A Love Letter to Whiskey - Kandi Steiner Review

 

“It’s crazy how fast the buzz comes back after you’ve been sober for so long.
Whiskey stood there, on my doorstep, just like he had one year before. Except this time, there was no rain, no anger, no wedding invitation — it was just us.
It was just him — the old friend, the easy smile, the twisted solace wrapped in a glittering bottle.
It was just me — the alcoholic, pretending like I didn’t want to taste him, realizing too quickly that months of being clean didn’t make me crave him any less.
But we can’t start here. No, to tell this story right, we need to go back. Back to the beginning.
Back to the very first drop. This is my love letter to Whiskey. I only hope he reads it”

I’m so happy that I’ve finally got round to reading this; I’ve seen loads of booktubers and goodreads users rave about this book so I’ve been dying to get my hands on it and read it.

This follows the story of Brecks or ”B” and Jamie and begins with them in high school and follows them through their lives until they’re 30 years old. Even though you’re following them both through such a long period, the pacing was great; it didn’t feel like anything was missed or skipped over too quickly and it really felt like you had the whole story by the end of the book which is pretty impressive considering the time span.

It’s my first book from Kandi Steiner and it has only made me want to read more. Her writing was magical and flowed so well. I wasn’t bored at any point and it was just a great, fast, emotional read. I wanted to throw the book against a wall and tear it apart and then pick it up and carry on reading it – it’s a book that will drive you crazy and you’ll want to scream at the characters because of the decisions they make and that’s what makes this so damn good.

The characters also aren’t perfect; they have their problems and had emotions like real people. It wasn’t just Jamie either who was made out ot be the dick in all this like the men normally are, B had so many issues and at quite a few points, I thought she was a major dickhead and I wanted to just shout “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” at her though the pages! There was obvious chemistry between the two of them and also a lot of built up angst and sexual chemistry so if you don’t like angsty romances then you probably won’t like this. 

I do think I ‘ruined’ it for myself – Carol from ‘the readingwallflower’ posed her review on her goodreads and she ended up DNFing for a specific reason and I couldn’t get rid of this reasoning whilst I was reading it. And this is one of the main reasons I gave this 4 stars and not 5, because I had this in the back of my mind. I’m not going to post Carol’s review but you can find it here if you want to read it after you’ve read the book, you can find it here. 

I don’t want to say too much about the plot because I think the less you know going into this the better it will be. It definitely doesn’t detract from the plot as I knew nothing going into this and realy enjoyed this! If you’re a fan of angsty, emotional, romantic reads then you should definitely pick this up!

(Amazon UK I Amazon US I Book Depository)

You - Caroline Kepnes Review

 "When a beautiful, aspiring writer strides into the East Village bookstore where Joe Goldberg works, he does what anyone would do: he Googles the name on her credit card.

There is only one Guinevere Beck in New York City. She has a public Facebook account and Tweets incessantly, telling Joe everything he needs to know: she is simply Beck to her friends, she went to Brown University, she lives on Bank Street, and she’ll be at a bar in Brooklyn tonight—the perfect place for a “chance” meeting.

As Joe invisibly and obsessively takes control of Beck’s life, he orchestrates a series of events to ensure Beck finds herself in his waiting arms. Moving from stalker to boyfriend, Joe transforms himself into Beck’s perfect man, all while quietly removing the obstacles that stand in their way—even if it means murder."

This was such a creepy, eye-opening book and I loved every bit of it! It follows Joe, who becomes infatuated with Guinevere Beck when she comes into his bookstore and he takes her name off her credit card and googles her. He manages to find out so much about her just from googling her and looking at her social media and his stalking begins there.

This is told from the perspective of the stalker, Joe and is also written towards the reader and uses “You” synonyms (hence the name I suppose!). This made the book so much creepier as it was actually addressed to you. This mixed with how easy it was for Joe to follow and find out Beck was doing just made this an overall creepy book. He manages to use her social media to track her and her whereabouts which she freely shares and also manages to find out a lot about her from social media which he uses to create contact with her. It really made me sit back and think about my social media and how much has been shared and made me wonder how easy it would be for someone to use my social media to potentially do what Joe did to Beck.

Everything that Joe did he justified including all the weird creepy stuff but it was justified in ways that made sense most of the time and you could actually understand why he was doing what he was doing even if you didn’t agree with him doing it. The twists that happened in the book were very believable and didn’t seem like they were chucked into the plot to try and keep the book going or keep the reader interested.

One of the things I loved about this was that at times, you actually felt sorry for the main character despite the fact that he was the creepy, perverted stalker of Beck. Beck wasn’t entirely likeable either which again was a surprise; because you follow Joe’s perspective and get an inside view of all the creepy perverted things he does to Beck (like watching her masturbate, stealing her underwear and following her around everywhere she went) I figured that I’d spend this entire story feeling sorry for Beck – I mean she is the one who’s been stalked and followed etc; but I found it really difficult to like her! She seemed so stuck up and pretentious and so much of the stuff she does to Joe actually makes you feel really really sorry for Joe and make her seem like a bitch! Because Joe has access to Beck’s entire life, we also get to see how she lives her life and it’s obvious that she is a selfish person who uses people for her own needs and then just leaves them high and dry when she’s done. And ultimately, this is one of the things that end up leading her towards Joe in the end when she has run out of people to use, she finally turns to Joe as he’s fooled her into thinking that he’s just a ‘normal’ guy.

I would definitely recommend this if you’re looking for a creepy “thriller” book to read – there is a second book “Hidden Bodies” however for looking at the reviews for second book, I’m not going to be picking it up – many of the reviews say that it’s very different to You and is no-where near as good so I think I’m going to stop here so as not to ruin it!

Behind Her Eyes - Sarah Pinborough Review

“Louise is a single mom, a secretary, stuck in a modern-day rut. On a rare night out, she meets a man in a bar and sparks fly. Though he leaves after they kiss, she’s thrilled she finally connected with someone.
When Louise arrives at work on Monday, she meets her new boss, David. The man from the bar. The very married man from the bar…who says the kiss was a terrible mistake but who still can’t keep his eyes off Louise.
And then Louise bumps into Adele, who’s new to town and in need of a friend, but she also just happens to be married to David. David and Adele look like the picture-perfect husband and wife, but then why is David so controlling, and why is Adele so scared of him?”
As Louise is drawn into David and Adele’s orbit, she uncovers more puzzling questions than answers. The only thing that is crystal clear is that something in this marriage is very, very wrong, but Louise can’t guess how wrong―and how far a person might go to protect their marriage’s secrets

This is going to be a very interesting review to write, I don’t want to give too much away with the book being a thriller and the less you know going in is probably better.

I heard about this book a lot through good reads and all I heard was how good it was and how I needed to read it BUT you would either love or hate the ending. I mean, they even used #WTFThatEnding to promote the book and they were right, and even now, 5 days after finishing the book I still don’t know how I feel about the ending! 

I’ve seen a lot of people say that the book gave away too much too soon but I personally enjoyed the flashbacks and the fact that you could sort of see where you thought things were going. Because then they would take a turn in the opposite direction and you’d be left surprised with what was happening. Yes I did have some idea of what the ending could involve but I didn’t expect it to go like it did and it was still a big twist! I still can’t decide if I love or hate the ending; when I first read it, my reaction was a complete WTF but the more I’ve thought about it, the more I sort of understand how the ending makes sense and fits logically. I couldn’t think of a better way to end the book that would give it a better thriller-y ending so therefore this one will do.

It’s a very slow building story which involved a very well woven love triangle I enjoyed and felt really helped to build the suspense and the character building was excellent. It’s told from the perspective of Louise and Adele and also flashbacks from Adele which tell mainly of her childhood after her parents died and it really helped pull all aspects of the story together for the big twist at the end. The big twists at the end also isn’t the only twist and there are plenty of little twists through the book which keep you pulled in and keep you wanting to read more. 

I don’t want to say too much because like I said, it’s a thriller and the less you know going into this, the better. I only gave it 4 stars because of the ending but I would give the rest of the book 5-stars.