Summer > Recent Status Updates

I'm listening to the audiobook and the bad Texan accent on every character is making my ears bleed. The over-explaining of every clue and solution? Killing me. It's like the author assumes her readers are too dull to understand her oh so clever (but actually super basic) clues and riddles. Avery is supposed to be super bright but she is just super vapid. And WHY is nobody asking the lawyers who WROTE THE WILL

Labeling or captions on the photos would go a long way to making this a more useful resource.

I'm so sick of pictures where she isn't looking at the camera. We get it, your ethereal. But I'm tired of your profile/back of head. It's weird.

It is absolutely chilling to read the perspective of an SS officer. It's a WW2 perspective we rarely read about and yet it's critical to understand if we truly want to avoid repeating the past.

This is frustrating because there are incomplete sentences, sentences and paragraphs that don't make sense, and a general lack of coherence in the story. It's obviously deep and told from the heart, so where was the editor?!

So far I'm annoyed at Annie's character inconsistencies. She has crippling social anxiety with all men except, magically, the ultra-sexy body guard she's crushing on? Ya, okay.

I'm feeling frustrated with the author's skewed views on certain topics. For example, attendance. She criticizes parents for sending sick kids to school, exposing teachers and classmates to illness, but doesn't discuss the other side of the coin - schools and districts that incentivize perfect attendance or require doctors notes for any missed school.

I'm finding this book painful to read, but in a good way? Baker just so perfectly captures the catch-22 of modern motherhood. Societal expectations, mental load, and being attacked from every angle (even by other women!). I have to stop every few pages and take a breather because it hits so close to home.

62 pages for one chapter seems a bit excessive

Fifty four pages and n o t h i n g has happened. A full six chapters of cloak-and-dagger set up that is just so boring.

I love 99% of this book, but I just got to the part where she can't get organic milk on WIC. Sorry, you can't have organic milk for your child? Cry me a river honey. 🙄 Organic food is out of reach for most middle class Americans.

I'm half-way through and giving up. The adult story is incoherent and difficult to follow. The flashbacks are just terrible (it is, after all, book about systematic abuse). Without a modern-day redemption story to tie the book together, I just can't see the point of struggling through. A co-author with more experience could have helped deliver the story more effectively.

I am so frustrated by this book so far. Turner is a bare bones writer, meaning the action happens often with very little description. Some scenes are hard to follow. I find the main character to be highly inconsistent - sometimes talking like a woman, others acting far below her age. In addition, the passage of time is not tracked carefully (WHY are this still calling baby James a baby? He'd be 4!)