It's so weird that I would recommend all of these but I would also like to point out the problems with them in advance. Just look at the pictures and write down the titles if you don't want to read my thoughts!
I gave this 3 stars because I honest to goodness didn't hate it and I read it in two days. I also didn't love it or even like it that much. I just wanted to see how it ended.
But this is a story that takes place in the English countryside between the 1950s and the 1960s. Honest to God: I thought the main character was like 45 for most of the book. Turns out, she was barely 30 years old. She's written in a weird way, pining for unrequited love but, turns out, it was just a few years ago. The timeline seems off to me in that way?
Anyway, there are a LOT of twists and I guessed the big ones and just kept reading to see if I was right (I was). There was one twist I didn't get that did make me double-take (highlight for spoiler: Louisa being Leo's mother) but that's likely because I skimmed so much of the "Before" chapters because I didn't care to read about teenage love. (I have thoughts on that too, but I'll keep them to myself.)
I could've used a year on the "Before" chapters simply because it kept saying "Before" and "1968". I likely wouldn't have assumed the MC was 45 years old if there'd been a year. I kept thinking we were in just post-WWII and then going forward 20+ years.
This came from Book of the Month and I have been hit or miss with her other books. Here's the thing: I started this book and I was like Have I read this before?, Did I have an ARC?, Did I just waste a BOTM credit on a book I already read? It was a new release so I knew I hadn't gotten it from a library. I was so confused and I half-heartedly kept at it before I set it on a shelf and went onto my library book pile.
But then I picked it up again and kept going. The book gets really good. I didn't mind the main character much at all. She didn't seem as toxic as the usual type in a story like this. The story definitely took a wild ride and you couldn't go a chapter without a major twist toward the end. I don't even remember all of them.
Anyway, worth a read! I liked it and gave it 4 stars.
(The book I was thinking of was The Return of Ellie Black, which I didn't like very much at all. The beginnings are almost identical.)
Another book I read pretty quickly because I just wanted to know what happened. I do like books that take place in extreme settings, to a degree. There was a lot vague and unsaid in the story and I had a hard time picturing a lot of it because it was, in a sense, world-building and I struggle with world-building books, with a few exceptions. (Just tell me what's going on, please.)
I like plot-driven, not character-arc-driven, so I wasn't really interested in how all the characters changed; I wanted to know how they all related to each other and you will definitely have to finish the book to figure all that out. Anywho. I skipped and skimmed over so much about the seed vault. Very research-heavy on the author's part, so good for her. Also, anything about a seal and I think I disassociated a little and just turned the page. I did not read her Wolves book for this same reason though.
Someone I follow posted this with just "omg the best ever" or some similar review on her blog (don't worry, it's not one of you, of course) and I was like Okay, that tells me absolutely nothing. Which is why I like doing honest reviews, without spoilers, and also without summaries. Summary-writing might be one of my least favorite things and I don't know how people do it, to be honest.
I hesitate to tell you what I'm reading now because I do-not-finish so many books. You'll have to come back in a month.
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