Forget You Know Me

Title: Forget You Know Me

Author: Jessica Strawser

Publishing date:  2/2019

Genre: Contemporary fiction

Where I got it:  ARC from St Martins Press

Rating: 3 stars

Synopsis:  Liza and Molly are best friends from college now living in two different states and have two different lives.  In an effort to save a strained friendship, they have what they call girls night that consists of wine and catching up over Webcam.  When her daughter needs her, Molly steps away from the computer leaving Liza alone to watch, in horror, as a masked man enters her friends home.  

After frantically calling the police, Liza decides to take the eight hour drive to make sure her friend is unharmed and well.  Only when she arrives Molly slams the door in her face and acts like Liza crossed state lines for nothing at all.

Liza returns home to a burned down apartment complex, no where to live and not understanding the thought process of the person who she's called her best friend all these years.  While Liza is thinking her friendship is over, Molly is thinking she's dodged a bullet only to make another one in its place.  

They cant avoid each other forever though, and soon they'll face a reckoning that will show them just how much weight a shared history can take.

My thoughts: I was surprised by this novel.  I liked the synopsis.  However, I was surprised by the story line ending.  If I learned anything from this novel it's to trust no one.  Not your best friend for so many years and not your husband.  It took me a while to read this book.  When I was reading it I was into it, but the desire to continue reading after I put it down just wasn't there for me.  I didn't get connected to the characters, in fact, I can't even say I liked most of them.  However, I can say that the characters were well developed, to me they were just selfish, paranoid and psychotic.  

Characters and ending aside, Strawser did a good job at tying together all the unknowns that were dropped throughout the book.  Though I can't say I liked the ending.   To me I don't understand how two wrongs make a right, but she did not leave me with any questions unanswered.  

Though I can't say I would read this particular book again, I would like to look into some of her other novels and see how they compare.  Her writing was good, and her ideas where there.  

Things Left Unsaid- Courtney Walsh

 

Title:  Things Left Unsaid

Author: Courtney Walsh

Genre: Fiction, Adult fiction, maybe religion/spirituality

Stars: 5

Synopsis from Goodreads:

An emotional novel of family, friendship and forgiveness from Courtney Walsh, the New York Times bestselling author of Hometown Girl.

Lyndie St. James is thrilled that her best friend, Elle, is getting married but unprepared for the emotional storm of the wedding week and returning to her childhood summer home of Sweethaven. The idyllic cottage community harbors some of her best—and worst—memories. It’s not only the tragic death of her childhood friend Cassie that has haunted her for ten years, it’s the other secrets she’s buried that have kept her from moving on.

But Lyndie isn’t the only one with secrets.

Cassie’s mother, father and brother, still struggling with the loss, have been drifting further and further apart. And Elle herself, the last to see Cassie alive, carries an impossible burden of guilt. Now reunited, each of them has a choice: to reveal the truths of that night or continue to live in its shadow. That means embarking on a personal journey of the heart—to escape the darkness and all its regrets and to finally come to terms with the past and, especially, with each other.

The Competition-Cecily Wolfe

Book Tile:  The Competition
Author: Cecily Wolfe
Genre: YA, Contemporary
Stars:  3.5
Goodreads
For Mary Sofia, The Penultimate writing competition is more than a chance at a free college education; she wants to show her younger siblings that they can all rise above their violent family history. For Raiden, the pressure to succeed comes from within, although he knows that family traditions play a part in his determination. For Camara, writing fiction is almost compulsive, but her own dark secret may be the best story she can ever tell. For Michael, swimming and writing fit his introverted personality perfectly, but meeting a smart and beautiful girl at The Penultimate makes stepping outside of his comfort zone easy. All four will compete against each other along with 96 other high school juniors for the chance of a lifetime: a full scholarship to a prestigious private college. Some students will do anything to win, but others may pay the price.

My thoughts:  

This novel touches on some real life issues that many young adults face today.  Wolfe does a good job portraying the issues in a subtle, not overwhelming way.  Each character has his or her own struggles and it brings them all closer because of it. I loved the idea of the story line and think it was executed well. 
However, for me there were too many characters.  Even the synopsis from Goodreads only shows four of the main characters.  They are the ones with the twists within the novel, but there are four or five other characters that play an equally large role and it can get confusing to follow the story line from one to the other.  Especially when they all have dark past that isn't known to the reader yet.  Once the author gives away a little more information, the picture becomes clearer.  So it all ties together in the end. 
I think for the YA reading this, it shows how friends can be cruel, supportive, intelligent and loving.  I was surprised by the ending, I kind of wanted one of them to win, but then again it all worked out with the little twist as well.

It was a good read.  My first from Cecily Wolfe.  I would recommend it and would read more of her work.  

Sauced Up, Scarred and at Sleaze: An Anthology of 8 Short Stories- G.C. Mckay

This is transgressive fiction at it's finest! 

Mckay is an author who can write.  I didn't find at any time while reading this that it wasn't a well put together book of short stories.  However, short stories aren't really my thing.  I find that I'm always wanting more.

Some of the short stories in this anthology made me laugh out  loud.  Some were not in my taste.  The first two, Something Borrowed, Something Blue and The Importance of Safe Sex were dark and twisted but funny and witty.  I could easily read them. 

Bloodhound Lust was just not for me.  It was grotesque and brutal. 

Mother Nature Sends Her Love and SQUIRM are things one would think typical of boys of a certain age.  I could see my brother having similar stories with his friends. 

In between were like stories that were wonderfully grotesque and witty.  It is not something I normally would have picked up, but I don't regret reading it.  It pushed me to see a different genre of writing.
However, I wouldn't recommend it to just anyone. Transgressive writing, I feel, is not for the weak hearted and takes a certain kind of person to appreciate it.  Though I thought some of the stories were a bit too much for me, I can appreciate the authors creativity and writing style.

Dark Moon Fell- Mari Biella

Angela is a has been pop star with some skeletons in her closet.  After overcoming a alcohol bender, she decides to hide away from her life, fans and demons and takes a job as a gatekeeper for a secluded property owned by a music icon.  What she can't figure out is if what she is seeing part of her imagination, her coming off the booze, or is she really seeing things?  After exploring the house and making friends with the architect working on the project, its discovered that there may be more to this house than it seems, and the architect may know more than he lets on.  Was someone murdered on the property?  Will someone find her?  Is she in danger?  She's in a constant phase of questioning until it all becomes perfectly clear.

My thoughts:

I LOVED THIS NOVEL!

It was a short and sweet, eerie romance.  It was the perfect book I needed to take me away from some of the heavier stuff.  Biella's writing was great.  I loved the idea behind the novel.  Of course, the fact that the lady gets the guy at the end is the perfect ending. 

If I had to pick apart something within it, I would say that I was curious about the timeline.  It seemed like everything happened within a few days of being at the house or happened too quickly.  Which in real life is unimaginable, but it novel life, anything can happen.  So the real life me versus the novel life me are at war.  But I can cope because it was just such a perfect book for my mind frame.  I don't read many novels with eerie story lines, but when I do, I love them.  This one is no different. 

So it gets 5 stars from me. 

If I Die Before I Wake: Not All Tales Have the Ever After You Might Expect, Martii Maclean

Vreni is born into a cursed family where the women sleep... a lot.  She is almost a century old in age, but has been asleep for half of it.  Is there a way to kill this curse her family has been dealing with?  Is there a chance to find love?  Is she the only one who can break the curse?  She has to find out. 
This fun, enchanted, Sleeping Beauty like read was good for an old maid like myself, but would be great for a young teen looking to get lost in a magical world.  I can appreciate the magical world Maclean has presented in the novel.  The idea of a world where one sleeps while others are awake and growing older and more frail while trying to preserve their family secret is a good foundation for a great read.  It seemed to move a bit too quick at times, leaving me with gaps of information, but it was not enough to deter me from continuing and may be overlooked by someone not looking for more.
This is my first read from Martii Maclean.  I look forward to seeing what else she has out there and would recommend this book to anyone looking for a quick, fun read. 

Marooned: Can YOU Endure Treachery and Survival on the High Seas? James Schannep

This book!  This book was a first for me.  I have never read a "click your poison" or a "choose your own adventure" book before so it was interesting. 
I was the main character.  I was able to choose which direction and path I wanted the character to go down and explore.  Would I survive the adventure?  Or would I meet my demise at any given moment?  The choice was mine.

What I liked about this was that up to a point I was able to decide myself how the storyline went.  Do I want to stay and have a beer?  Or because I know it's taboo, I simply leave the brothel?  Which ship did I want to take?  Which fate would be mine?  It was a great story of pirates, braving the sea, and being underclass in a port city. 

HOWEVER, there was no way to go back to the previous page unless I knew what page I was on, or what chapter.  So if I died (which I did, embarrassingly early in the book) I had to go back and either try to remember the previous chapter and choose a different path, OR I had to start all over again. I could read the book 2-3 times and have it be different every time.  Which I guess is the point, but for me it was a first. 

For me, it was interesting to see how Schannep tied the whole thing together.  No matter what I clicked the story still flowed.  There was no gaps for me.  He wrote in a manner that made the novel an easy read, fun and exciting to follow and leaving me wanting to know all the directions I could take to decide my fate. 

Though I've never read to CYOA novel or anything from Schannep, I would totally recommend it. 

Literature (R), Guillermo Stitch

This novella is perfect!  For us readers who cannot imagine a world without literature, books, novellas, or anything to do with well written words, this is a perfect idea. 
The author creates this theme of a world where literature is banned.  Those who are caught indulging in the thing we love are not just fined or slapped on the hand, they are executed.  But for the main character, Billy, it is life. 
The way the beginning and middle were written I was having a hard time imagining how the ending was going to play out.  I thought that I wasn't going to like it.  However, Stitch did a great job tying everything together in a little amount of pages. 
The only thing I would have liked a little more information about is the time frame and a little detail about when the novella is taking place.  For me a world without Lit is just unbelievable, so I assumed based on little pieces of information that was dropped, but it wasn't really mentioned.
The novel was short and sweet and I would recommend it to anyone. 

Rowan and Eris- Campbell Jefferys

Urged by a series of postcards, Rowan travels across the world in search of a woman he once had a fling with in New Zealand whom he believes has his child he's never known about.  Uncertain the child exists, or is even his, or where to find this elusive woman of chaos he met over five years ago he packs his bags and with the help of his best friend he goes on his hunt.  While searching for the woman he once knew as Nola, he begins to find himself in pieces along the way.  He has some great adventures, meets some wonderful people and is able to come home with stories some can only dream of. 

My thoughts on the book:
-I get why it's titled Rowan and Eris but at the same time... I question it too.  Rowan is going across the country to find Nola and Eris to make sure she's his and that she's safe, but at the same time the child plays a backseat in most of the novel.  It's not about their journey together, or each of their journeys separately.  It's mostly Rowans story.  When it's not Rowan's its Nola's. 
-Nola.  I hated her character.  She is the exact opposite of the caring and kind man that Rowan is.  Causing chaos in parts of the world she decides to be in, not caring about whether or not people get hurt or where she leaves her child seems to be here drive.  She's a dynamic character, but one that could be easily hated.
-I loved the dynamic between Rowan and his best friend Churchill.  They both seem to lift each other up in so many ways.  Which is contrasting to that of Rowan and Nola.  It was a good relationship to follow. 

Overall, I liked the story line and the idea behind it.  If the characters were any different it wouldn't have worked the way it did.  The way Jefferys was able to weave in a out of characters but still remain in the first person was flawless.  I would recommend it to others.  It's definitely a novel that can build courage and good feelings within the readers.