Let’s Talk Bookish is a weekly meme, hosted by Rukky @ Eternity Books & Dani @ Literary Lion, where they discuss certain topics, share their opinions, and spread the love by visiting each others’ posts.
Prompts: Do you ever go back and update older content on your blog? For instance, after getting new graphics or going self-hosted? Why or why not? Do you sometimes curate/clear out old posts that you no longer want published, or rewrite/update them? Do you think people should periodically clean up their old content and update/delete things that don’t align with their current positions/beliefs?
Welcome to another week of LTB, everyone! While I continue to await the arrival of spring, let’s all settle in for another (hopefully) chill Friday and discuss a little bookish topic. Today’s topic is certainly one that I’ve thought about, but haven’t done much of. That being said, maybe there is a time and place for it.
I think older content rarely gets looked over unless it’s one of your main pages or if it’s something that a lot of people are encouraged to link back to. Thus, in the modern day of algorithms and all that, I think that time spent updating old content may not get as much “bang for your buck” as you’d might want, since no one may see it.
I’ve seen similar posts like this around in the last while (most notably from Kristin @ Kristin Kraves Books) and have been wanting to spread the love around. I love the community I have gained from getting to know a number of you through our shared love of reading. I have come to enjoy reading so many of your blog posts about the books you’ve enjoyed or anticipate.
With that said, there are books I have only been exposed to through these blogs and I have to give them credit for adding these lovely titles to my (never-ending) TBR. This is my way of appreciating the effort they put into the posts they create which I’m sure can get hard sometimes when life gets in the way.
I hope to do this every so often as a way of sharing love with one another.
So here’s to part 1 of books I’ve added to my TBR because of these posts:
I can’t wait for this one to come out later this summer, but the synopsis sounds like a total hoot! A grad student (yay! More STEM protagonists) who is obsessed with true crime thinks her neighbour may be a TAD too sketchy (is he a serial killer??) or perhaps it’s just a different kind of chemistry brewing between them. It sounds absolutely delightful and totally something I would want to read.
When the Moon was Ours by Anna-Marie McLemore (24hrYAbookblog)
The synopsis sounds kind of haunting with more than a dash of magical realism sprinkled in. I mean, the title alone gives me a very heartbreaking vibe that might just sucker punch me in all the right areas. I wouldn’t normally go for something that might just make me cry, but…I’m feeling this may be one of those exceptions.
Uh, did I completely forget that this was a best friends to lovers story?? You all know this is my VERY specific trope that I love which I posted all about recently. Plus it contains fake dating, slow burn romance so it has something for everyone!
In the time of social media, creating a fake profile off of a very real person isn’t totally unimaginable. And yet, this protagonist might just get caught because she went TOO viral with a post. I know it has focuses on plus-sized bodies and queer representation so it’ll be an interesting read for sure!
Love, Chai, and Other Four-Letter Words by Annika Sharma (Chonkybooks)
I want to read more stories with different cultural representation and I love that this book may give insight with a South Asian MC. Romances that defy expectations, including familial ones which may be some of the hardest ones to shake, are definitely something I understand and am intrigued to see more in fictional stories.
This reminds me of the movie The Other Woman where one man is in a relationship with 3 women, unbeknownst to all of them, until the other women find out about each other. In this case, this jerk stands them all up on Valentine’s Day (of all days!) and things may get more chaotic from there. Who knows? I need to read this to find out.
I honestly can’t wait to read these books! Thanks again to these wonderful bloggers. Please check them out if you don’t already know them!
Stephanie and Patrick are recently married, with new-born twins. While Stephanie struggles with the disorienting effects of sleep deprivation, there’s one thing she knows for certain – she has everything she ever wanted.
Then a woman from his past arrives and makes a shocking accusation about his first wife. He always claimed her death was an accident – but she says it was murder.
He insists he’s innocent, that this is nothing but a blackmail attempt. But is Patrick telling the truth? Or has Stephanie made a terrible mistake?
Okay, so I have a new Shari Lapena favourite now. It has all the things we all know and love: incredibly fast-paced suspense, psychologically thrilling, and her signature short sentences. Except this time I felt it was much more refined, and more of what I wanted from her style. Considering it was published in 2020, perhaps over time there was adaptation. I certainly really enjoyed this one!
The End of Her revolves already a fairly simple plot. The main protagonists, Stephanie and Patrick, are happily married with twin babies who are now colic and messing with their lives. Suddenly, an unsavory character from the husband’s past comes back with all sorts of accusations—problem is, are they true? As the accusations start to take a toll on their marriage, just who is really telling the truth?
The characters in this thriller were fairly believable, but for the most part unlikeable. That actually may have helped the suspense though, trying to sift through the lesser of so many evils. No particular character is truly that pitiable except perhaps Stephanie, but I didn’t mind that too much. Their motives and consistency were overall pretty good, and I didn’t have too much trouble with accepting all the characters at face value.
The suspense was also great. I mean I’ve never really complained about Lapena’s work in this department, but I just wanted to reiterate it here. Super fast-paced, I read this in two short sittings. Her usual abrupt sentences are present once again here, but this time I really appreciated it. In the past I found them a little bit jarring and sometimes distracted from the story. I don’t know if there was truly any change but in this novel I found that it was the right length of sentences and correct frequency of use as well.
The plot itself was believable…ish. I think some complaints were that it was a bit out there sometimes. But in my opinion total believability isn’t paramount. It can still be extremely suspenseful and thrilling, and as long as the characters are acting consistently with their personas, I generally give the author a lot of leeway in designing plots. While I didn’t totally predict the whole ending, I did predict some parts correctly, but this didn’t take away from it—after all, half the suspense was based around this main mystery.
Overall Recommendations
The End of Her is a very fast-paced thriller which follows the crumbling marriage of a couple, with twin babies tiring them out, and an old friend coming to disrupt their lives. It’s he says she says, and poor Stephanie does not know who to believe. Just how well does she know her husband? As more and more of the past surfaces up, the facts just get more and more messy. Follow this exciting and riveting thriller from beginning to finish!
Down the Rabbit Hole 