Mini Reviews - Nov/Dec Books

I have a couple of books left to review which I read in November. Most of them are mysteries because that was the mood so yeah, here's a batch of murdery reads 🔪☕

I have mixed emotions about the third book but mostly, I enjoyed this wild ride and fell in love with all the characters ♥

I'll say the bad things first and keep in mind, this goes ONLY for the third book. The first 2 were 4 star reads for me, no questions. I feel like the whole book had basically the same dialogues/monologues from book one - the whole "will I become like my dad" story. He had some development during book two, so where did all of that go?

The second thing - the main twist was a great one, but some of the things were a bit over the top. This book truly took the gruesome and twisted to a different level, and that's not a good thing in my opinion. It's marketed as YA but I'm not sure I 100% agree with that. It didn't sit well with me. Just because the characters are younger doesn't mean you can write whatever you want and mark it YA.

Those 2 things aside, I still enjoyed reading this. The friendship between the main trio was amazing and I especially loved how Connie and Jasper were more on their own doing kick-ass things in books 2 and 3. The ending gave me a satisfying conclusion and there's even an epilogue that gives us an insight into their futures.

My rating for the series as a whole is:

A quick fun murder mystery that definitely took me by surprise.

I adored Jess and her character development. Everything that happened, and everything she learned made her a better person. A more confident girl with a whole group of supportive people.

The friendships were lovely as well. Just like in real life, sometimes you have to go through hard times to get to know someone better - which is exactly what happened in the book.

While I suspected everyone, I can't say I guessed who it was. The author managed to write the story in such a way that you can't be 100% sure what's going on.

A mind-blowing read that veers on the disturbing side.

There are a lot of emotions and trauma depicted in this book and it sometimes gets a bit dark. Actually, a lot of times 😅 There isn't gore or anything like that, it's the psychological state of someone so broken, so sad...I don't want to spoil anything so I'll stop there.

If you're looking for a shocking character-focused thriller, this is the book for you.

The second book I read in December was The Grandest Game and reading this was the best decision ever! I had a preplanned Autumn TBR and I read most of the books from it but there were still 4 left and I just couldn't find the will to read them. I got out of the "murdery" mood and made a decision to just wing it. I grabbed this one because it's a part of my favorite series, and that is what pulled me from the beginning of a reading slump so yeah, best decision ever 😂

I can't say much about it without spoiling The Inheritance Games so I'll just say that J.L.Barnes gave us a few new characters that I'd die for. I literally loved all of them except Brady...for some reason, he gave me bad vibes from the start 😂

Since this is the first book in a new series, we didn't get many answers but that's okay. I just know whatever Barnes has planned in the sequels will be amazing! 😍

Of course, reading about the Hawthorne brothers and the heiress gave me all the happy feelings I could ask for. There's truly nothing better than going back to a book world you love ❤️