Is it possible to start off really enjoying a book, and then slowly like it less and less as you carry on reading?
I started off loving this book! I was so gripped by the premise of a 3-way friendship that would expose secrets and lies about their lives and the pretentious road that they lived on. From the outset I was gripped, and really enjoyed learning about Ruby, Edie and Martha. They seemed to have secrets that haunted them, and, although very different types of people, they started to become friends.
However, from about halfway I started to enjoy this book less and less. I was hoping for proper female friendships that could survive adversity, and book about closeness and depending on each other and overcoming the secrets of their past together. Instead, they barely tolerated each other, and really only viewed each other as friends rather than acquaintances by the end of the novel. They definitely didn’t become the inseparable besties that I pictured!
Also, I started off liking the interweaving story lines, and the way that secrets they carried were linked to each other. However, the number of cross-overs by the novel’s climax was becoming more than farcical and bordering on completely unrealistic! I would have preferred it if some of the secrets involved all three of the women, and left some as being related to only one. And on top of that, the culmination of all the secrets at the height of the novel was undermined by a ridiculous interruption, and I didn’t feel as though it was given enough time. The whole novel had been building to the total unveiling of the streets’ secrets, and it was given only several pages filled with chaos and interruption before they simply moved on and began the conclusion!
There were moments of this book that I found very funny, particularly the farcical element of the streets’ group chat. Within this, pretentious and ridiculous demands such as ‘a walnut cake without walnuts’ and a ‘cheese-less fondue’ were definite eye-roll moments, and I did enjoy the hyperbole of the annoying neighbour. But again this became a bit too repetitive and by the end was overly exaggerated, and I just wanted to skip pages!
I was hugely disappointed by the end of this book, and what started out as being what I thought would become one of my favourite novels of the year ended as one of my least favourites!!
Thank you to @readersfirst for the book in exchange for an honest review.
I started off loving this book! I was so gripped by the premise of a 3-way friendship that would expose secrets and lies about their lives and the pretentious road that they lived on. From the outset I was gripped, and really enjoyed learning about Ruby, Edie and Martha. They seemed to have secrets that haunted them, and, although very different types of people, they started to become friends.
However, from about halfway I started to enjoy this book less and less. I was hoping for proper female friendships that could survive adversity, and book about closeness and depending on each other and overcoming the secrets of their past together. Instead, they barely tolerated each other, and really only viewed each other as friends rather than acquaintances by the end of the novel. They definitely didn’t become the inseparable besties that I pictured!
Also, I started off liking the interweaving story lines, and the way that secrets they carried were linked to each other. However, the number of cross-overs by the novel’s climax was becoming more than farcical and bordering on completely unrealistic! I would have preferred it if some of the secrets involved all three of the women, and left some as being related to only one. And on top of that, the culmination of all the secrets at the height of the novel was undermined by a ridiculous interruption, and I didn’t feel as though it was given enough time. The whole novel had been building to the total unveiling of the streets’ secrets, and it was given only several pages filled with chaos and interruption before they simply moved on and began the conclusion!
There were moments of this book that I found very funny, particularly the farcical element of the streets’ group chat. Within this, pretentious and ridiculous demands such as ‘a walnut cake without walnuts’ and a ‘cheese-less fondue’ were definite eye-roll moments, and I did enjoy the hyperbole of the annoying neighbour. But again this became a bit too repetitive and by the end was overly exaggerated, and I just wanted to skip pages!
I was hugely disappointed by the end of this book, and what started out as being what I thought would become one of my favourite novels of the year ended as one of my least favourites!!
Thank you to @readersfirst for the book in exchange for an honest review.