i didn't find this as engaging as When No One Is Watching, but Alyssa Cole can really write a good thriller. there's so many layers to this that it's almost impossible to talk about without spoiling in some way, but i have to say, it's so refreshing to read a thriller where a character with DID isn't evil. i hate how much of a rarity that is. i've seen in reviews that Cole had a consultant (i wonder if this is stated in the print version? there's no acknowledgements or anything in the audiobook), and if that's true, it absolutely shows. there's a lot of care taken with Ken's character and the alters all feel very realized and nuanced. the plot drags in some places but the pieces slot together for a very satisfying conclusion. the audiobook really enhances the experience!

pretty soon i just need to stop saying "yeah, i'm not much of a 'funny book' sort of guy", cause day by day i am just making myself into a liar.

I WANT TO LIVE IN THE SALEM, MASSACHUSETTS OF THIS BOOK. my wonderful friend @leylines keeps calling this book "suburban ma propaganda" and SHE IS CORRECT (thank you leylines for bringing this book onto my radar). i'm trying to figure out how to describe this book, and all i can think of is a Studio Ghibli movie, but with the silliest plot that you can imagine. and i liked the silly! scratch that, i LOVED the sillly! i did genuinely smile at many sections of this book, because it was just so absurd it rolled (like a head without a body, you could say) right back around to being incredible! Sabby is also SUCH a fun character, she works very well as the one grounded character among sheer chaos. i could very much empathize with her and her desire for normalcy (although i cannot empathize with her desire for a career in accountancy. my dad is an accountant, i've listened to enough accounting stories for multiple lifetimes). my favorite character (forgive my likely butchering of this name, i listened to the audiobook) was easily Boulan, i'm obsessed with that guy and his crow friends. he is perfection.

such a fun book, probably the singular straight romance i'll read this year, and perfect for the beginning of the halloween season (aka, my favorite holiday)🧙‍♀️

apparently everything that’s ever happened is connected and also is because of the catholic church

I went into this book wanting to feel vindicated - instead I got called out. This isn’t the best written book I’ve read, but it’s the type of book I’m begging more authors to write/more publishers to publish! Final Score: 4.25

What Worked Well For Me

It’s a fable and possibly a metafiction I came into this book expecting delicious takedowns on tradwife influences and/or evangelical/high control religions - it wasn’t until after I finished this book that I realized it reads like a fable. Instead of the targets I assumed Burke would be aiming at, I think we were her ultimate targets. My view on this book is that it is a fable about what happens when we refuse to be self-reflective. When performance is the default state, self-reflection is one of the few tools we have to disrupt the status quo.

But the longer I sat with this book, the more it also started to feel like a metafiction to me. The extremes - of the characters, of the situation, of the plot - they are all delivery mechanisms, and the actual themes I took from this book were quietly buried underneath those extremes. Everyone comes into books with their own biases and perceptions, which is why I think this book is so polarizing - we are walking away with completely different ideas on what this book was or what it tried to be. Some people find this book to be completely nonsensical with the extreme caricatures and ludicrous plot, others walk away feeling satisfied because they got the vindication they were hoping for. So in some ways, I think the reception of this book is doing the exact thing the book is about.

I have no idea if Burke had any intent of writing a metafiction - I feel like you can’t really know how a book is going to land until you publish it, but I find the polarized reception of the book to be very interesting with the themes I ultimately took from this book.

Natalie’s Voice Burke does something with the POV that I devoured: Natalie speaks in Instagram captions, but more damningly, she thinks in them. Her entire interior life IS a caricature even to herself, and she knows it. She’s smart, she’s self-aware, and she’s still trapped, because self-awareness without vulnerability doesn’t get you anywhere. Being vulnerable would require being brave, and Natalie is not a brave person.

I grew up evangelical, but deconstructed about 20 years ago, so I’m not religious, but I would argue Natalie isn’t either. Watching her perform faith with the same muscle she uses to perform everything else in her fake life was one of my favorite parts of this book. As someone who grew up in a (much less intense) religious environment - Natalie’s religious hypocrisy landed hard for me. Of course, not every Christian is like Natalie in this sense, but I do know some Christians who are Christian as a public performance only - even if they don’t seem to realize it themselves.

Burke was shining a light on my shadows and I almost didn’t post this review because I’m ashamed and scared of how I’ll be received/perceived after this This is the actual reason I love this book, so I’m going to be honest about this because I feel like this was the challenge Burke handed me with this book.

If you know me in real life, or even if you’ve just seen me on this platform, I hope you didn’t read Natalie and immediately think of me. In many ways, I think I’m the antithesis of Natalie. I’m not interested in aesthetics. I have pretty low self-esteem and default to seeing my flaws instead of my strengths. I have issues with being perceived at all which causes me a lot of anxiety about how I’m perceived so much so I’d quit social media entirely for several years before I found Pagebound, because the performative nature of it brought me nothing but stress. I’m proud of having deconstructed from my evangelical upbringing and I’m child-free by choice. I do my best to be open to hearing other’s points of views and truly consider them. I do my best to be kind and empathetic, but this book highlighted all the ways I’m not living up to my own ideals.

I came into this book knowing almost nothing except that it was about a tradwife influencer who has to face reality and, I hoped, she would get her comeuppance. People in my inner circle have been harmed by the Natalies of this world and I was excited to feel justified in my anger towards them.

Then Burke handed me this in the opening pages of the book: Natalie doesn’t see her employees as full human beings. She sees a producer, a nanny, or any other label she assigns them that suits/benefits her. Isn’t that exactly how I view real life tradwife influencers too? I don’t see them as fully realized people. I don’t see their backstories or how they got to this point. I see what they portray online and I build my own perceptions on top of to suit my own views of the world.

I thought I had learned to face my Jungian shadows, but this book showed me that I still have a lot of work to do. Being locked in Natalie’s head while she does things I would never do forced me to examine the ways that I was thinking about HER. I assumed, before this book, that I am 100% smarter than a tradwife influencer, because I clearly know better. My way is good and right, and her way is wrong. Which is precisely what Natalie thinks about everyone else too.

I do want to be clear there are things that Natalie does in this book that I could not defend under any circumstance and I’m not trying to. But there are aspects of Natalie that I’m ashamed to admit that I saw myself in her and clearly needed to be called out on, because I was called the fuck out.

There was also a thread running through this whole book around labeling - what happens when you take on a label you’ve assigned yourself versus what happens when someone assigns a label to you that you don’t agree with or assigns their own perceptions to the label you chose. It’s much easier to have empathy for a person who’s been mislabeled by others - we know what it’s like to be perceived incorrectly ourselves. It’s much harder when they picked the label themselves because they believed it would benefit them and made me realize that I have not been as empathetic as I believe myself to be. There’s also a question the book asks early on that I’ve been turning over ever since: is it a choice, if there’s only one option. That single line started to reframe how I think about choice feminism and kickstarted the somewhat painful journey this book took me on.

The Vagueness and Ambiguity I’m not going to go into details here, because I don’t want to run into the risk of spoilers. But one of the things I LOVED about this book was the questions that get raised from different people’s perceptions of this book and I love that Burke didn’t try to spoonfeed us with her answers to those questions. In many ways it felt like Burke was trying to navigate these complicated and nuanced concepts/situations right alongside me and I appreciated her vulnerability in at least coming across like she doesn’t know the answers either, but she thinks these issues are important discussions to be had. And I definitely agree there.

Where It Fell Short For Me

While I found this book to be pretty solid overall, particularly for a debut, but I can’t ignore some of the craft issues in this book. I’m incredibly excited to see where Burke goes/grows as a writer though!

The plot holes - I’m not a plot driven reader, so this doesn’t wreck anything for me, but they’re noticeable particularly after you finish reading the book and start to mentally work through it all.

The characters are extreme, stereotypical, and can read as flat - For my interpretation of the book, the caricatur-ization (yes, this is a made up word but hopefully you get what I mean) was intentional and was a useful tool because they are elements for a fable. However if I’d come at this book as I think I usually would, as a character-driven reader in particular, this could have bothered me a lot and I fully understand why people will bounce off these characters hard because it doesn’t land for them. In another book, this would have killed the book for me, but looking at this book from a satirical/fable lens it worked here (for me).

Some things near the end didn’t land for me on the page - I made peace with a few of them and others I understand, even if I don’t agree with the choice Burke made. But the issues I did make peace with happened when I was writing mini-essays on my thoughts about this book, not while reading. To be fair, I have no idea how Burke could have “fixed” some of these issues, but that’s why I’m just the reader.

The pacing - Particularly at the end felt very uneven.

The satire gets pretty heavy-handed at points - I felt it the most in the 1855 sections.

The names - Even with tandem reading this closely, I had to work really hard to try and keep the names straight across dual timelines and honestly, I’m still not confident that I kept them all straight. I know it was intentional, but it was kind of annoying for me.

Natalie’s POV is uncomfortable - While ultimately this friction was a good thing for me, I did NOT love being in her POV particularly as she makes some decisions I couldn’t fathom making myself.

Audiobook Experience

The english narrator was Rebecca Lowman and I truly believe this was a match made in heaven! (pun intended) Lowman absolutely nailed the influencer speech pattern where there was a good balance of it being a performance while also being Natalie’s default state. When I’m tandem reading, I usually have to increase the audiobook speed to align with my natural eyeball reading pace, but Lowman did such an excellent job I didn’t want to speed things up. So even though I read this book at a slower pace overall, I think Lowman’s narration improved the book’s pacing for me.

While the audiobook is fantastic there are some things that are easier to understand via text. Burke does things with punctuation and capitalization that are explained, but more impactful when you can see them.

As a small critique, there were some stretches of untagged dialogue where I had trouble telling Natalie apart from her sister. I don’t think that’s truly the narrators fault, more so a bad combination of untagged dialogue and characters who should sound somewhat similar.

Final Thoughts, Opinions & Recommendations

I have been really dragging my feet on posting any of my thoughts on this book because I’m really nervous about some of the things I have to say about this book, specifically the fact that I do have some empathy and sympathy for Natalie. If you absolutely despise Natalie, trust me, I’m right there with you! Knowing what she does in this book I fully understand people not having empathy or sympathy for her and I’m not asking for anyone to feel differently. But I’m also not going to pretend that I don’t have some empathy about how she got here. And I do hold her responsible at a certain point - I loved that Burke showed us so many different paths that Natalie could have taken along the way versus what she chose and the themes behind her choices.

The bigger thing I’ve been sitting with is that I’ve spent years casting judgment on women like Natalie, which makes me not so different from her in a way I had chosen to not examine before this book. Part of me is nervous that saying any of this publicly will come across negatively and that people will think less of me for admitting this. That fear is, itself, an extremely Natalie thing to be worried about, which is why I’m attempting to accept the challenge I think Burke handed to me with this book.

My thoughts on the reception/discussion of this book I try to avoid discourse around books until I have settled on my final thoughts and written my own review. However, even with trying to avoid the commentary on Yesteryear, it felt impossible. So the takes I’ve seen from headlines and YouTube titles are most likely at the extreme ends which is why I keep landing on the metafiction reading.

There is one critique I have seen in headlines that I want to share my thoughts on - that there is no social commentary found in this book. I do see where people are coming from, but the social commentary I found wasn’t in the places I assumed I should be looking when I started this book. I think the commentary was very quiet and maybe intentionally easy to miss under the flashy extremes laid out in this book and, while I found this book ultimately rewarding, there was a cost to digging into the social commentary underneath because I had to truly face some things about myself that I didn’t love. For readers who were already not enjoying this book, I think it would be really unreasonable to expect them to dig for the commentary I found particularly if they might feel called about it like I did.

I’ll also say it feels really strange to have a kind of “middle of the road” take on a polarizing book. I really do see/understand aspects of both camps, so I can see some people agreeing with aspects of my review and I can see other people being baffled on why I spent so much time writing about this book both in this lengthy review and closing in on 50,000 words of mini-essays from this book (no, that’s not an exaggeration - I’m not kidding when I said this book gave me a lot to chew on). I also don’t know if I have fully fleshed out my “final” thoughts on this book. I think when I re-read this book in the future I’ll have even more things to say and I might change my mind on things now that I can actually jump into the discourse about this book.

You Might Like This If you love ambiguity in books, like satire, social commentary, and digging deep into thematic elements. If you enjoy unlikable characters - Natalie is one of the most unlikable characters I’ve read (and I’ve read American Psycho...). I will also say I think this book will be so much better if you have people you can discuss it with - a huge reason why I was spending hours on end writing mini essays was because I didn’t have people to talk about it yet. I think this book would be a GREAT pick for a bookclub because having more people with different backgrounds and perceptions would make for very interesting conversations!

You Might NOT Like This If you can’t stand 1st person POV of an unlikable protagonist - Natalie’s POV is one of the most uncomfortable POVs I’ve been in and I fully understand not wanting to read an entire book from her POV. If some debut author craft issues including plot holes, satirical extremes of characters and on the nose satire would ruin a book for you, you might not like this as much as I did. If you like books with clean, clear themes, personally, I don’t think you are going to find them here. From what I’ve seen so far, people have wildly different perceptions of the themes and how they land.

My thanks to my local public library for having the audiobook available - the wait was well worth it for me! GO SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL PUBLIC LIBRARY!! WE ARE LUCKY TO HAVE THEM! Also my thanks to ME for spending my own cold hard cash so I could have a physical copy to tandem read.

TL;DR

Would I Recommend it? Yes, with caveats. Check the content warnings - there’s a surprisingly high amount of them - and then go in being prepared to be uncomfortable. Would I Reread it? 100000% Yes, I’m already looking forward to it! Would I Read More From This Author? 100000% Yes, I’m already looking forward to it! Series Information: True Standalone

Star Score Breakdown

Personal Enjoyment: 5 (if I could give this more points, I would!) Overall Execution: 4 Craft & Writing Quality: 4 Characters: 4.25 Plot: 4 Final Score: 4.25

I’ve been describing the book as Winnie the Pooh but for adults (and with murder). It had all the ingredients for a cozy delight - I just couldn’t get the world to add up long enough to fully enjoy it. Final Score: 2.5

What Worked Well For Me

Vera Vixen, our protagonist, carried this book for me! She read as a genuinely good novice investigative journalist - logical, driven, and refreshingly resistant to the town’s rush to point their fingers at easy targets. She definitely gets the most page time, but I would have loved to get to know her even more. Since this is a series opener this isn’t a knock - I expect to get to know her more as things go on, if I keep reading.

There were some clever touches throughout the book, my favorite being the little winks at the audience like when they refer to real books in our world as “fantasy books”. And I do really like the underlying idea of the town itself: cozy, whimsical, full of fun relationships that I’m curious to see develop further. The mystery’s clues do add up, so if you are the type of reader who likes to solve the mystery alongside the protagonist you definitely can, but if you just want to sit back and enjoy the story you don’t feel blindsided by a random solution. A very good win-win scenario in my book for a cozy murder mystery!

Where It Fell Short For Me

I’ll own upfront that I’m the kind of reader who can’t not try to solve a mystery, cozy or otherwise - so some of this critique is very much a me problem. But even accounting for that, a few things didn’t work for me here.

The worldbuilding immersion is what I was looking forward to the most because I really love the idea, but it became my biggest issue. I’m normally happy to handwave a lot for a good story - for example, I have no issues with a mouse hauling objects that are described as large and heavy across town - Maybe there’s a cart or maybe in this world mice are super strong. That’s fine. But then others I just couldn’t shake - specifically the coffee shop being run by a moose. Do y’all know how big moose are??? I just can’t see how he isn’t spilling coffee left and right and breaking every cup in the shop. Yes, this is a silly critique for a cozy, anthropomorphic book, but there are so many scenes in the coffee shop and each time I just couldn’t stop thinking about the logistics of a giant moose serving coffee. It just kept ripping out of any possible immersion - but I do love Joe the moose as a character!

While I like the idea of the characters and their relationships, I really struggled with the stereotyped choices for the characters. Maybe I just need to touch grass for some of them, but even so, I felt like the characters leaned a little too heavily on tired tropes.

The prose was an odd mix, too - I stumbled on a lot of simple, but clunky sentences, but then they were paired right next to a sentence with a $5 vocab word, some of which didn’t seem to be used correctly. For a cozy book that otherwise reads pretty simply, it was a strange combo. There were also a couple of continuity slips, usually not the biggest deal but since several were specifically about the evidence, it really annoyed me.

I had other issues with the mystery mechanics here: I picked up on the tells the writing gave me which let me identify the culprit very, very early in the book, which felt more like sloppy construction than a fair clue. The red herrings largely didn’t land for me either; a lot of them felt more annoying than misdirecting.

Ultimately, the reveal landed a bit flat for me - though that may partly be because I’d called the killer early on, so take this with a big grain of salt.

Overall, if you are just here for a cozy, fun time and you don’t want to solve the mystery, I think you can disregard most of my critiques. If you like to solve the mystery along the way too, I don’t think this is a terrible book, but you might find yourself a bit frustrated with it like me.

Final Thoughts, Opinions & Recommendations

Even though I’m rather critical of this book, I definitely see why this book could have very wide appeal - it’s easy, cozy, whimsical, and I can absolutely see it working well for someone looking for a low-stakes, cute read where you get to enjoy the ride. It just wasn’t the right fit for my brain since I can’t stop myself from trying to solve a puzzle if it’s in front of me.

I have already picked up the next two books from the library in this series, so I’m going to go ahead and start the next book in the series since I am curious about how the relationships between the townsfolk will develop and I’m curious to see if some of the mystery mechanics come together after the series opener. But if I had to go out of my way to get the next book in the series, I don’t know if I would continue with the series personally. I definitely didn’t hate this book by any means, but life is too short and my TBR is too long to read books I’m not super super eager to read.

My thanks to my local public library for having the first three books in the series available immediately!! GO SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL PUBLIC LIBRARY! We are lucky to have them!

TL;DR

Would I Recommend it? Yes - if you are looking for a cozy, whimsical, low-stakes mystery. Meh - if you would get frustrated with kinda sloppy mystery mechanics. Would I Reread it? Nah Would I Continue the Series/Read More From This Author? I’m going to give book 2 a shot since I already picked it up from the library, otherwise it would be a toss up for me. I didn’t hate it, I’m curious about where it goes, but since I didn’t love it I don’t know if I would go out of my way to continue the series. Series Information: Book 1 out of 6 main books and I believe this series is complete!

Star Score Breakdown

Personal Enjoyment: 2.5 Overall Execution: 2.5 Craft & Writing Quality: 2 Characters: 3 Plot: 2.5 Final Score: 2.5

When a book opens with an authors note about how this is a work of fiction about animals and to not get hung up on it I expect to have to overlook things like how a snake medical examiner could draw blood samples, not misogyny and racism.

What is the point of creating a whimsical animal world if you're going to keep the hallmarks of problematic human society? Incompetent police? Multiple husbands/fathers that view their families as something to escape and avoid? Prejudice against certain species? Not to mention the WILD anti-Asian racism against the panda restaurateur, and our MC female reporter having the last name "Vixen" so that people get to call her a vixen, constantly.

I just don't get it. Like, why? If we were making commentary or subverting tropes, sure, great. But it really didn't feel like we were. It really just felt like the author spent no time contemplating the ramifications of leaning so heavily on stereotypes and tropes, or maybe considered just enough to inspire a "he he, don't take it seriously!" opening note.

I wanted to love this, and I was totally bought in for the first while, but it quickly dissolved into obnoxious trope after offensive stereotype, on repeat. Such a bummer.

Luckily my library hold for book 2 has a bit of a wait so I have time to contemplate if continuing is worth it. Let me know if you've read book 2 and it gets better?