Russell’s Year in Books

What did you read this year?

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2023

1,022

pages read

books read

Russell Dean

Shortest Book

300

pages

Longest Book

364

pages

Average book length in 2023

340

pages

Most Shelved

11,545

people also shelved

Something to Believe In by Jennah Sobevski

Least Shelved

134

people also shelved

Russell’s average rating for 2023

5.0

it was amazing

5.0

Highest Rated on Goodreads

4.43 average

Russell’s first review of the year

2.5* rounded up for review.

I bought this book on a whim two weeks ago for no other reason than it was one of the few books available while I waited for a flight and I thought it would make for some easy reading while I spent six hours in the air.

What. A. Slog.

And it's a shame, because there's a really good story in here just dying to get out, which would make it a really entertaining mystery. Ultimately, though, it's weighted down by some ridicul 2.5* rounded up for review.

I bought this book on a whim two weeks ago for no other reason than it was one of the few books available while I waited for a flight and I thought it would make for some easy reading while I spent six hours in the air.

What. A. Slog.

And it's a shame, because there's a really good story in here just dying to get out, which would make it a really entertaining mystery. Ultimately, though, it's weighted down by some ridiculously slow pacing, swathes of cringeworthy dialogue and the sense that some of the characters are there to serve no other purpose than to espouse the authors personal social commentary. And I mean, that's what authors do. That's not the problem. It was just so obvious and hamfisted that the subtlety that allows the reader to think and question those things was all but gone, so the themes came off as smug rather than thought provoking.

Despite all of that, my biggest issue was the pacing. The first two thirds of the book dragged, and there were many times where I was just re-reading elements of the story being repeated, as though the author didn't trust us to remember details, or perhaps she just wanted the 'clues' to be so obviously clues that she felt the needs to highlight them over and over. When I read a mystery I love the subtle callbacks to the innocuous, the things that seemed perfectly ordinary that ended up being massively significant, but with this I felt like I was going into the ending with a checklist of all the things that were important because they'd been repeated so often to ensure we didn't miss them, and it spoiled the 'detective' element for me.

It's not all bad though, and as I said above, there's good to be had here. The premise itself is neat, and throwing the three leads together makes for an interesting formula. I didn't like all of the leads, which made some sections of the book harder to get through than others, but their characters for the most part were believable and well written, fleshed out people. Posy felt a bit too on the nose for my liking, and wasn't so much a stereotype of the fallen Hollywood child star, but more a copy and paste of several well known names from the last decade or so, and she was ridiculously grating, but I found Rosalind and Caro enjoyable enough.

I also thought the author did a great job with the setting. Though I found some of the writing a little overly flowery, she did an excellent job of bringing Aldemere to life, with vivid descriptions that really helped to create the scenes and characters in your minds eye.

Despite a slow, sluggish start (and middle) the last quarter of the book really picks up, and if we could have had that pace, snappy dialogue and intrigue through the rest of the book I could have easily made this a 4* review. It's just a shame that that burst of energy came at the end of the book, when mine had worn out. ...more

RUSSELL’S 2023 BOOKS

it was amazing

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