Hannah

I wanted to like this book so much. I read the previous reviews, and was excited to read it. But this book has some serious problems. As mentioned in the title of this review, the first two pages of the book are solid. They set up for a story of humor like that of Lemony Snicket, with interesting characters and a quirky lifestyle. Then the story switches to first person, and everything goes wrong with the story.

I don't think that this book deserves the effort of writing full paragraphs to explain everything that made it a chore to finish, so I'll make a list. Otherwise, this might digress into rants about individual scenes that made me roll my eyes and audibly groan.

- Weird and chaotic things happen in this book, and since passersby never seem to have a reaction to them, the readers are led to believe that things like cars blowing up and people carrying grenade launchers on their back are normal. It's never stated or implied, but given the situations, the reader has no choice but to assume. Then, later, it is revealed that the things that happened would be the same as if they happened in present-day Chicago (due to the protagonist worrying about the fallouts of his actions). There is no continuity in the written universe about whether explosions and deaths are taken lightly or otherwise.
- The author attempts to shove every joke of which he thought into the book. I imagine that every joke that he thought of was included, and it really over-done. Some scenes would be funny without the parenthetical thought processes that are supposed to add humor that ruin the train of thought. If the author had not switched to first person, then it could have worked (like it did in the prologue), but with us reading into the mind of the character, it ruined the actual humor.
- The tone of the character is unclear throughout the entire book. The detective is written like a twenty-two year old college kid, but talks about past marriages and careers like he is supposed to be a grizzled fifty year old. Nothing about the character is grizzled, but the author tried really hard to convince us that the detective is seasoned, without ever succeeding.
- Characters make zero sense. There is no natural progression of characterization. The author simply puts feelings where he wants them, and doesn't lead them there. There is a girl whom he meet hours previously that he not only talks about flirting (which is fine, and even expected), but starts talking about “loving looks” between a mother and a father.
- Treats the rape of mentally autistic character as a gag point for two other characters. It treats the autistic person with zero nuance at all, and it very over the line of offensive.
- At one point, literally every single time a car starts, the detective gushes about how much he loves his car. It's an odd relationship to say the least, and nothing ever comes from it. There is never a point. I kept expecting it to simply be overdone foreshadowing, but it's not.
- “P.I. Sense” is just code for “I'm too lazy to actually come up with a reason or story for this, so I'll figure out this impossible task with ‘PI sense'“
- The author tries to have so many strings that all connect into one web, but fails to make them connect in any way other than to say that they connect.

Overall, I cannot recommend this book. The premise is interesting, but the execution failed, and the poor writing and scattered characters just made the whole thing a mess.

This would have been a solid 3.5 if not for all the unnecessary rape and sexualization of teenage girls. At best, it's dated and stale (it was weird when King did it in the 70s-80s, and it's weird when people still insist on it), and at worst, it's misogynistic. And given that it happened multiple times in this book, it's far closer to the latter category.

Unbelievably tired of and annoyed at Alizeh doing nothing but gasping, crying, complaining every choice is a forced one, and generally being wholly without a spine. She's literally got supernatural abilities, yet she's always so frail that she lacks the power to make any choice for herself. Any amount of stress at all, and she must collapse into literally any man's chest for protection. constantly frozen into place, she's nothing more than a soggy piece of blank paper.

The first book was honestly great and it was easy to understand the predicament of the main female character to put aside her fraught nature. This book is 50% Alizeh being pathetic and thinking that's 50% too much time spent with her when the two kings are infinitely more interesting.

Honestly, the first third of this book is just the main character driving around with her toddler and talking about how poorly behaved he is, while also talking about how good of a white woman she herself is. The White Savior stuff is pretty annoying, and if the book wasn't so flat-out boring, I probably would have at least finished it, but reading about nothing happening and then having the main character annoyingly brag about how not-racist she is all the time just made it not enjoyable at all

Could do without the main character's not-like-other-girls misogyny, entitlement, and whininess, but outside of her being a pathetic 30 year old who still fawns over people she crushed on in high school and judges other women for not being weird prudes, the story moves quickly and is entertaining enough. However, this is not a book where the main character is intelligent or useful or even plucky, so don't expect anything other than a moron stumbling into solving the crime purely because the plot/end of the book called for solving the crime.

I was very surprised how much I disliked this book, considering I generally really enjoy the category of warm and nice people doing things together.

for a group of people whose job it is to help people accept their death and move along on their journey, most of the group has no patience for people who don't immediately accept their death. If someone is scared, confused, and in pain BECAUSE THEY'RE DEAD, it's not a mark of a kickass woman to threaten and mock them. It's cruel. I was hoping for there to be some sort of growth from that character, but, nope, Mei's perfect and she's a badass because she refuses to show any patience towards people processing their emotions. So, if you're annoyed or confused by her dismissive behavior at the beginning, give up: it's not going to improve ever.

Can a book about death be funny and kitschy? Yes. But not this book. It's mostly just shallow. It lacks any emotional depth or growth. Character's just change into the character the author wants them to be.

- If you work a job that refuses you a life outside of it, but you ‘feel good' about it, does that make it better than working an all-consuming job that only gives you money? according to Klune: yes. but both are just exploiting you, honestly.

- if you are extremely lonely (because of your job), and you meet someone else who is equally lonely (because of their job), and you fall in love with them because their whole job is to pay attention to you, is that true love, or just a sad attachment syndrome? to Klune? true, pathetic love. to most others? well, it's a sign to not settle for the first person who has shown you attention.

If you want an easy, mindless read that builds up suspense, this book is for you! It's not great, it's got a lot of issues (and far too many coincidences to tolerate), and all the build-up fizzles out to nothing, but it's entertaining, and sometimes that's all we need.

I just need to vent that the Hannah/Charlie storyline is absolutely useless to the story, and the book would have been better without them.

This book is not good. It has good portions, but, overall, it desperately needs a better editor with a chainsaw and a friend who can tell the author that she's not nearly as clever as she thinks she is.

There are two timelines of the book: old and new.
The old timeline is best, and most neglected, section of the book. But it builds and then fizzles, so another disappointment.

The new timeline is, uh, not good. It doesn't even build; it's just disappointing the whole way. Sixty percent of it is absolutely useless that leads nowhere. You'd think it'd be groundwork for character development, but nope! Turns out none of the named people are actual characters anyway. One character, Harper, has one personality trait: being cool. Another, Merritt, has one personality trait: insufferable (like if Tumblr was a person, and not in a good way). The last, Audrey, is simply there. But we're supposed to believe that any character cares about any of the other? Like, I can see where Danforth TRIES to show chemistry between characters, but she ends up writing the most soulless, bland conversation. Like, saying the words, “they were flirting,” does not actually mean that they were flirting if it sounds like two omega simulators were talking.

And the author has an annoying habit of just having characters say things that the author wants to be, rather than them actually be true. Having two actors get together to gauge chemistry isn't weird. It happens all the time. But you have a character say “this is weird,” presumably to set some sort of mood, but it's factually not true, and you just leave it for the reader to blindly believe. Like, Emily, you just overwrote this book by 400 pages! You can't add in one paragraph to explain why something is weird, rather than just say “this is weird”?

The book was ultimately fine. Fast-paced, quick read. But the first 60% was annoying to read, to be honest, purely based on the writing of the main character. The whole thing is a male fantasy where miraculous, beautiful, wealthy women inexplicably falling in love with him despite being a stranger, total mess with nothing to offer, and his hot Filipino co-worker also was in love with him for no reason, and also his vaguely Asian therapist is super sexy and sensual. Sure. Were any of these women actual characters past their use of being temptresses, wholesome dead wives, or mysterious vixens? Nope.

A very sweet book that I read quickly and enjoyed most every minute of. For my taste, it was definitely a little too on the nose for its message, but, honestly, it just felt so earnest, it's hard to hold it against it. I will say the weight of some of the “reveals” didn't really land, because of all the things that were over-explained in this book, the reason why some things were important in the fantasy world weren't explained at all.

One of my most common complaints in books are relationships that feel un- or underdeveloped, and I did feel that annoyance in this book, but the story was so much more about family rather than romance, so, again, I ended up not really caring by the end.

One thing, though, and I'm not sure if it just means I'm old and remember too many things, but some passages in this book felt like they were ripped straight from other sources. The description of Arthur's face, down to the crooked nose, was beat-by-beat the original Dumbledore description. A silly scene was nearly word-for-word a scene from Lilo & Stitch; even the italics were in the same spot! It was kind of jarring to be taken out of this story because I was instantly transported into another one.

Despite its flaws, I really enjoyed this book! It was weird in an absurd way, it was funny, but most importantly, it was really understandable. There are characters who aren't good people, but they know who they are and what they want, and I respect that they weren't forced to go through some sort of dramatic growth arc. The main character is kind of a mess. She gave up on her goals after a road block, and became a cycle of self-loathing. She was smart but also stunted and

I don't think that this book was flawless, and I can easily see why some readers would feel unsatisfied. The ending was pretty rushed and left you wanting more of a conclusion (please don't get stuck in this dumb valley town!), all of the emotional development was basically two sentences long, and a lot of character's decisions didn't really make sense. But the story was fun and quick, and I'd recommend it.

Imagine all the most annoying parts of the internet. People who make their entire personality out of liking one thing. People who care as much about owning books as they do reading them. Kitschy planners that are only for aesthetics. People defending gentrification, making a lot of broad ill-informed references to Africa, precocious children, and people only referring to gay men as ‘fabulous.' Put all those things together, and you have The Bookish Life of Nina Hill! This book takes place in an aggressively white version of Los Angeles and features a character with all of the quirky features of mental health disorders, but none of the downsides (unless you count her daintily fainting from a panic attack).

Past the author trying to fit in every heavily-marketed introvert trope, there's not much to this book. A poorly developed relationship where two people are attracted to each other and then fall in love after like 2 stilted conversations, a confusing lack of understanding that trivia isn't genetic, and people adopting the word family very quickly. The story was easy-going enough that I didn't hate it, but I certainly didn't like it.

It was a quick read, and I don't have any huge complaints about it. Usually stories that try to intertwine too many characters annoy me (ahem Anxious People), but I thought it wasn't forced and worked for the book. Someone could make a decent argument that there isn't a lot to differentiate any of the characters' personalities, and the author was a little heavy-handed at times instead of letting the reader make their own connections and conclusions, but honestly I didn't find myself holding it against the story.

3.5/5, would definitely recommend if you aren't looking for something light-hearted. It's not nearly as bleak as The Road but more of a downer than, say, Zombieland. Maybe on par with World War Z (the novel), but more personal characters.

It was just okay, but pleasant enough to not be bad. It was pretty predictable and so incredibly on the nose and literal that I had to double check it wasn't for primary school children. But the acknowledgement mentioned it was written during the early stages of the COVID pandemic, so I can understand why it was deliberately cloying, even if that style isn't for me.