Seabrooke > Recent Status Updates

Picked this up from the library cuz she’s been compared to Susanna Kearsley. I’m not far yet, but the story has promise. But the writing, oof. Run-on sentences and excessively long paragraphs, dialogue with lines where it’s unclear who’s speaking, lots of short and shallow scenes that make me feel a bit like I’m scrolling Instagram reels. She’s a bestselling author? I’m expecting an amazing plot. 😆

Decided to take a chance on this despite the GR rating cuz I liked the concept and am really enjoying the MC’s personality.

Ugghhh. The moment the ex walked into the room where the love interest was waiting for the protag, I knew what was coming with a visceral angry dread. I hate miscommunication tropes so much, but especially the ones where one character gets angry and refuses to ask questions or listen before sending the other away. There are better ways to create conflict, authors.
Also, I really dislike this male narrator. :p

I picked up this book cuz I adore the author’s Hamster Princess series and was hoping for the same humour in an adult book. So far I’ve been surprised at how serous the tone is, but reviews assure me the humour is coming.

The whole first section of the book is the protagonist as a 12 year old, and the indoctrination of this innocent, influenceable child into the Nazi way of thinking was hard to read. Particularly since there are shades of it still in the world today.

So I think I’ve figured out all the characters’s relationships to each other, but I’d be looking forward to them all discovering it themselves if Cameron wasn’t such an entitled loser. Sure hope he develops some self-awareness and turns his personality around as part of his character arc. :p

The first couple chapters of this were appended to the end of the audiobook of The Secret Messenger, and since none of my audiobook holds had come in yet and this happened to be available, I decided to carry on with it. Gonna have to get back to light and fluffy reads after this, though! 😆

Sad to say that despite enjoying her other two, I’m just not feeling this one. Not that interested in either main character. And the audiobook’s female narrator does a thing that annoys me in narrators where they regularly drop the period between two sentences and run them together, and not even just during action sequences or something.

Past the Act 2 cut. Finally feeling like the plot is picking up steam and things are actually happening, like this is where Leigh’s heart really got into the story.

Have read 110 pages linearly, plus the next three Nina chapters. I wish I’d read one of her earlier books recently, to remind myself of her writing style, but I’m finding Nikolai’s chapters quite dry and dryly written, sorta withholding the reader from immersion in the story, particularly compared to Nina’s, which feel more immediate to me. Like, the battle scene felt like a historian’s relating.

Is this still being shelved under YA? This is definitively Adult, to me. Slow, politicky plotting so far, not the best to hold the attention of my pandemic brain. Wish GR had a spot indicating where a book would be shelved in a bookstore/library.

CONTENT WARNING. Ollie’s aunt is dying of cancer and has two very young kids. Wish that had been mentioned somewhere. I’m finding it emotionally hard.

I am annoyed by this author-manufactured conflict. 😒

Okay, so I’m only 35% in and it may be premature to make a judgement call here. But I’m a bit disappointed with the book so far. The characters have no real outside life or strong independent goals, at least that we spend time with on page, & there’s a 38 page dinner conversation that could totally have been done in ten. At this point, I’m feeling ELIZA AND HER MONSTERS and GEEKERELLA did this concept better.

How can I be over 200 pages in already; virtually nothing of importance has happened. There’s no clear goal/stakes to the plot. And I don’t much like Genevieve. Since it’s a nearly 500 page novel and I’m not even halfway yet, I’m seriously considering DNFing, which pains me greatly as I loved the original trilogy.

Memoirs, memoirs, and still little in the way of helpful information.

So far the book is not what the back blurb billed it to be. More memoirs about breaking in or the writing life, some quite jaded and/or grouchy, than actual useful info about making a living as a writer. Just two essays worth reading so far - Cheryl Strayed being the most illuminating.