Quickfire Reviews is a thing I do very sporadically when there are books to talk about that I should have reviewed but haven’t. Sometimes I didn’t like these books enough to want to review them; sometimes I loved them but time got away from me; and sometimes, less is just more. I’m trying to do it semi-regularly as a feature but please don’t hold your breath for the next one because I am rubbish. Here we have three books which I think I read as far back as last October. Oh my goodness.
What’s
it About? It’s a detective novel by the guy who I only knew from the Lincoln Lawyer series (although I have
had his Harry Bosch books on my Kindle for a while). This is a Harry Bosch novel, but it also features a new detective: Renee
Ballard. Harry and Renee team up to solve a cold case – that of the murder of a
15 year old girl.
What I
liked I
liked it a lot, actually: I love a good police procedural and this ticked a lot
of boxes for me. It’s twisty and turny and the story keeps you turning the
pages. The balance between the police case-solving stuff and the getting to
know the characters stuff is just right. I love Harry and Renee both separately
and as a team. It’s a good, easy, perfectly tense read.
What I
liked Less I think, honestly, that I would have benefitted from having
read the Harry Bosch novels before coming to this. It does work as a
standalone, but, in terms of characterisation, I think that in places I’d have
gotten more out of it for knowing the back story. That’s my fault though, obviously.
Also, as a fan of my bed I wonder why nobody in this book ever sleeps and I feel sad for Renee’s dog,
which is in day care all of the time
What’s
it About? Flora has anterograde amnesia. She can't
remember anything day-to-day: the joke her friend made, the instructions her
parents gave her, how old she is.
Then she kisses someone she shouldn't, and the next day she remembers it. It's the first time she's remembered anything since she was ten.
But the boy is gone. She thinks he's moved to the Arctic.
Will following him be the key to unlocking her memory? Who can she trust?
Then she kisses someone she shouldn't, and the next day she remembers it. It's the first time she's remembered anything since she was ten.
But the boy is gone. She thinks he's moved to the Arctic.
Will following him be the key to unlocking her memory? Who can she trust?
What I
liked I
flew through this book – I think I read it in a day – which is always a good
sign. It’s a clever twist on the Never
Been Kissed trope, which, I love that movie, and a really interesting look
at amnesia. There are excellent plot
twists and Flora is lovely and her
friendship with her bestie Paige warmed my heart and there were parts in the
Artic which were lots of fun.
What I
liked Less I wasn’t much of fan of the fact that the one thing she
remember is kissing a boy, like kissing a boy has started to fix her. Yak. And that whole romance
story dod not do it for me anyway which is a shame since that’ what the book was about. Whoops. Also – so much repetition, obviously,
but still it was a lot and a lot of it felt massively unrealistic to me.
What’s
it About? A super accessible sex and relationships guide from You
Tuber Hannah Witton
What I
liked I love
Hannah Witton. I want t be her friend. Her You Tube channel is one of my faves –
she’s so funny and genuine and wise and I wish her channel had been around
15-20 years ago when I am certain I would have massively benefited from it. I
loved that Hannah narrated the book herself, because it felt like a catch up with
a good friend. It’s clever and informative and important but never preachy and
talks frankly about sex and masturbation and slut shaming and All That Stuff
that teenager want to know about but don’t always want to ask about. I feel
like it should be on the curriculum.
What I
liked Less It could maybe have gone a little deeper – it touched the
surface of most things, but I would have liked a little more depth sometimes. Mostly
though, I just really liked it.
