Snow by Áine Greaney

Synopsis:

Set in a one-street small town in the Irish midlands, "Snow" is an exquisitely crafted portrait of Dolores, a young expatriate Irish woman who is suddenly summoned home from America to take care of her estranged and sick father. In her childhood home, Dolores wrestles with the push and pull between her new American life and her past life in Ireland. As she nurses her father back to health, she is beset by memories and caught between family loyalties and her own desires.

In order for short stories to be appealing to me, I either have to connect to the main character, or they have to make me feel something.

This one accomplished neither.

I didn’t really understand what was going on most of the time. I spent more time confused than actually understanding what I was reading. It didn’t seem to flow together, and it never really grabbed me at any point.

This story could maybe have been effective as a longer book, but as a short story it missed the mark.

1/5 stars I feel like I am missing something since everyone else gave this a great review. 

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Never Think About Love at Night by Valerie Nelan

Synopsis:

Cass Ingram throws a dinner party to celebrate buying her first house in midtown Memphis, Tennessee. Rye, Cass's perpetually single best friend, is obsessed with one of the party's married men but is seeing someone else. Another guest is planning an abortion without telling her husband of 15 years, and another is deep in a postpartum depression. Then there's newcomer Ben Lockhart, who has Cass's attention from the moment he appears.

With voyeuristic access into every character's head and heart, you'll soar into the wonder and hope of new love, then plunge into the deepest parts of love's madness. Friendships are cast into doubt, marriage crumbles, love begins. There's a near-murder, extra-marital sex, soul-wrenching confrontations, and brutal honesty that'll leave you cringing.

This book is interesting because for the majority of it, the setting does not change except for excerpts with flashbacks. It is about a bunch of friends at a house warming party. A party for the ages because everything goes wrong. Secrets are exposed and lives will never be the same.

For a book that deals with pretty harsh and saddening topics, it is a fairly light read. It is easy to get through without much effort. Not much happened, but a lot happened at the same time. It was interesting enough to make me keep reading it at least. 

I didn’t really understand the purpose of the “Chorus” parts of the book. They didn’t do anything for me.

I wouldn’t say this book was significant enough to change my life, but it was an interesting read overall.

3/5 stars Romance book with a side of dark topics.

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Dark Places by Gillian Flynn

Synopsis:

Libby Day was just seven years old when her evidence put her fifteen-year-old brother behind bars.

Since then, she had been drifting. But when she is contacted by a group who are convinced of Ben's innocence, Libby starts to ask questions she never dared to before. Was the voice she heard her brother's? Ben was a misfit in their small town, but was he capable of murder? Are there secrets to uncover at the family farm or is Libby deluding herself because she wants her brother back?

She begins to realize that everyone in her family had something to hide that day... especially Ben. Now, twenty-four years later, the truth is going to be even harder to find.

Who did massacre the Day family?

With how much I loved Gillian Flynn’s other two novels, I expected to love this one right away. I think that is where I went wrong. To me, the first chapter just did not make me all that interested. I knew what the book was about, so it didn’t really introduce anything new.

I also didn’t really like Libby as a character.

Once she met the Kill Club and Lyle it started to move along at a nice pace. At least that happened at the beginning.

This one really kept me guessing until the end. Her books have a good way of doing that, and I think that is why I love them so much.  I kept changing my theories throughout the book, but I never guessed the ending. Maybe it was obvious to other people, but it wasn’t to me.

The way it was written made the build up even better as well. It reminded me of Gone Girl in a way. You are getting the back-story as you are getting the current timeline as well. It switches from chapter to chapter.

The more I read, the more I didn’t want to put the book down. Once I got into the story and into the characters, I was hooked. Libby still wasn’t a great character, and I never really liked her, but it wasn’t enough to make me dislike the book.

The storyline was just creepy with all of the talk about Satanism and devil worship. Ben as a child was also a disturbing character which made his arrest seem so obvious. It was the most interesting to read the chapters that were written from his point of view.

4/5 Stars

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