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Elizabeth- 2021 Reading Challenge
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One Of Us Is Lying
by Karen McManus
I rate this book 4.5/5. Overall I really loved it. Finished it in two sittings and was constantly intrigued and pulled into the lives and minds of the four main characters. The author did a great job of writing each character with a different voice than the last. It's a great mystery, I personally suspected almost every character at least once. The ending was climatic in my opinion and they wrapped everybody's story line up fairly well, so I wasn't burning with questions when I had finished it.
I didn't give this read a 5 because I think a few things could have been improved. For instance, I wish they had developed Janeas character a bit more (potentially even written something from her perspective near the end).
I would absolutely recommend this book, it was a fantastically intriguing and entertaining read.
The Southern Book Club's Guide To Slaying Vampires
by Grady Hendrix 4/5 stars
When I began reading I expected and assumed, without having previously known anything about the book, that it would quickly develop into a romance with some thrills and jumps in between… Oh, how wrong I was.
The Southern Book Clubs Guide To Vampire Slaying is while having an admittedly slow start, extremely well-written, gruesome, and captivating. It is an adult horror novel set throughout the ’90s, except filled with housewives and their everyday neighborhood drama and family lives. Patricia is narrated in such a way that I felt I could completely see her train of thought and felt everything she was feeling. This surprised me a lot when I learned Grady Hendrix the author, was male. I didn’t learn that till after I finished the book and saw his picture in the back of it, It completely surprised me with how well he was able to portray the mind of a suburban housewife from the ’90s.
The story spans a timeline of years and had me completely invested in the lives of every single person in the neighborhood, well except that of James Harris. Although I will admit James even had me doubting whether he was the bad guy or the good guy, for a while in the beginning.
I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a read bound to give them goosebumps at some point, characters they’ll be invested in, and definitely, no girls falling head over heels for a vampire they met maybe five minutes ago.
Trigger Warnings For This Novel: Violence, Rape, Murder.
Call Me By Your Name by André Acimen (1/5) 
This was not what I was expecting when I picked it up. It's is a novel of lust, infatuation, and obsession with very little actual substance to it. Elio is obsessive and infatuated with Oliver, who changes his personality every day. It is boring during some parts and near impossible to get through in others. When I reached page 60, I was dreading having to finish it, but pushed myself to anyway just so I could make sure that this was the whole book and I wasn't missing any substance or substantial plot points later on.
One of the reason it was so hard to read, was the fact that I found none of the characters likeable. Elio, was to me obsessive and dragging. Oliver was creepy and undecided. Even background characters weren't likeable.
I would not recommend this book.
Hope your reading is going well!
In this thread, I'm going to include many things, after gathering some ideas from everyone else's wonderful feeds. I'll include my reading stats, reading updates, reviews of all the books, and a master list for the year when I finish. :)
Check out my members corner!