This book was way too long and had way too much family drama in it. Billed as a "thriller" about a TV writer (Yara) who goes home to Palmdale, California to host her parents' anniversary party. While there an acquaintance tells Yara that she has important information about Yara's family, but Yara blows her off and then the acquaintance ends up dead. Commence with the amateur sleuthing.

Except the amateur sleuthing and "thrills" (if anything in this book could be considered thriller) took a backseat to the family drama. Yara doesn't want to go home because she has family issues. Yara's sister is a deadbeat. Yara's mom took out loans in Yara's name and they argue about whether or not that was okay and who is misremembering the situation. Yara complains constantly about hosting this party and all the money she's spending on it. The reason Yara never met up with the acquaintance who had important information? Because Yara was too busy bitching about why this person would text her cryptically in the first place and rather than confronting the issue, she just keeps wondering until the person turns up dead.

On top of that, the book is written with a lot of slang and "hip" lingo which felt more like the author trying really hard to be relevant rather than how these characters would actually talk to one another. I ended up skimming the last 50% of the book because the first 50% was so tedious to read. Oh, and the book has multiple POVs (because of course it does), but all the POVs are in the first person and there's nothing in a chapter (no headings, no setting, nothing) to explain when we switch... and they don't alternate on a regular schedule so the reader is left to basically read several paragraphs into a chapter then go, "Wait, who am I following along with now?" Then go back and read again for context clues.

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Created Apr 06, 2024 at 12:38pm • Submit your own review...