i read this at the poetry foundation library and had a very nice time, but very little from this book has stayed with me for any length of time. this was well written, but just a little bit oblique for me.

overall, i found this book disappointing. none of the characters were very distinct, the detective was deeply unpleasant, and the main character's motives seemed very wishy washy, and overall i was bored for the vast majority of the book. the ultimate twist was interesting, but unfortunately, it just came too late in the game to redeem the book for me.

i find these books very entertaining, but not very memorable. i think a big part of that is how convoluted the plot lines become in a way that is so over the top and campy and requires a large suspension of disbelief. even as it's fun in the moment, its difficult to keep track of what's happening, and thus becomes a sort of confused soup in my brain almost as soon as i've finished reading it. if there are more books in this series, which it seems like there will be based off of the ending, i don't know that i will pick them up because, frankly, i just don't care.

i've read a couple tradwife thrillers, and though i expected this one to be more literary, i didn't necessarily expect it to be significantly better. having read it, i would call it a horror satire, and i was very pleasantly surprised. i wouldn't say it was an enjoyable read, but i think it was a particularly well done one. specifically, though i hated natalie and found her actions unforgivable, i was also able to have empathy for her existence as a woman and mother under american capitalism. i don't know that i would have understood or appreciated this book as much i did before i took a class on marxism this most recent quarter. there are so many parts of this book that i would love to dig into, discuss, and think about, and that is one of my favorite things to come away from a book with. i think the pacing in the last third of the book was slightly rushed, but other than that, i thought it was well-written, provocative, smart, and compelling.

this book was so much fun! i loved the real corporate hellscape setting, it was such a fun, albeit on the nose, commentary on the workplace. i adored luke and giselle. morgan's hopes and dreams, her relationship with her family, etc. were all so relatable and well explored, balancing despair with a quiet hope. i really liked the way morgan's relationship with her mother was resolved, my only complaint was that the end felt a bit rushed, and i think there was space to dig into it a bit more. this was my first caitlin rozakis, but i will definitely be reading the rest of work asap.

this book was fun! i loved kendal's daughter and best friend, they were great secondary characters. however, the overall shape of the plot was a little hard to follow, aside from rico's amoral capitalism. it is also unclear whether this is to be a series—if so, some of the pieces make more sense. otherwise, it feels like a lot of characters were introduced for no reason and without being given their due page space. this book was relatively short, and i actually think it could be longer; the ultimate confrontation was very quick and easily resolved, and there was just too much happening for the length of the book.

the appeal is one of my favorite books of all time, and this sequel absolutely lived up to the hype. i have read the appeal so many times i can't yet say which one i prefer—i think i prefer the resolution in the first one, but the lead up in this one. characters from the first book returned very compellingly, and some newer ones from the christmas novella got further developed. seeing them do an agatha christie, especially one i am pretty familiar with, was really fun. i love femi and charlotte as an investigative team, and hearing them go back and forth about what we've also just read is one of my favorite things about these books; i hope we get to see them return to continue working with cases following the fairway players. MILD SPOILERS: i'm worried about tanner :(. also i still have some lingering questions about the first book: are kel and claudia still together (once a cheater, always a cheater), what happened to the haywards, etc. that would have been fun to have seen answered, but i also don't feel they're necessary. i will read anything janice hallett ever puts out, i absolutely adore her work.

i have been reading this series as each book comes out, and consequently i found the second book hard—i couldn't remember enough of what happened in the first book for how relevant it was to the second. this one, however, was less directly connected in a way that made it far easier to go into a year after reading the previous one. i really enjoyed the development of annie's relationships, i enjoyed frances' chapters more than i feel i have in the past, and this was the first time i finished one of these books genuinely disappointed i have to wait so long for the next one.

i was intrigued by the premise of this book, and i enjoyed the clichey book club mom characters. however, i was largely unsatisfied with the ending. it felt like this wrapped up way too neatly—the murderer was who i felt was the most obvious person, and none of many different lots really seem to come to fruition, meaning the book copped out of a lot of the conflict it could have had. the last reveal, in the epilogue, was interesting, but at that point it was sort of too little, too late.