1 star
| I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. It took me only five days to read this book. There are two reasons I generally finish a book so quickly. I either loved it or absolutely hated it and wanted to get it over with. Sadly, in this case, it was the latter. I knew from the first day I started reading that I wasn’t going to like this book. It is so disjointed, confusing, and strangely boring. Despite the drugs, accidental pregnancy, and mysterious death, this book was dull. There were way too many characters, which I couldn’t/didn’t have the desire to keep straight. The timeline jumps around a bunch, adding to the confusion. The reader doesn’t really get to know the characters, just sees little chunks of their messed up lives before they disappear into the periphery to make room for another vignette about another messed up sister. Also, warning: this is one of those books where bad things happen to animals. For me, Twyla was the only interesting character, not because of her personality or anything, but because of the ghost story ties. Honestly, the only interesting thing about this book is that there is a little bit of ghost stuff, although “this is not a ghost story”, so it’s not enough to redeem the book. But I think the thing that got me the most about this book was that I couldn’t quite pinpoint why it was written in the first place. I, myself, was part of a sorority for a hot minute, but eventually decided it just wasn’t for me. I’ve always had a problem with conformity. Then to read a book written by a women who opens her author bio with the fact that she was in a sorority and in her acknowledgments has a little blurb about how wonderful her sorority sisters were/are… why did she write this book that paints sorority women as crazy, boy-obsessed, shallow, selfish, drug addicts who partake in horrible hazing rituals? Sororities are already stereotyped and it was just strange to me that a woman that was in an actual sorority (and presumably liked it) would write a book framing sororities in such a horrible way. Demeaning and dull, this book just wasn’t for me. Nothing really happens despite the fact that someone actually dies. The other characters just swirl around the event, too caught up in their own lives. Some books have a cast of horrible characters and pull it off, but this one was just too boring to have such irritating characters. Goodreads |