Some “Maybe” Books… A Wrap-Up

Well they aren’t maybe books- they are definitely books. It’s more like some recent reads that I didn’t love but also didn’t hate… but also sometimes can’t decide where I come down on them for strangely specific reasons that may not bother you so much.

There’s also a lot of hype on some of these books so I thought I’d wrap them up and actually, you know, post something about books…

After thinking perhaps to much about what rubbed me the wrong way about The Maid- it’s a main character problem.

Molly is a sheltered young woman whose has some very obvious features along the mental health lines that are never actually named. She’s basically Sheldon Cooper except I liked him. Whereas there are parts of The Maid (which finds Molly wrapped up in a murder mystery at the luxury hotel she works) that I thought might pass for her villain origin story.

There are some uh, interesting decisions made by Molly throughout the book that felt all over the place. I’ve seen this book compared to Eleanor Olyphant but I don’t know Molly just feels far colder and far more calculating.

Plus there’s a swift murder trial at the end and I had to wonder about some inconsistencies I don’t think a witnesses lawyer is ever allowed to examine them (I mean maybe in some truly rare special cases that I don’t think Molly would meet at all) where was the prosecution and defense? And I don’t buy any one’s lawyer ever being happy and proud when someone blurts out devastating information that they’ve held back on the stand.

All I could do was yell at the book that’s a mistrial!

This is a book written by our main character somewhere in her future about her journeys as intern to this magic guy going around and dispensing the justice of his King. I did like that angle. It appealed to me. It teases some possibly interesting things.

And I actually liked the murder mystery.

Also I have a thing for books about religious zealots. I can’t explain that either.

But on the other hand everything else felt pretty been there done that and the fantasy world/magic stuff outside of the mystery was a lot. It almost felt like Swan was trying to be big and small at the same time and it just buried it all.

This is the beginning of a series and I might read on but equally I might not. It’s that weird thing of reading a book and having moments of intrigue but trying to balance it out with the boredom.

I think I perhaps overhyped People We Meet on Vacation because reviews were so good and honestly I waited so long for this at the library. Like three times as long as any other book I’d put on hold. Something like 28 weeks.

It’s about two old friends/soul mates and the make of break vacation they take to the scorching hell of Palm Springs in the summer (Why? I live here and why would you ever do that to yourself in summer? I would leave if I could. Hell it’s only Spring and in the 90’s and I’m ready to leave it now!)

So we get current vacation from hell complete with broken AC…

And again no one rides that out when hotels are everywhere!

And vacations of the past.

And yeah I mean there are no surprises at all. I will say since I’ve read all of Emily Henry’s books- she gets stronger on writing and especially characterization. I did believe in this relationship on all levels even if I didn’t really care about that romantic stuff. That’s just me 🙂 I am super-hyped about her next book Book Lovers (for obvious reasons) I’m not even waiting out a hold at the library for that one!

*Really a good pick for a vacation/beach read.

How to talk about this one without giving out spoilers?

I mean overall it’s a perfectly adequate mystery about a true crime blogger with a dark past who gets the chance to interview an elderly potentially one time serial killer and we go between present day and the past…

And there are big elements to this book that I don’t think would surprise anyone who ever read Simone St. James (though I mean I was obviously a bit surprised) I just couldn’t help wondering if it wouldn’t have been stronger without those particular elements. Keep it more to a psychological/manipulative possibly unreliable narrator than what did happen.

Still I did like the idea of our potential murderer and the MC’s dark childhood past brought up a lot of interesting trauma elements.

Still leaves me torn though.

*Good for a vacation/beach read.

This One Sky Day is a weird one I’ve been mulling over because it’s one of those books where I appreciated reading it and recognize the strong writing and world-building perhaps more than I enjoyed the story itself.

It takes place on the island of Popisho where all the citizens are magic. Some very magic. So the magical realism is strong in this one. We have multiple POV’s so we get grief, loss, addiction, government corruption, love, beauty pageants and all kinds of things amidst the magical oddness.

And some of it works and some of it doesn’t.

There’s one very long extended sequence where all the women’s well private parts fall out suddenly which are called Pom-poms in the book and it lead to bits where people are hanging there’s up and losing their girlfriends and the use of pom-pom made it sound like something a little kid would say (I’m sorry if that’s a real thing and not just for the book but it threw me off.)

It’s also one that started off very slow for me but I must say it does take off and come together nicely in the end.

Yes if I’m going to recommend one it would be This One Sky Day. Just be prepared for it to get a little odd and it definitely won’t be everyone’s cup of tea. But it’s the one that’s probably most worth a shot especially if you are looking for something different.

*** This One Sky Day is also called Popisho in the states. But I had to get it in this format because look at that cover 🙂