes however, the ending pissed me off so bad. still loved it, but c’mon marcus, seriously? you better be writing a sequel as we speak.

rating: 5/5 stars

The Orphanage By The Lake by Daniel G. Miller

daniel you done pissed me off at the end let me tell you. when i say that someone needs to investigate this man and his belongings… anyways. the story just felt kind of slow up until like, the last quarter of the book. there is a quote at the end by one of the bad guys, and all i’m gonna say is that if you’re a victim of childhood SA (like yours truly), read with discretion. i’m contemplating getting the sequel though because i wanna see what happens to the main character.

rating: 2/5 stars

You Shouldn’t Have Come Here by Jeneva Rose

i love women. fictional and real, love them. this book was no exception. my only problem with it is that i wanted more backstory at the end of the book. but i heavily enjoyed this story and i was rooting for grace the whole time, and that didn’t change.

rating: 4/5 stars

These Silent Woods by Kimi Cunningham Grant

okay so like, i didn’t HATE this book, despite my ranking. it just wasn’t something that i would’ve bought if i had known it wasn’t super suspense/thriller-like. it wasn’t a bad story, but it was a slow story. it took a long time to get to what the main character did, and after a lot of building to what you think is gonna be some horrible crime, it was like “really?”

rating: 1/5 stars

Want To Know A Secret? by Freida McFadden

here’s the secret: this book was fantastic. for all of part 1 my heart was racing (well it does that anyway, but you know what i mean). the anxiety i felt in the first part was incredible. the second part was also just as good and anxiety-inducing. was there a huge twist? no. did something happen that i wasn’t expecting to happen? yes.

rating: 5/5 stars

The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides

i don’t understand the people who said that this book felt slow and boring, because i finished it rather quickly. it may be because i’m studying to become a therapist, and this book mainly takes place in a psych ward and the narrator is a psychotherapist, but i loved it. i didn’t realize the twist until about a paragraph before the twist was revealed. it was fantastic.

rating: 5/5 stars

The Butterfly Garden by Dot Hutchison

well, that was a trip. this book was so incredibly fucked up. i think this might’ve been one of the most psychologically destroying books i have ever read. it also just made me sad. there weren’t any specific events that were jaw-drop twisting or nausea inducing, but it definitely had me sitting the book down for a second here and there.

rating: 4/5 stars

The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix

it was fine. the story was kind of all over the place. it wasn’t super scary, but it did have some good suspense moments. if you’re used to reading suspense novels with lots of twists and turns, you’d probably be able to guess at least one of the twists in the book. i did. i will say, some of the humor that was used was actually pretty funny (especially if you have a sarcastic sense of humor).

rating: 3/5 stars

Nine Lives by Peter Swanson

i really like the way that this book is set up. at first, it was slightly overwhelming with all of the different characters, but the farther into i got, the more it made sense. the story was very interesting as well. the ending, while shockingly sad, wasn’t that much of a twist for me. was it a shock? yes. but was my jaw on the floor? no. still, would recommend.

rating: 4/5 stars

Girl Last Seen by Nina Laurin

yes. first off, i just wanna say: I CALLED IT. at the beginning of the book, i called it. anyways, really good story. you can never quite completely trust the narrator, but that just made the book better in my humble opinion. it was also kind of a sad story, which you’ll see how if you read it. i also wanna point out, just in case there are any CSA survivors that wanna read this book: just like orphanage, there is a quote near the end that i very much did not love, just a warning.

rating: 5/5 stars

Hostage by Clare Mackintosh

absolutely 100% yes. i LOVED this book. i’m gonna be honest here for a second- was the texture of the cover one of the reasons that i loved this book? yeah, it was. deal with it. it was incredibly smooth. but the story!!!! many twists and turns and “wait a second” moments. i’ve looked into some of her other books and i definitely want to get some. p.s. the epilogue? stunning.

rating: 5/5 stars

If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio

oh my GOD YES. the way that this book was set up… fabulous. instead of being divided into parts/chapters, it was sectioned out by acts/scenes. i feel like if you like the theatre or poetry, something along those lines, you’d really like this book. there was a feeling of impending doom for most of it, you just didn’t know what was gonna happen or when. i need her to write more books, or at least a sequel to this one.

rating: 5/5 stars

One Of Us Is Lying by Karen M. McManus

it took me a second to get into this book, but once i did, i actually really enjoyed it. the story was interesting, but the ending kind of pissed me off. the twist was good but it wasn’t shocking. idk, i liked it but it wasn’t my favorite.

rating: 4/5 stars

The Unworthy by Agustina Bazterrica

yeah so what the fuck did i just read? this entire book felt like a fever dream. i read it all in a couple of hours (it’s technically a novel, around 200 pages, but it felt like a novella), and i genuinely believe that even if i read it over the span of multiple days, i’d still feel like it was a fever dream. very odd, but still good.

rating: 4/5 stars

Holly by Stephen King

so i have never read and finished a stephen king book before (i have another one of his books—actually the first one in the holly gibney timeline? world? something—that i started reading years ago but never finished) and i thoroughly enjoyed this book. i love the way that it was set up. i explained to my partner that how in ncis (the show), you don’t find out who the perpetrator is until the end, and in criminal minds you go back and forth between the investigation and the perpetrator… this book is like a criminal minds episode. you knew what was going on the entire time, but there was still a lot of suspense and “what the hell is going to happen” in the book. i also just fell in love with the characters. i’m very excited to now read the first book (that i already have) and then get the other ones for this series. i will definitely be reading more stephen king books in the future.

rating: 5/5 stars