Victoria > Recent Status Updates

Not sure how my book club ladies are going to feel about the jumps in POV, timeline, and all of the different names/nicknames these characters have.

The FMC strikes me as very pretentious and insecure. I find myself skimming a lot of her dialogue about her thesis and when she is arguing with the MC.

This book is trying a bit too hard to be cute with the FMC's internal dialogue. I do enjoy all the tropes being brought up.

I am very nervous my book club ladies are NOT going to like this lol. Hopefully there is enough for us to talk about!

Everyone has died. Her lover, her child, her nurse/servant. So bleak and depressing, how will this end?!

This book is both romantic and bleak. When they first got to the island it reminded me of Boxcar Children or Swiss Family Robison - setting up and playing house. I'm sad that the secretary died.

The longing for the secretary! I'm enjoying this read so far...it's compelling but also lush with detail and very atmospheric.

I'm enjoying the writing style so far. Sucks that she has to beg her guardian for little bits of money so she and her maid can survive.

I don't like how there are no page or chapter breaks (no good stopping points) but other than that it's interesting and I'm looking forward to seeing where it is going.

This is a brisk read. I really like the psychiatrist's viewpoint, although I don't think I'd like his job much...it's too hard to figure out what's going on inside people's heads!

Fliss' story of depression with a toddler was hard to read, felt very real. Also cook the tie in of the trials for the birth control pill!

I loved Nora and Xavier's relationship...wish she hadn't broken up with him!
The bits with the house having a narrator voice are fun.

Enjoying both of the MCs so far. Also has one of my favorite tropes, uncle has to take custody of his niece and is struggling to bond with/raise her!

This book made me cry again! Also stayed up way too late reading because I couldn't put it down....I was racing to the part where Joe-Nathan is able to save Charlie from his abusive father, but finally put it down because I didn't want to rush this beautiful story.

The letter that Joe's mom left for him in the event of her death.....made me tear up.
Plus I'm glad that they're British and always having tea and biscuits

This is a lotttt of build-up...they're not even close to getting together yet. And grumpy FMC / sunshine MC isn't my favorites.

Seriously what kind of crack does Ali put in this books?! Loving it so far and they've barely even touched!

Super interesting learning about how we stopped letting indigenous people use controlled burns to manage the forests. Then the Forest Service was mainly serving the timber industry. And now all those centuries of not burning is coming to haunt us.

This is an easy romance read...easy to pick up and read a couple chapters when I'm taking a work break and then set back down. The FMC is trying a littleeee too hard to be a manic pixie dream girl.

Soooo many butt plug references. But I do feel like I'm enjoying more now that I'm into the meat of the story and am starting to recognize more characters. Can't believe it took this long to realize that the chapter headers were book titles!

Strike is really such an idiot with relationships. Whyyyy is he lying to Robin!? Also this subplot about Robin being surrounded by babies and pregnant women while trying to decide if she wants kids / is going to freeze her eggs is hitting for me.

Uh-oh...lots of profanity so far. Not sure the ladies are going to like the tone of this book!

Gob-smacked by Strike spending time gaming out how he is going to subtly get Robin away from her boyfriend. Also love how Rowling vividly depicts the lower-class characters...makes them so real even though since I'm not from Britain they are foreign to me.

Obsessed with this slowwww burn. I feel like both Shiloh and Cary are real people.

Why is the FMC making this into a competition about who has the upper hand and is in charge of the situation?? Why does she feel like this is a fight?

The writing of this is pretty cringe....feels dated like 2015ish romance. So basic and everything is extremely spelled out. Yes we can tell that FMC was abused as a child and MMC reported it, it doesn't need to be alluded to in every chapter. Plus it makes no sense why she is so mad at him all these years later.

Okay, 1st time anal sex on her wedding day after she's already in the dress/hair/makeup???!! Diabolical.