Watching You by Lisa Jewell

Title: Watching You
Author: Lisa Jewell

Publisher: Atria Books
Rating: 📖📖📖📖 / 5

From the book jacket:
"Melville Heights is one of the nicest neighborhoods in Bristol, England, home to doctors and lawyers and old-money academics. It's not the sort of place where people are murdered in their own kitchens. But it is the sort of place where everyone has a secret and prying eyes lurk behind every curtain."

Jewell focuses her book around a group of characters that, to be honest, are all a bit dodgy. You have the flawed female character, Joey, who got married to her husband, Alfie after knowing him for less than a month. They move in with Joey's "perfect" brother Jack and his wife, Rebecca. Then you also have the well-known school head, Tom and his wife Nicola and son Freddie, "the watcher in the window". Finally, you have student Jenna and her mentally troubled mom.

We find out that a gruesome murder has occurred but have little to no context to work with at first. As the story goes one, Jewell reveals details about the murder through police interviews that keep the reader hooked. Jewell does an excellent job of not revealing too many vital details early in the book. I usually find myself figuring out who the perpetrator is too soon and it utterly ruins the book. However, I didn't see this one coming at all until the end. And it was great! The characters are developed in such a way that it is hard to tell who is "good" and who is "bad". EVERYONE is flawed and it is easily believable that any of the characters could be the killer.

Pick this one up if you're looking for a good thriller with a twist you likely will not suspect!


#lisajewell #atriabooks #librarybook #currentlyreading #accordingtomrsmadonna #thriller #mystery #bristol #books #reading

Caraval by Stephanie Garber

Title: Caraval
Author: Stephanie Garber
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Rating: 📖📖📖/ 5

Caraval, the magical isle of deception and fantasy. The only way you can visit is by invite. After many, many letters to Caraval's leader, Legend, Scarlett Dragna has been invited to partake in the adventure of a lifetime! This year the prize for winning Caraval is a wish. The only problem is that Scarlett is to be married in a week to a man she has never seen. Along with her headstrong sister, Donnatella and a stranger whom she just met, Julian, the girls run away from home and their abusive father to finally have an adventure of their own. Soon Scarlett finds out just how easy it is to get swept away in the game as she tries to save her sister from the dangers Caraval poses while at the same time trying not to change entirely herself.

Garber's Caraval is a mixed bag for me. I loved the premise of a magical game where you don't know what is real and what is fantasy. Who doesn't want to get whisked away in a game like that? But on the other hand, Caraval fell short. We have Scarlett who literally will not make a decision or be honest that maybe not everything revolves around Tella, while at the same time she repeatedly says Tella is all that matters. Which is it Scarlett?? I loved Garber's whimsical writing style as it helped create in my mind the world we were traveling through. I do applaud her for this aspect as many authors forsake the imagery for character development. But, frustratingly, I have no idea why Caraval exists or really any backstory to it at all other than that Legend is a scorned lover with a wicked carnival as a result.

It just had so much potential mixed in...why couldn't it follow through??

Anyway, I believe the story is good enough to tell others to read it if they like a light fantasy, but I probably wouldn't recommend it to my heavy fantasy readers due to a lack of substance. I will likely check out the second book at the library just to see if the series gets any better.

#caraval #stephaniegarber #fantasy #carnivals #fantasy #currentlyreading #librarybook #flatironbooks #mrsmadonnareads #accordingtomrsmadonna