Tag: family dysfunction

2 star, YA

Review: Last Chance Books by Kelsey Rodkey

Andge @ Down the Rabbit Hole

Don’t you just love the smell of old books in the morning?

Madeline Moore does. Books & Moore, the musty bookstore her family has owned for generations, is where she feels most herself. Nothing is going to stop her from coming back after college to take over the store from her beloved aunt.

Nothing, that is—until a chain bookstore called Prologue opens across the street and threatens to shut them down.

Madeline sets out to demolish the competition, but Jasper, the guy who works over at Prologue, seems intent on ruining her life. Not only is he taking her customers, he has the unbelievable audacity to be… extremely cute.

But that doesn’t matter. Jasper is the enemy and he will be destroyed. After all—all’s fair in love and (book) wars.

I’m a sucker for books about bookstores, and this definitely drew me into Last Chance Books. And as the title suggests, this story is all about saving an indie bookstore from closing when a larger chain store moves across the street from them.

Okay, full disclosure, while I absolutely ADORE indie stores (I get all the best secondhand books from such wonderful places where I literally can spend a whole afternoon among its stacks), I have also been an employee of such large chain bookstores. I can see the place for both types of stores, so this won’t be a review that bashes large chain bookstores (sorry).

With this premise, it automatically sets up an enemies to lovers story when indie store employee, Madeline, does everything to keep her beloved family store Books & Moore afloat. Jasper Tanaka, aka the absolute enemy, had to be terminated at any cost.

And I do mean literally at ANY cost.

It’s one of the things I felt the book took too far. Her pranks weren’t always harmless. Whether that meant almost physical harm to a Prologue employee or slightly shady dealings to keep profit from going their way, Madeline’s obsessive behaviour wasn’t endearing in any way. I understand her want to keep the store going when it seemed like everyone else, even her boss and aunt, were willing to give it up and throw in the towel. It just wasn’t a lovely thing to read about constantly.

I know typically people love enemies to lovers, but I’m a lot pickier when it comes to this trope and not just any book with it will win over my heart. However, I will say this romance didn’t really have anything special in it to make them memorable even for those of you who love anything with this trope. Jasper was definitely the nicer of the two, but that’s not hard when the other one was constantly thinking of ways to sabotage the rival business.

What I will say I did like, even in a minor way, was the character growth and family focus. As Books & Moore is a family business, we spent a lot of time with Madeline’s family which consisted of her aunt, half-brother, half-brother’s dad, and her estranged mother now coming back into all of their lives. First thing, I really enjoyed seeing such a unique family dynamic. I loved the portrayal of a good single father figure who also ended up adopting Madeline into his love and care even though she wasn’t his by blood.

But the focus was on their relationship with Madeline’s mom. She was always given the impression of being flighty and selfish, dropping her kids with her sister to take care of all these years so she could pursue her own acting career across the country. Having to deal with her rare and temporary presence in their lives was an interesting root issue to dig into and explore.

At the heart of this, Last Chance Books was still about saving an indie store and sharing the love of books with people. As a former bookseller (and even as a reviewer), that is something I stand by and I love to see in stories. How it was executed wasn’t the best, but I wouldn’t write off this book completely just because I wasn’t excited by it at all. I read half of this as an ebook and the other half as an audiobook. I definitely feel the audiobook helped make it come more alive for me (and probably why I finished through some of Madeline’s less-than-stellar inner monologue). It has potential, and I will still be checking out more from Kelsey Rodkey in the future.

Overall Recommendation:

Last Chance Books delivered on the family dysfunction piece as the Moore family (or rather, mainly Madeline) fought to keep the family bookstore afloat. But where the plot was supposed to be interesting when a rival large chain bookstore is fighting them on profits, it fell flat. Madeline was too intense in her rivalry against rival bookstore employee, Jasper, and regularly took things a bit far for just a rivalry. While there was character development, most strongly in Madeline, it made getting through the middle parts rather difficult. Overall, I always love a book that talks about bookstores and the beauty of reading (and its loyal communities), and this definitely has that in spades but its execution could’ve been better. With a lackluster enemies to lovers romance and a slow pace throughout the middle, the parts I liked couldn’t quite carry it through for my expectations.

3 star, Uncategorized

Review: They’ll Never Catch Us by Jessica Goodman

Andge @ Down the Rabbit Hole

A thriller about two sisters vying for the top spot on their cross-country team–the only way out of their stifling small town. But their dreams are suddenly thrown into peril when a new girl threatens to take away everything they’ve worked for… until she disappears.

Stella and Ellie Steckler are only a year apart, but their different personalities make their relationship complicated. Stella is single-minded, driven, and keeps to herself. Cross-country running is her life, and she won’t let anything get in the way of being the best. Her sister Ellie is a talented runner too, but she also lets herself have fun. She has friends. She goes to parties. She has a life off the course.

The sisters do have one thing in common, though: the new girl, Mila Keene. Both Stecklers’ lives are upended when Mila comes to town. Mila was the top runner on her team back home and at first, Ellie and Stella view her as a threat. But soon Ellie can’t help but be drawn to her warm, charming personality. After her best friend moved away and her first boyfriend betrayed her, Ellie’s been looking for a friend. In a moment of weakness, she even shares her darkest secret with Mila. For her part, Stella finds herself noticing the ways she and Mila are similar. Mila is smart and strong–she’s someone Stella can finally connect with. As the two get closer, Stella becomes something she vowed she’d never be: distracted.

With regionals approaching and college scouts taking notice, the pressure is on. Each girl has their future on the line and they won’t let friendships get in their way. But then, suddenly, Mila goes out on a training run and never returns. No one knows what happened, but all eyes are on the Steckler sisters.

I love a good story about family, and They’ll Never Catch Us definitely hits this one home. With (mostly) alternating POV chapters between the two Steckler sisters, the groundwork of the story is laid out as we learn about their passion for cross country running and the infamous history of their town: murdered female runners all killed in the same fashion.

As the plot summary shows, someone new in town comes in and threatens the girls’ chances of impressing the scouts at their meets. And they must impress them, for a scholarship is their only way out of this town and its history still hanging over them occasionally like a rain cloud forming at any moment.

Continue reading “Review: They’ll Never Catch Us by Jessica Goodman” →
1.5 star, YA

ARC Review: The Liars Beneath by Heather Van Fleet

Andge @ Down the Rabbit Hole

After a tragic accident ends her best friend’s life, 17-year-old Becca Thompson succumbs to grief the only way she knows how: by wallowing in it. She’s a fragment of the person she once was-far too broken to enjoy the summer before her senior year. But when Ben McCain, her best friend’s older brother, returns home, Becca must face her new reality head on.

She isn’t interested in Ben’s games, especially since he abandoned his sister during the months leading up to her death. But when he begs for her help in uncovering the truth about what really happened the night of his sister’s death, Becca finds herself agreeing, hoping to clear up rumors swirling in the wake of her best friend’s accident.

An unhinged ex-boyfriend, secret bucket lists, and garage parties in the place Becca calls home soon lead her to the answers she’s so desperate to unveil. But nobody is being honest, not even Ben. And the closer Becca gets to the truth-and to Ben-the more danger seems to surround her.

Clearing her best friend’s name was all she wanted to do, but Becca is quickly realizing that the truth she craves might be uglier than the lies her best friend kept.

**The Liars Beneath comes out January 27, 2022**

Thank you Netgalley for this copy in exchange for an honest review.

TW: sexual assault/harassment

I’m such a sucker usually for mysterious deaths and a crush on the best friend’s older brother trope but nothing about this worked for me.

In a small farming town in Iowa, our protagonist Becca is struggling hard in the aftermath of her best friend, Rose’s, death. While she does not initially think there was any foul play involved, Rose’s older brother Ben comes barrelling in trying to stir things up in his search for what happened the night of Rose’s death.

This book focuses literally on 2 things and 2 things only: a romance between Becca and Ben, and the mystery of Rose’s demise. Unfortunately, neither were done very well.

Becca has always been around Ben before he left town to go study in college, a rather prestigious athlete trying to escape the chains of this small town and their negligent mother. But before he left, Becca had the BIGGEST crush on him that fizzled into hate upon the smallest miscommunication. So what if he rejected her in a small way when she was 15? It doesn’t then permit the very rude way she interacted with him from then on, only insulting him to his face (or behind his back, for that matter, to Rose). Ben, for his part, played along with this new way of interacting with her, but I very much feel this was all on Becca for starting this completely unnecessary change in their previously cordial relationship.

I don’t dislike enemies to lovers, but this was poorly done in my opinion. I found it super hard for me to believe that she could so easily fall for Ben when there were so many more important issues at hand. I can potentially see that maybe he was holding a candle for her during the years since, but I don’t think this was LOVE by any means. Telling me you “love” each other does not make me feel it anymore than if you did not say it at all.

The mystery is also hardly a mystery in any sense of the word. Rose’s secrets, and there were a number, starts to unearth as Ben and Becca investigate. I saw the “twist” a mile away with the few characters that were actually introduced into the story. I could hardly believe how much was given away in literal conversations between Rose and Becca in the flashback chapters, or in the way certain characters were introduced to us. The only surprising thing in this book was the ending, and that was a bit of a complicated mess.

While I won’t spoil anything about the end, I feel epilogues aren’t meant for wrapping everything up so neatly into a bow. I’m also conflicted because the ending of the previous chapter before the epilogue was a mess, so I suppose it would be better to conclude with a little extra present. Yet, there were almost too many details given that made it feel like nothing was left to understand about these characters. That they would not live on beyond the ending given them. I feel the best characters are the ones that have been written in a way that their lives could still be up to interesting things even after the last page of the book has been flipped.

All this to say, a book with a really unlikable protagonist makes it really hard to get through. Becca also proves to be not the smartest cookie in the jar. She at one point brought her parents’ handgun to a situation she felt may warrant some protection…only to say she did not know how to use it. Like, you’re literally bringing a weapon to a potentially dangerous situation. Do you know how easily someone (aka the dangerous person(s) you’re meeting) could take that weapon from you and then actually know how to use it…on YOU?

So with neither main element working out well for me and a protagonist I couldn’t stomach for long periods of time, I can only hand this book one note of positivity: at least it was a short read to get through.

Overall Recommendation:

The Liars Beneath was supposedly a mystery and an enemies to lover romance, but felt like neither really hit the mark. The protagonist was unlikable and her chemistry with Ben was not the most believable based on their actions and general amount of miscommunication. At most, it could only be a rather large crush on one another instead of intense love – please don’t tell me but show me. The mysterious circumstances surrounding her best friend’s death was very predictable, especially with the amount of information given in the flashback chapters. And with an ending that was both too wrapped up and oddly rushed to create a happily ever after, I just don’t think there’s enough going for this novel to warrant a higher rating or recommendation.