May 2021 – Jenjenreviews

Weekend Book Haul (May 30, 2021)

May 31, 2021May 31, 2021Jenny (jenjenreviews)4 Comments

We went book shopping again yesterday! We visited two book stores (one independent and one used) and bought a total of 4 books (3 from the indie and 1 from the used).

Our Haul

Here are the books that Rob and I happily left with along with their Goodreads synopses.

WARNING: DO NOT READ THE SYNOPSIS FOR GOOD GIRL, BAD BLOOD IF YOU DON’T WANT SPOILERS FOR A GOOD GIRL’S GUIDE TO MURDER.

Oona Out of Order by Margarita Montimore

A remarkably inventive novel that explores what it means to live a life fully in the moment, even if those moments are out of order.

It’s New Year’s Eve 1982, and Oona Lockhart has her whole life before her. At the stroke of midnight she will turn nineteen, and the year ahead promises to be one of consequence. Should she go to London to study economics, or remain at home in Brooklyn to pursue her passion for music and be with her boyfriend? As the countdown to the New Year begins, Oona faints and awakens thirty-two years in the future in her fifty-one-year-old body. Greeted by a friendly stranger in a beautiful house she’s told is her own, Oona learns that with each passing year she will leap to another age at random. And so begins Oona Out of Order…

Hopping through decades, pop culture fads, and much-needed stock tips, Oona is still a young woman on the inside but ever changing on the outside. Who will she be next year? Philanthropist? Club Kid? World traveler? Wife to a man she’s never met? Surprising, magical, and heart-wrenching, Margarita Montimore has crafted an unforgettable story about the burdens of time, the endurance of love, and the power of family.

The A.B.C. Murders by Agatha Christie

When Alice Asher is murdered in Andover, Hercule Poirot is already looking into the clues. Alphabetically speaking, it’s one letter down, twenty-five to go.

There’s a serial killer on the loose. His macabre calling card is to leave the ABC Railway Guide beside each victim’s body. But if A is for Alice Asher, bludgeoned to death in Andover, and B is for Betty Bernard, strangled with her belt on the beach at Bexhill, who will then be Victim C? Considered to be one of Agatha Christie’s best.

The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo

Immigrant. Socialite. Magician.

Jordan Baker grows up in the most rarefied circles of 1920s American society—she has money, education, a killer golf handicap, and invitations to some of the most exclusive parties of the Jazz Age. She’s also queer, Asian, adopted, and treated as an exotic attraction by her peers, while the most important doors remain closed to her.

But the world is full of wonders: infernal pacts and dazzling illusions, lost ghosts and elemental mysteries. In all paper is fire, and Jordan can burn the cut paper heart out of a man. She just has to learn how.

Nghi Vo’s debut novel The Chosen and the Beautiful reinvents this classic of the American canon as a coming-of-age story full of magic, mystery, and glittering excess, and introduces a major new literary voice.

Good Girl, Bad Blood by Holly Bourne

The highly anticipated sequel to the instant New York Times bestseller, A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder! More dark secrets are exposed in this addictive, true-crime fueled mystery.

Pip is not a detective anymore.

With the help of Ravi Singh, she released a true-crime podcast about the murder case they solved together last year. The podcast has gone viral, yet Pip insists her investigating days are behind her.

But she will have to break that promise when someone she knows goes missing. Jamie Reynolds has disappeared, on the very same night the town hosted a memorial for the sixth-year anniversary of the deaths of Andie Bell and Sal Singh.

The police won’t do anything about it. And if they won’t look for Jamie then Pip will, uncovering more of her town’s dark secrets along the way… and this time everyone is listening. But will she find him before it’s too late?

Instagram photo to be posted to @jenjenreviews in the near future!

First Lines Fridays – May 28, 2021

May 28, 2021May 28, 2021Jenny (jenjenreviews)2 Comments

Welcome back to my blog! It’s that time of the week again where I bring you another First Lines Fridays post! To read my FLF from last week, click here.

First Lines Fridays is a weekly feature for book lovers hosted by Wandering Words. What if instead of judging a book by its cover, its author or its prestige, we judged it by its opening lines?

Pick a book off your shelf (it could be your current read or on your TBR) and open to the first page
Copy the first few lines, but don’t give anything else about the book away just yet – you need to hook the reader first
Finally… reveal the book!

Today’s First Lines

Fingers of mist curled around Bastien’s father as he walked away from his only child. The boy lifted up on his knees in their stalled handcart. “Where are you going, Papa?”
His father didn’t answer. The light of the full moon shone on Lucien’s chestnut hair, and the mist swallowed him from sight.
Alone, Bastien sank back down and tried to be quiet. Stories of cutthroat robbers on forest roads ran rampant through his ten-year-old mind. Don’t be afraid, he told himself. Papa would have warned me if there was any danger. But his father was gone now, and Bastien began to doubt.
Outside the city walls, the idle cart offered little shelter. Bastien’s skin crawled at phantom whispers. His breath caught when the branches around him formed claws.

Can you guess what book it is? It’s an OwlCrate book but I don’t remember how long I’ve had it. It’s been on my TBR since I don’t often read fantasy but hopefully I can get to it this year! Scroll down for the reveal!

Bone Crier’s Moon by Kathryn Purdie

Bone Criers have a sacred duty. They alone can keep the dead from preying on the living. But their power to ferry the spirits of the dead into goddess Elara’s Night Heavens or Tyrus’s Underworld comes from sacrifice. The gods demand a promise of dedication. And that promise comes at the cost of the Bone Criers’ one true love.

Ailesse has been prepared since birth to become the matriarch of the Bone Criers, a mysterious famille of women who use strengths drawn from animal bones to ferry dead souls. But first she must complete her rite of passage and kill the boy she’s also destined to love.

Bastien’s father was slain by a Bone Crier and he’s been seeking revenge ever since. Yet when he finally captures one, his vengeance will have to wait. Ailesse’s ritual has begun and now their fates are entwined—in life and in death.

Sabine has never had the stomach for the Bone Criers’ work. But when her best friend Ailesse is taken captive, Sabine will do whatever it takes to save her, even if it means defying their traditions—and their matriarch—to break the bond between Ailesse and Bastien. Before they all die.

If you’re interested in Bone Crier’s Moon, you can purchase it on Amazon (affiliate link)!

Disclaimer: Most posts made on this blog will include affiliate links, identified by the phrase (affiliate link). As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. This comes at no additional cost to you.

The Piano Playlist Tag

May 27, 2021May 27, 2021Jenny (jenjenreviews)4 Comments

Hi all!

I was supposed to do a post earlier today, but I took a nap instead 😂. Sorry for the late post today! Let’s all just pretend that I’m back in Hawaii and that this is a reasonable time for me to post something.

I was tagged by Ashlee back in February and I’m finally getting to this. Thank you for the tag, Ashlee!.This tag was originally created by Moi at Bookish Blunders!

Rules:

Post the rules in your post.
Answer all the questions and if you’ve never heard any of the songs, listen to them before you answer the questions.
Link the creator and the person who nominated you (Moi @Bookish Blunders).
Nominate 8 people. Only 8. (Why? There’s no Symphony no. 9, so)
Use the featured image I’ve posted on this tag. (It’s drawn by Moi, and she’d like some recognition)

Beethoven – Moonlight Sonata: A book you read that had an unexpected plot twist near the end

Anxious People by Fredrik Backman was a book that was constantly throwing unexpected twists my way. I couldn’t take anything for granted and even when I thought I was catching on to some of the tricks, I managed to be surprised by almost every single one.

Lizst – La Campanella: A book that you couldn’t even finish

I DNFed Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (I’M SO SORRY). I found the book to be extremely boring and every time I thought about reading it, I dreaded it. Rob eventually convinced me that it would probably be better for my mental health to just DNF it.

Rimsky-Korsakov – Flight of the Bumblebee: A book that was crazy and chaotic that you couldn’t even figure out what was happening

House of Leaves is a book that is absolutely bonkers from start to finish. It kind of has a story within a story within a story. The book is full of footnotes and pages that will require you to flip the book around to read them. My experience reading it was both fun and horrible. In the end I rated it 5 stars, but I’d never read it again.

Mozart – Rondo Alla Turca: A book that is so over-recommended that everyone and their grandma has read it (it’s still good, though)

Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston feels like a book everyone has read (for good reason!). It’s one of my favorite books of all time so I’m one of the people who is probably over-recommending it tbh.

Beethoven – Für Elise: A book that has been one of your favourites for ages

The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson is a book that I have adored since I first read it in college in 2013. I keep wanting everyone to read it, but just be warned that it’s a series that was never completed. No one knows what the heck is going on with the next book.

Chopin – Fantaisie-Impromptu: A book that is high up on your to be read list

Rob has wanted me to read Robopocalypse by Daniel H. Wilson for a while and I keep putting it off, so I should really read that soon. It was on my May TBR post, but I still haven’t opened it lol.

Beethoven – Sonata No. 17 “Tempest” 3rd Movement: A book that you love but isn’t that well-known

The Things She’s Seen by Ambelin and Ezekiel Kwaymullina is an amazing book that not many people know about. Rob and I randomly decided to buy it from B&N, and we both rated it 5 stars. The story and the writing is beautiful and haunting. I can’t recommend this book enough.

Mozart – Eine Kleine Nachtmusik: A book that is extremely long, but you still like it

The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon might be the longest book I’ve read of my own accord (rather than being assigned it in school). It’s a very good book, but it’s over 800 pages so I was terrified when I first picked it up. I read it in chunks of 50-150 pages at a time.

Debussy – Clair De Lune: A book that was wonderful from start to finish

I was a huge fan of The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes. I read it for a blog tour so you can read my full review here, but the book was so fantastically written that I was thoroughly impressed with the author. I’m curious to try some of her other books, so if you’ve read any of them, recommend me some below!

I tag

I basically always fail at tagging specific amounts of people because I can’t deal with that sort of pressure, but I’ll tag the following:

WWW Wednesday – May 26, 2021

May 26, 2021May 26, 2021Jenny (jenjenreviews)1 Comment

Hey everyone! I’m back again this week for another WWW Wednesday. I skipped last week because I didn’t have anything to update, but I finished a few books since then! If you missed my last update, click here.

WWW Wednesday is a weekly meme created by Taking on a World of Words, where you answer the following three questions:

What are you currently reading?
What have you recently finished?
What are you reading next?

Currently Reading

Seeking Whom He May Devour by Fred Vargas

I featured this two weeks and still haven’t made any progress on it since then. I was buddy reading this with my partner, Rob, and he finished it weeks ago OOPS.

Hopefully I can get to it now that I’ve finished some of the other books I was reading.

City of Ghosts by Victoria Schwab

I’m reading this for Middle Grade Marvels and missed the last two updates because I literally kept forgetting to read it.

I read the first 1/4 of the book and really enjoyed it so I have high hopes!

Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo

Rob and I are listening to this together so we haven’t made much progress since both of us have to be in the mood to listen to it. We haven’t listened to any of it in over a week so again you can expect this to remain on my WWW Wednesdays for a while.

Recently Finished

In the past week I’ve finished:

The Five by Hallie Rubenhold

I read this with my TWR crew as part of the Hannah Didn’t Mean to Start a Book Club book club.

I think Hallie Rubehold did a really nice thing here trying to give the lives back to the women whom Jack the Ripper killed. We often forget about them and focus instead of the murderer rather than the people whose lives he ended.

Unfortunately, since society is terrible, a lot of this book had to result to being hypothetical since we don’t actually know much about these women. It got a bit frustrating seeing how much of this non-fiction book was guesswork (which again is not the fault of the author).

Anxious People by Fredrik Backman

I listened to this on audiobook and it was fabulous. I highly recommend listening to it rather than reading it because the narrator really brought these ridiculous characters to life.

The story is told non-chronologically through a bunch of intertwining narratives that connect at several places in time. It was an absolutely wild ride.

A Cuban Girl’s Guide to Tea and Tomorrow by Hallie Rubenhold

This cover is super freaking cute, so I was very excited to read this book. I received a physical copy from Unplugged Book Box, but I ended up listening to the audiobook on Scribd instead so I could do work at the same time.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t a fan of the main character and I was disappointed that she didn’t go through the growth that I wanted to see in her.

Reading Next

There are a few books left on my May TBR, and I’m definitely not going to get to all of them in time, but I’ll list them here anyways.

Do you see any books you’ve read or want to read? Let me know in the comments!

^{_{Disclaimer: Most posts made on this blog will include affiliate links, identified by the phrase (affiliate link). As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. This comes at no additional cost to you.}}

ARC Review: Dismal Dreams by Red Lagoe

May 25, 2021May 25, 2021Jenny (jenjenreviews)1 Comment

An anthology that is sure to make your blood curdle.

Book CWs: For a list of content/trigger warnings, tropes, and representation found in this book, check out its page on BookTriggerWarnings.com!

Premise (from Goodreads)

Red Lagoe, author of Lucid Screams, brings us her follow up collection of horror shorts, Dismal Dreams, with a foreword by Bram Stoker Award-winning author of The Devil’s Dreamland, Sara Tantlinger.

Every day is steeped in horror. An inexplicable force deep in the forest. A serpent lurking in the shadows. Or the sinister thoughts forged in the deepest abyss of a tortured mind.

Lagoe offers a gamut of horrific experiences artfully woven into thirteen stories. Explore the darkness within a selfish heart, face death among ghosts, and roar into the snarling maw of a beast. Horror can be empowering if we can survive our most dismal dreams.

Purchase this book (affiliate link): Amazon

Review (No Spoilers)

Thank you so much to the author for providing me with a free physical ARC in exchange for an honest review! The personalization in the book and the beautiful card really made my day!

Dismal Dreams is a horror anthology consisting of 13 (ehehe) short stories. I’ve never read a horror anthology before (aside from Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark when I was a kid and that book terrified the heck out of me) so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. I mostly expected there to be a lot of creepy ghosts and haunted houses, but the book actually puts much more emphasis on the horrors that real life humans are capable of, which was a nice twist.

Throughout the book we experience basically every human-designed horror that you could think of: murder, kidnapping, greed, jealousy, rape, the whole lot. While there were a few stories with supernatural elements, the initial conflict was basically always human-caused. And though I was expecting some super scary ghost stories and was a bit disappointed (though honestly relieved because I’m a big baby), I think Red Lagoe’s Dismal Dreams will pack a much more powerful punch than any ghost story ever could. It’s very easy for people to dismiss stories with ghosts/zombies/vampires/etc. as pure fiction and totally preposterous, but when we’re confronted with the dark aspects of our very own human nature, there’s no real escape from that. I think that will make all the difference.

Dismal Dreams comes out on June 25, 2021! If you’d like to pre-order it, you can do so from your favorite bookstore or from Amazon by clicking here (affiliate link).

I rated this book an overall 4 stars, but if you’d like to see my rating by short story, you can continue below.

Rating by Story

Dismal Dreams (2.5)
The Creation of Man (3)
Shutter Stop (4.5)
Flicker (3.75)
A Cold Day in Hell (4)
Valentine’s Day (4)
Prospect Nowhere (4)
One Year Anniversary (3)
To the Ground (4.5)
Never Have I Ever (3)
Doll House (3.5)
The Terminator Line (4)
Burden’s Beast (3.5)

The Anonymous Bookaholics Tag

May 24, 2021May 24, 2021Jenny (jenjenreviews)5 Comments

Hi everyone!

I’m trying to be better about posting every weekday but I’m not doing so well at it. Today I’m bringing you a tag that the wonderful Ellie tagged me in back in December. Hopefully all of these tags that I’ve been putting off more months can help me plan my blogging schedule a bit better!

We haven’t been able to figure out who started this tag, so if you know, reply down in the comments!

1) What do you like about buying new books?

I enjoy the thrill that comes with adding a new book to my TBR and the uncertainty of whether or not he book is going to be my next favorite. Sometimes it seems like buying books is a lot more fun than reading them hahaha.

2) How often do you buy new books?

I actually don’t buy books that often because I’m subscribed to several book boxes so I don’t need to go to stores to get new releases every month. Rob and I will sometimes walk to a few used bookstores nearby us, but we’ve been going less than we used to.

3) Bookstore or online book shopping: which do you prefer?

Bookstores are much more fun (and dangerous IMO) than online bookshopping. The experience of walking in and picking up random books based on their covers or authors or titles is just so amazing. I particularly love going on for walks to discover new bookstores around me.

4) Do you have a favourite bookshop?

I don’t have a favorite, but the one that I most often go to here in Chicago is probably Bookman’s Corner. Rob and I also will walk to Amazon Books a few times as well but we buy from Bookman’s Corner more than from Amazon Books.

5) Do you pre-order books?

I’m really bad at keeping up with upcoming releases, so I don’t really preorder books. Rob is much better at figuring out that a book is coming out and preordering it for us. We do have two books we preordered from book boxes this year though. The first (which we just got last week) was Mister Impossible by Maggie Stiefvater. The second is One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston.

6) Do you have a monthly buying limit?

Nope! I don’t tend to overbuy books so I’ve never felt the need to set a buying limit for myself.

7) How big is your wishlist?

I honestly always forget that I have one. I don’t think it’s too big though. Let me check….

There are 15 books on it right now, which I think is pretty good!

8) Which three books from your wishlist do you wish to own right now?

Probably The Switch by Beth O’Leary, The Bromance Book Club by Lyssa Kay Adams, and The Boy in the Smoke by Maureen Johnson.

I loved Flatshare by Beth O’Leary, so I’m excited to read another book by her. The Bromance Book Club is a book/series I’ve been seeing all over social media and I’m getting serious FOMO from it. Lastly, The Boy in the Smoke is a prequel to the Shades of London series, which is one of my favorite series of all time.

Tagging

I think most of the other people that I tag in these things have been tagged already, so f you’d like to do this tag, consider yourself tagged by me!

First Lines Fridays – May 21, 2021

May 21, 2021May 21, 2021Jenny (jenjenreviews)5 Comments

Welcome back to my blog! It’s that time of the week again where I bring you another First Lines Fridays post! To read my FLF from last week, click here.

First Lines Fridays is a weekly feature for book lovers hosted by Wandering Words. What if instead of judging a book by its cover, its author or its prestige, we judged it by its opening lines?

Pick a book off your shelf (it could be your current read or on your TBR) and open to the first page
Copy the first few lines, but don’t give anything else about the book away just yet – you need to hook the reader first
Finally… reveal the book!

Today’s First Lines

Daisy Patel had no issues with besotted lovers hiding away in a toilet cubicle for a little covert tongue gymnastics. For the most part, technology conferences were stressful and boring, and if someone could find a little lip loving between networking, speakers, and seminars, she didn’t begrudge them their happiness.
In this case, however, the gold medal winner of the twist ‘n’ tangle in the women’s restroom at the Oakland Convention Center happened to be her ex-boyfriend, Orson Fisk.
And the woman in his arms was her former boss, Madison Montgomery, CEO of Activize LLC.

Can you guess what book it is? Like last week, it’s another Book of the Month novel that I got in the mail in the past. Scroll down for the reveal!

The Dating Plan by Sara Desai

Daisy Patel is a software engineer who understands lists and logic better than bosses and boyfriends. With her life all planned out, and no interest in love, the one thing she can’t give her family is the marriage they expect. Left with few options, she asks her childhood crush to be her decoy fiance.

Liam Murphy is a venture capitalist with something to prove. When he learns that his inheritance is contingent on being married, he realizes his best friend’s little sister has the perfect solution to his problem. A marriage of convenience will get Daisy’s matchmaking relatives off her back and fulfill the terms of his late grandfather’s will. If only he hadn’t broken her tender teenage heart nine years ago…

Sparks fly when Daisy and Liam go on a series of dates to legitimize their fake relationship. Too late, they realize that very little is convenient about their arrangement. History and chemistry aren’t about to follow the rules of this engagement.

If you’re interested in The Dating Plan, you can purchase it on Amazon (affiliate link)!

Bookman’s Corner Book Haul (May 16, 2021)

May 18, 2021May 18, 2021Jenny (jenjenreviews)2 Comments

Hey everyone! I woke up this morning to massive stomach pains so this post is going out later in the day than usual, but I’m proud that I managed to get one up today!

Over the weekend, my partner and I went to one of our favorite used bookstores in Chicago, Bookman’s Corner, and walked out with 5 books for $15! This might be our biggest haul from there to date, but I can’t remember if we bought 5 books at a time once before too.

About Bookman’s Corner

If you’re unfamiliar with Bookman’s Corner, it’s a small book shop that is a hot mess but the books are super freaking cheap. While the stacks are generally organized by genre, the place simply doesn’t have enough space. Every time we visit, we basically end up going to the fiction section and squatting/sitting on the ground to look at all of the piles of newly stocked books that are taking up the isle.

It can be an arduous and stressful task working through these precarious piles that threaten to topple over at any second, but it’s definitely worth it in the end. I’ve never seen a book priced at more than $5 and there is basically always some type of sale going on, so your books are almost always a bit cheaper than the price listed. The owner, John, has had this place open for over 30 years, knows exactly where to tell you to look if you ask about a particular book, and is very kind (although a bit intimidating, I’ll admit).

Our Haul

Here are the books that Rob and I happily left with:

My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante
There There by Tommy Orange
Majesty by Katharine McGee
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

Instagram photos to be posted to @jenjenreviews in the near future!

Book Review: Poirot Investigates

May 17, 2021May 17, 2021Jenny (jenjenreviews)4 Comments

I probably would have skipped this one if it weren’t listed as book #3 in the Hercule Poirot series.

Book CWs: For a list of content/trigger warnings, tropes, and representation found in this book, check out its page on BookTriggerWarnings.com!

Premise

Librarian’s note: this entry is for the collection of stories, “Poirot Investigates.” Entries for the individual short stories can be found elsewhere.

The very first collection of superb short stories featuring Hercule Poirot and Captain Hastings.

First there was the mystery of the film star and the diamond… then came the ‘suicide’ that was murder… the mystery of the absurdly cheap flat… a suspicious death in a locked gun-room… a million dollar bond robbery… the curse of a pharaoh’s tomb… a jewel robbery by the sea… the abduction of a Prime Minister… the disappearance of a banker… a phone call from a dying man… and, finally, the mystery of the missing will.

What links these fascinating cases? Only the brilliant deductive powers of Hercule Poirot! Get ready for:
1. The Adventure of The Western Star
2. The Tragedy at Marsdon Manor
3. The Adventure of The Cheap Flat
4. The Mystery of Hunter’s Lodge
5. The Million Dollar Bond Robbery
6. The Adventure of The Egyptian Tomb
7. The Jewel Robbery at The Grand Metropolitan
8. The Kidnapped Prime Minister
9. The Disappearance of Mr. Davenheim
10. The Adventure of The Italian Nobleman
11. The Case of The Missing Will.

Purchase this book (affiliate link): Amazon

Review (No Spoilers)

Depending on which edition of the book you have, it has 11-14 short stories in it. I read the original 11 stories, which is what I’ll be rating below. Since it’s a collection, I decided to do mini reviews (1-2 sentences) for each short story.

The Adventure of the Western Star

I found it really hard to get through this short story solely because of how much blatant racism is included in it (there’s also sexism, but that’s pretty standard in most of Christie’s works, so I’m used to it). Not only is the story centered around hatred of Chinese people, it also includes a Chinese slur multiple times in the narrative. I know this was probably “acceptable” back when Christie wrote these stories, but that in no way diminished how negatively it affected me and my reading mood.

Aside from that, the story itself was very predictable in my opinion, normally Christie is really good at making me second guess my initial opinions but I felt as if there wasn’t much thought put into this one.

The Tragedy at Marsdon Manor

The last few pages of this were entertaining but I ultimately didn’t care much for the story. I think having only 10 pages doesn’t allow me to feel for anyone the way a full-length novel would.

The Adventure of the Cheap Flat

Yet another story that is racist against Asians (Japanese people in this one). While this one was not as predictable as the other, I still felt no connection to it at all and didn’t really care for anything that was happening. I actually really wanted it to be a ghost story instead.

The Mystery of Hunter’s Lodge

This one was very fun. It involves Poirot being sick with influenza and relying on Hastings to do all of the ground work for him. It was a very interesting shift in dynamic and I enjoyed seeing Poirot on-page in this one, despite most of it not being in person.

The Million Dollar Bond Robbery

This one was once again very predictable in my opinion and I felt like I didn’t have a chance to know anything about anyone.

The Adventure of the Egyptian Tomb

Another story I didn’t really care about. It did manage to shock me at one point but what I assumed happened was basically what actually happened.

The Jewel Robbery at the Grand Metropolitan

I’m never going to get over how foolish Hastings is. When is he going to learn that Poirot is never outmaneuvered?? If anything, these short stories just make Hastings even more ridiculous.

The Kidnapped Prime Minister

I’m not going to lie, I had absolutely no idea what the heck was happening throughout this entire story. I probably shouldn’t have read it as tired as I was.

The Disappearance of Mr Davenheim

Some of my favorite mysteries are when the detective doesn’t do any of the work but manages to outwit literally everyone else anyways.

The Adventure of the Italian Nobleman

I found this one quite fun despite guessing who did it once again. Hastings was not as much of an unbearable fool as he usually is and I felt that it was paced very nicely. I do wonder how Poirot gets proof of any of his accusations though.

The Case of the Missing Will

That was fun! It reminded me of The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes which is a book I absolutely loved. I don’t quite understand it fully I think, but it was a joy to read.

Overall Thoughts

Overall, this is a collection I would recommend skipping. It can be nice if you want to read a few short brain-teasers, but a lot of them were either predictable or not interesting enough for me. I find one of my favorite things about Christie’s stories is the way she writes her characters so I feel short stories don’t do that justice.

First Lines Fridays – May 14, 2021

May 14, 2021May 13, 2021Jenny (jenjenreviews)1 Comment

Welcome back to my blog! It’s that time of the week again where I bring you another First Lines Fridays post! To read my FLF from last week, click here.

First Lines Fridays is a weekly feature for book lovers hosted by Wandering Words. What if instead of judging a book by its cover, its author or its prestige, we judged it by its opening lines?

Pick a book off your shelf (it could be your current read or on your TBR) and open to the first page
Copy the first few lines, but don’t give anything else about the book away just yet – you need to hook the reader first
Finally… reveal the book!

Today’s First Lines

On vacation, you can be anyone you want.
Like a good book or an incredible outfit, being on vacation transports you into another version of yourself.
In your day-to-day life, maybe you can’t even bob your head to the radio without being embarrassed, but on the right twinkly-light-strung patio, with the right steel drum band, you’ll find yourself whirling and twirling with the best of them.
On vacation, your hair chances. The water is different, maybe the shampoo. Maybe you don’t bother to wash your hair at all, or brush it, because the salty ocean water curls it up in a way you love. You think, Maybe I could do this at home too. Maybe I could be this person who doesn’t brush her hair, who doesn’t mind being sweaty or having sand in all her crevices.
On vacation, you strike up conversations with strangers, and forget that there are any stakes. If it turns out impossibly awkward, who cares? You’ll never see them again!
You’re whoever you want to be. You can do whatever you want.

Can you guess what book it is? I got it in the mail as a Book of the Month book last month and it’s by a well-known author. Scroll down for the reveal!

People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry

Two best friends. Ten summer trips. One last chance to fall in love.

Poppy and Alex. Alex and Poppy. They have nothing in common. She’s a wild child; he wears khakis. She has insatiable wanderlust; he prefers to stay home with a book. And somehow, ever since a fateful car share home from college many years ago, they are the very best of friends. For most of the year they live far apart—she’s in New York City, and he’s in their small hometown—but every summer, for a decade, they have taken one glorious week of vacation together.

Until two years ago, when they ruined everything. They haven’t spoken since.

Poppy has everything she should want, but she’s stuck in a rut. When someone asks when she was last truly happy, she knows, without a doubt, it was on that ill-fated, final trip with Alex. And so, she decides to convince her best friend to take one more vacation together—lay everything on the table, make it all right. Miraculously, he agrees.

Now she has a week to fix everything. If only she can get around the one big truth that has always stood quietly in the middle of their seemingly perfect relationship. What could possibly go wrong?

From the New York Times bestselling author of Beach Read, a sparkling new novedl that will leave you with the warm, hazy afterglow usually reserved for the best vacations.

If you’re interested in People We Meet on Vacation, you can purchase it on Amazon (affiliate link)!