Book Review – No. 2

I shared my very first book review in July.  If you missed it, you can read it here.  Unfortunately, hurricane season was not kind to us, and so I was never able to get back to posting my book reviews since life has been crazy, and we are living in a rental while our house is being repaired.  Anyways!  I finished off 2020 by reading a ton of books amidst the chaos, so I have a bunch of info I can’t wait to share.  I hope to continue to do my monthly book reviews starting now!

• The Couple Next Door by Shari Lapena – Anne and Marco are invited to their neighbor’s house for a dinner party.  Unfortunately, their baby sitter just cancelled, and they can’t bring the baby with them to the party.  Since it’s just next door, they take the baby monitor with them and every 30 minutes, Anne or Marco leave to go check on the baby.  They arrive back home from the dinner party around 1:30am to find their front door cracked open and the baby missing for her crib.  What happened to Baby Cora?  Who took her and will Anne and Marco get her back?

I read this book in ONE day!  It was so good.  I was on the edge of my seat wondering who took the baby!  It is a very fast read, and while I did figure out what happened towards the end, it took me a while to get there.  I really enjoyed this one and would recommend it!

 

• Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover – Born into an isolated, survivalist family, Tara Westover had never been to school.  She had no birth certificate, no social security card, no real date of birthday, and most of her brothers didn’t have any of that information either.  Her parents believed the government was out to get them, so they avoided everything they possibly could to not draw attention to themselves.  They didn’t believe in doctors or hospitals, and everything medically could be cured by essential oils her mother made up.  After one of her brothers leaves and goes off to college, Tara wonders what else is out there for her.  Determined to change her life, she studies and learns everything herself and manages to get into Harvard and then into Cambridge University all while leaving her family and wondering if she would ever see her parents again. 

This book was literally one of the hardest books I have ever read.  I felt so many different emotions – sadness, happiness, fear, anger, anguish, etc.  The way she grew up was incredibly shocking to me.  How people still live like that in this world blew my mind.  How could she not even know her birth date?  Seriously!  There were so many stories that were absolutely appalling and difficult to read at times.  I’ll be honest, this book shook me a little bit, and it took me several days to read it because I could only read it a little at a time.  It is not for the faint at heart, but it will leave you rooting for her to succeed.  I truly hope this story is real and not fabricated because it’s incredibly eye opening to just how different other families can be and what it really takes to have courage to change your life… for the better, even if it means leaving your family behind.  I do recommend reading this one if you enjoy true stories, but fair warning, some of the events in the book are difficult to read.  If you get squeamish, I would probably not read it as some of the scenes are incredibly graphic.

 

• The Last Mrs Parrish by Liv Constantine – Jackson and Daphne Parrish seem to have the perfect lives.  Amber Patterson does not.  Determined to change her own life, Amber sets out to befriend Daphne and comes up with a scheme to undermine her and become Jackson’s next wife, but what she doesn’t realize is maybe things aren’t what they seem and it may not really be the life she wanted.

The Last Mrs Parrish was a delightfully juicy quick read.  A book with a nice little twist that’s not so easy to figure out at the beginning.  I really enjoyed this one a lot, and I am looking forward to reading more by these writers.

 

• The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid – Hollywood movie actress Evelyn Hugo is ready to tell the real story of her life and her seven husbands, so she hires Monique Grant, an unknown magazine writer, as the one who will write a book about her life.  Monique doesn’t understand why Evelyn picked her to write her biography, but she agrees to meet with her in hopes that it will help her career.  Evelyn details all of her marriages, her movie career and her own personal tragedies that somehow actually intersect with Monique’s life, but what is Evelyn hiding and just how similar are they?

Taylor Jenkins Reid did it again!  I LOVED this book so, so much!  You may not know this about me, but I love reading about Hollywood glamour, movies and actors.  In fact, I read celebrity gossip daily because I just love hearing about people in the public eye, so this book was calling my name as soon as I read what it was about.  I just couldn’t read it fast enough.  This one is another great book by one of my favorite authors, and it is highly recommended!

 

• The Whisper Network by Chandler Baker – The sudden death of the CEO of Truviv means Ames, an employee with a checkered past, is up for promotion to take over the company, but Sloane, Ardie, and Grace know he’s not the right person for the job.  There have been many whispers about Ames over the years, but it’s all be swept under the rug and ignored.  Just how far will these ladies go to see that Ames is not the next CEO?

Before I read this book, I saw people say that if you loved Big Little Lies, then you will love this one.  Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case for me.  I tried so hard to fall in love with this book, but I felt like it dragged on in the middle for quite some time, and once I finished it, I didn’t have that happy feeling, like, “Yay!  That was such a good book.”  I wanted so much more out of it, so for that reason, I don’t know that I would recommend this one.  I wanted it to be fantastic, and it just didn’t hit the mark with me at all.

 

Have you read any of these?  If so, what did you think?  Do you have any book recommendations for me to check out in the new year?  Please share!