Melody > Recent Status Updates

DNF @ 40%. Wildly disappointing.

WHY would you write a novel and work so hard to make the male love interest a jerk?? He's constantly referring to the women in the story as 'having a nice rack' or some other lecherous comment. Wtf.

The flashbacks with the age difference are weird AF. Joe as a teenager getting it on with a topless girl and a much younger Anne watching them?? Wtf.

Halfway through and I'm waiting to see why this book has a 4+ rating on Goodreads. Very confused. It's just.... meh? Nothing exciting. Very linear. Predictable with a lot of "oh he can't like little old me", which is a trope I find tiresome.

Can't do it. Tiresome.

Here are three books I've read in the last couple years alone that seem to have the same plot: Jennifer Weiner, Who Do You Love; Sophie Cousens, Is She Really Going Out With Him; and Annabel Monaghan, Summer Romance.

Dead mom, husband leaves, two kids, woman is a hot mess. Maybe this is a case of art imitates life, or life imitates art, but come on. New plot please.

The start of the book is so so cliche that I don't know if I will make it through. Man leave wife and kids to have baby with younger model. Very 'life is gritty and men are what they are but we soldier on.' I don't know. Tiresome themes.

I have tried SO HARD to see the appeal of this author. I've started every book she's written and this is the farthest I've made it through any of them. I think the problem is they're not believable? Maybe? And I mean in the details. Conceptually this is pretty good, and I feel the feels, but it also feels like eating candy when I want a burrito. It's like, of course it's good, it's chocolate, but it's not substantive

This has a lot going for it but I find myself rolling my eyes and becoming impatient quite a bit. It's maybe the fluffiest fluff that ever fluffed. Good tension but not much substance.

I can't figure out what this book is supposed to be.

This is a grind. I'm not invested in this AT ALL. What is happening???

I'm still waiting for this to get good and starting to worry that it might not. A quarter of the way through the book and I'm not feeling any tension but supposedly it's there? I mean.... based on characters' actions? I don't know.

This plot is so unbelievable that I'm angry. These are the same two characters from the first book, but now they're stupid and reckless instead of smart and savvy. Not a good change.

I loved the first book in this series, but so far, there are some glaring plot holes in this.

Okay, 50% in and I'm finally, finally invested. But that took too long.

I cannot explain how much I don't care about this duck, and it's super weird that everyone in Lori's life keeps asking her about the duck. In a house full of collector's items, stuffed to the brim, it doesn't make sense that everyone cares about this duck. It is harder to suspend my disbelief over the innocuity/importance of this duck than it was for all of Fourth Wing.

Okay, I'm re-reading this after reading Back After This this week, because I thought surely, one can't be so good while the other is so bad! But... I don't know, y'all, a wooden duck?? 🦆 Why does this story revolve around a wooden duck? The line that sets off the plot: "Why would a 93 year old woman have a wooden duck hidden in a chest?" Um.... is saying it that way supposed to make it feel mysterious?

This is excruciating. I *hate* the fake dating/misunderstanding/love triangle bullshit tropes. It's SO PAINFUL to watch a train wreck in progress and not be able to do anything about it, and even more painful to watch an extremely preventable train wreck slowly continue on its track.

20% through I'm astonished I hadn't heard of this book until yesterday. So far, it's very good. Verrrry good. We'll see if it stays that way.

I’m three pages in and the author seems to use an mdash in every sentence. Not sure I can get through it. It’s extremely obnoxious.

I’ve never in my life met a person who actually calls their sister ‘Sissy.’ That’s a big hurdle to get over in the suspension of disbelief area.