How We Fall Apart - Katie Zhao

Initial draw: ✰✰✰✰✰
Character development: ✰✰
Plot/Writing style: ✰✰✰
My rating: ⭐⭐⭐

From the cover:

"Nancy Luo is shocked when her former best friend, Jamie Ruan, top ranked junior at Sinclair Prep, goes missing, and then is found dead. Nancy is even more shocked when word starts to spread that she and her friends - Krystal, Akil, and Alexander - are the prime suspects, thanks to "The Proctor," someone anonymously incriminating them via the school's social media app.

They all used to be Jamie's closest friends, and she knew each of their deepest, darkest secrets. Now, somehow The Proctor knows them, too. The four must uncover the true killer before The Proctor exposes more than they can bear and costs them more than they can afford, like Nancy's full scholarship. Soon, Nancy suspects that her friends may be keeping secrets from her, too."

Warning going into this: There will be spoilers, although I'm trying not to reveal anything huge. Also, content warning: discussion of self-harm and suicide.

I went into this very excited. I mean, comparing it to Gossip Girl and One of Us is Lying? You get me. Sign me up. Sadly, it was a solid three stars for me - not bad, but it had so much more potential. I got into it and ultimately enjoyed it, but it required a whole lot of suspension of disbelief. The premise is solid and what made me drool at the thought of reading an advanced copy, but I thought the characters could have been much better developed, and some of the key plot points were tough for me to get on board with. The Proctor, for instance, is pretty central to the entire story, but...why is anyone taking this person seriously? This is the Tip Tap post that pins all the suspicion on Nancy and her friends:

"Jamie has four former friends. Each friend has a secret. One day, Jamie goes missing. Which friend is guilty and deserves punishment?

c) the one hiding a criminal
d) the one who traded conscience for grades
a) the one who sunk the lowest to get highest
b) the one who ruined a girl three years ago

Happy testing. The Proctor."

I can't be the only one who finds that incredibly flimsy, and it only gets weaker as each secret is revealed. Most of them are pretty generic, and I would be shocked if the friend group were the only people at the school who had them. I don't want to get too deeply into it and give stuff away, but reading this it seemed like there was an outline and it was followed, but outside of the key plot points nothing got fleshed out. Give me more!

I had the same issue with the characters. Flashbacks to Jamie revealed her to be a pretty unforgivably terrible human, which regardless of how rich she was made it difficult to believe that she had close enough friends that they would let her learn secrets about them. There were some vague attempts to introduce some nuance, but they weren't developed enough to redeem her. Then the other characters were all very cookie-cutter. All her friends act exactly the same, everyone at the school is super generic...meh. 

Finally, the way that self-harm and suicide are handled felt really weird and uncomfortable to me. I know that the whole point of the book is that it's a really high-demand school and basically everyone is stressed to the point of falling apart constantly, but it was strange that literally no one seemed phased by that. Not a single person?! Even after Jamie dies, the teachers and school leadership are still just like...

This school is hard, lol! Talk to a counselor between classes if you're bummed your fellow youth died. 

Uhh ok, Headmaster Charleston. Even "tough" educators have like a modicum of empathy, don't they? I feel like at least one reasonable soul should have stepped in and been like "so this is insane, right?" even if everyone else told them to shut up. That would have made things much less strange for me.

Anyway...at the end of the day, this wasn't bad, but it was disappointing reading it and seeing how it could have been so much better. I'm interested to see if the next book in the series is stronger, now that the world and characters are established. I suppose we shall see.

I'm on smoko!

Ok so not really...what I am on is starting a new job and trying to get my new school library whipped into shape before school starts in early August, which...is an UNDERTAKING. What that means is that I likely won't be posting much, at least until I get my feet under me with the new gig. I've got a couple advanced reader copies of books that I want to post reviews for, if I manage to actually find the time to finish them, so fingers crossed I'll be posting sporadically, but we'll see how it goes.

Also, for anyone unfamiliar, the source of this post title: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j58V2vC9EPc

Delightful.

On the Way to the Wedding - Julia Quinn

Initial draw: ✰✰✰
Character development: ✰✰✰
Plot/Writing style: ✰✰
My rating: ⭐⭐⭐

From the cover:

"Unlike most men of his acquaintance, Gregory Bridgerton believes in true love. And he is convinced that when he finds the woman of his dreams, he will know in an instant that she is the one. And that is exactly what happened. Except...

She wasn't the one. In fact, the ravishing Miss Hermione Watson is in love with another. But her best friend, the ever-practical Lady Lucinda Abernathy, wants to save Hermione from a disastrous alliance, so she offers to help Gregory win her over. But in the process, Lucy falls in love. With Gregory! Except...

Lucy is engaged. And her uncle is not inclined to let her back out of the betrothal, even once Gregory comes to his senses and realizes that it is Lucy, with her sharp wit and sunny smile, who makes his heart sing. And now, on the way to the wedding, Gregory must risk everything to ensure that when it comes time to kiss the bride, he is the only man standing at the altar..."

Mehhhhhhh. I wish Gregory featured more heavily in the earlier books. The first four, I was more invested because you've gotten to know all four older siblings. The fifth, I was also invested, because I love Eloise...until her character was completely ruined and she was shackled to a garbage person. Of all the siblings, I think Francesca and Gregory featured the least prominently in the other novels, so their stories were a little harder to be enthusiastic about. Thankfully, they were compelling enough that I still liked them, but the earlier books are markedly easier to get into because you already know and are invested in the characters. That said, this was...mostly fine, if a little dull.

I liked Lucy as a character, she was probably the character I liked most in this book. That said, the whole romance arc between her and Gregory felt a little funky and forced, and I wish it had been handled differently. He went from being wholly fixated on her best friend to liking her much too quickly, and the whole thing just felt...clunky. Then we get into some spoilers, so...warning. Spoilers.

Spoilers below!

The end of this story felt a little jump the shark-y. The book starts off with Gregory running to stop a wedding, so...alright. I can get into that. But then...she actually gets married? And then...he "kidnaps" her and ties her up in a bathroom? But wait! Now her uncle has found her and...he has a gun? Someone gets shot? Oh, and the marriage can still be annulled with no issues because she and her (btw, hella gay) husband have not consummated yet! It was...a lot. You're doing too much, Julia.

Ultimately, the highest praise I can give this book is that it's just fine. There are some weird things and choices that I don't know if they should have been made, but...it's not Eloise's story, so it's passable.

July challenge update

Whew, hello! If time could pass like...a touch more slowly? That would be great. I'm still a wee bit behind in my challenge reading, but I'm working on it. I finished Chirp and A Phoenix First Must Burn (which was SO GOOD, please read it!), but my copies of A Thousand Beginnings and Endings, Notes from a Young Black Chef, and Sway are still waiting for me to get to them. I'm working on it, books, I'm so sorry! I am SUPER excited to read them, and Notes from a Young Black Chef is sitting on my table just waiting for me to finish another book that I'm working on so I can dive in. I like to read multiple books at once, but I'm really trying to keep myself from getting out of control with that. At some point I should probably actually finish one of the books I'm reading instead of just starting another one, maybe.

But anyway! Books that I will be adding to my waiting TBR pile for July!

13. Read a book with a cover you don't like

This was a tough one to choose a title for because without browsing the shelves at a library or a bookstore to see what jumps out at me, which I'm not quite ready to do, it's kind of tricky to find a book whose cover you don't like. I ended up scrolling through my Want to Read stuff on Goodreads, but covers really hit different in person than they do online, you know? Anyway...I went with The Authentics by Abdi Nazemian. 

Honestly...there's nothing wrong with the cover. It just isn't one that would typically draw me in the way some of my favorite covers have.

14. Read a realistic YA book not set in the US, UK, or Canada.

I'm really looking forward to this one! I try to read as diversely as I can, but a lot of my reading ends up being pretty US centric, which I need to be better about. For this challenge, I decided to go with The Weight of Our Sky by Hanna Alkaf. It has been on my list to pick up for a very, very long time, and I need to read it!

What would you read for each of these challenges?

It's In His Kiss - Julia Quinn

Initial draw: ✰✰✰✰
Character development: ✰✰✰
Plot/Writing style: ✰✰✰✰
My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

From the cover:

"Meet our hero. Gareth St. Clair is in a bind. His father, who detests him, is determined to beggar the St. Clair estates and ruin his inheritance. Gareth's sole bequest is an old family diary, which may or may not contain the secrets of his past...and the key to his future. The problem is - it's written in Italian, of which Gareth speaks not a word.

Meet our heroine. All the ton agreed: there was no one quite like Hyacinth Bridgerton. She's fiendishly smart, devilishly outspoken, and according to Gareth, probably best in small doses. But there's something about her - something charming and vexing - that grabs him and won't quite let go...

Meet poor Mr. Mozart. Or don't. But rest assured, he's spinning in his grave when Gareth and Hyacinth cross paths at the annual - and annually discordant - Smythe-Smith musicale. To Hyacinth, Gareth's every word seems a dare, and she offers to translate his diary, even though her Italian is slightly less than perfect. But as they delve into the mysterious text, they discover that the answers they seek lie not in the diary, but in each other...and that there is nothing as simple - or as complicated - as a single, perfect kiss."

I've been arranging and rearranging my ranking of these books in my mind as I've read them and subsequently reviewed them, and I really think this one has landed solidly in second place. Aside from Anthony and Kate, the development of the romance feels the most natural, and overall I just liked Hyacinth and Gareth as characters. (Although Gareth, horrible name for this character. Hate that decision for him.) Hyacinth is so snarky and outspoken, and I am here for every moment. Also, her friendship with Lady Danbury meant there was significantly more Lady D in this book than in others, and can I get a hell yeah? God, I love Lady Danbury. I aspire to be like her.

I also greatly enjoyed that a fairly big part of this story revolved around hidden diamond hijinks, which...what?! It was somewhat silly but in a super enjoyable way, and I was very on board. Although I am unendingly curious where Hyacinth found herself a pair of pants, specifically pants that fit her so well that Gareth was drooling all over seeing her in them. You know her brothers don't have pants that would be hugging her curves...Hyacinth, tell me your secrets. 

Once again though, we must confront the thing that I did not like. The SAME THING, as a matter of fact. What is with the men in these novels scheming to trap women into marriage via seduction? Boo, Gareth, boo. We fuck because we want to, because we're both into it and it's great fun! We don't fuck to force someone to marry us! That's not cool, bud. Hate to see it.

In conclusion: be cool, guys, stop weaponizing sex. More Lady Danbury, please. Hyacinth is a badass.