Rachael LoBosco

Too Many Twists

Reviewed: 05-29-25

This book kept my interest, but there are way too many twists! They don't make sense!

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Tedious

Reviewed: 07-30-23

I kept speeding this up to get through it. Wyn is not likeable. I don't know why he and Harriet were together (besides physical attraction). The other characters were thinly drawn.

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Sometimes thought-provoking, often tedious

Reviewed: 04-30-23

I'm not sure exactly how I want to rate this. The book blurb claims this book is "brilliantly funny," but I disagree. All the scenes of the main character, Penelope, interacting with shallow Hollywood folk were probably supposed to be satirical and funny, but they quickly became tedious. Some things were explored and described way too much - all the party scenes where Penelope was drunk or her meandering thoughts about her previous job as a teacher. I think it would have been more interesting if the author spent more time exploring Penelope's relationship with her family, her desire to partner up and have a family of her own, and her avoidance of romantic or sexual relationships.

The book also features a lot of excerpts from the novel written by Penelope. I found those excerpts more interesting than Penelope's antics in Hollywood, and I might have enjoyed just reading a book with that story. But by writing two parallel stories, Langbein shortchanged both. And then her effort at the end to connect them was clumsy. It did leave me thinking, though, so I'll give the book blurb that - the book is indeed "thought-provoking."

Ok, ultimately, I think this is a 2.5 star book, but I'll round up to 3 to give Langbein credit for imagination.

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1 person found this helpful

Great characters, great story, great performance

Reviewed: 11-13-22

I really enjoyed this book! The author created interesting characters, and she did a fantastic job fleshing them out. The story was really interesting. I was infuriated by the way women were treated and by Calvin's experiences with the boys home. I was also inspired by Elizabeth's fortitude, and at times I laughed out loud. The narrator did a fantastic job bringing these characters to life. A+ all around!

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long, boring slog

Reviewed: 10-10-22

What a long, boring slog this was. This book needed some serious editing! I previously read Anansi Boys, which takes place in the same world as this book, and enjoyed it. So I thought I would enjoy American Gods as well. Wrong! The premise is interesting, but the execution was not. There were lots of side stories that were unrelated to the main story with characters you never saw again. This distracted from keeping track of the main storyline, which I didn't think was that great. If the book moved a little faster, though, the main storyline might have had more of an impact. I thought the most interesting part was when Shadow was in Lakeside. The human beings there were more interesting than the gods, as was the mystery of disappearing children. The story about the old gods vs. the new gods was just kind of blah. I didn't care about it at all. I didn't really care about Shadow either. He's a boring protagonist. A very disappointing book.

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Fun listen

Reviewed: 09-10-22

I liked the interplay of the ladies - I think I even would have been interested just in the backstabbing social climbing stuff without the murder! But the mystery was good too - interesting twist at the end.

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Infuriatingly unromantic

Reviewed: 09-10-22

Wow, this was terrible. I didn't expect it to be great literature, but I at least thought it would be light entertainment. Instead it was painful! From the description of the book, I thought the 2 main characters - Lucy and Josh - would spend most of the time as rivals, throwing insults at each other and trying to one-up each other. Instead, they stared at each other a lot and he commented on her size a lot and made a lot of sexual harassing comments. He was a big jerk. And she wasn't very likeable either - she was immature, superficial and vapid. They were both superficial actually, which is ironic since Josh complained that his previous girlfriends only wanted him for his body and then left him for nicer guys (because, as I said, he's a big jerk). There was so much focus on their sizes - Lucy is super tiny - only 5 feet tall! So tiny Josh can pick her up with one arm and carry her under his arm like she's just an object. How romantic. And her eyes are sooooo beautiful, Josh had to paint his bedroom walls the same color. Um, that's really weird. And Lucy is obsessed with how big Josh was - so strong and manly! So much better than any guy she dated before - they were all short and thus wimpy. Ah, so clearly Josh is the right match for her because he's a giant muscly man and she's a petite, delicate doll.

As if the superficiality weren't enough of a turn off, Josh actually sexually assaulted Lucy. They were in an elevator at work, going to the parking garage, when he suddenly picked her up and held her up against the railing in the elevator. She tried to push him away and tell him to put her down, but he ignored her. In her narration, she said she thought he had finally cracked and was going to strangle her (at this point, they still "hated" each other). Instead he kissed her. I was hoping she'd knee him in the groin and then report him to HR for the assault. Instead, she liked it and kissed him back. Ugh. Why was she rewarding his bad behavior? Why did the author think this was a good way to portray romance?

The most interesting part was when Lucy was talking with her boss about her plans for her presentation to hopefully be selected for the promotion to COO. I got to see a hint of the Lucy who has dreams and ideas. I wish the author had spent more time on Lucy pursuing her career dreams, building confidence. And I wanted to see her win the promotion over Josh because he was such a big jerk. Instead, very little time was devoted to that aspect of the novel, and in the end we don't learn whether she got the promotion. It's ok, she realized she's in love with Josh and he's in love with her, so who cares about other aspirations, right!?

The language in this book was really annoying as well. The author has Lucy and Josh using very odd descriptions about each other. The things Lucy wants to do to Josh because she's so attracted to him were not sexy - they were disturbing. And so much of the story just drags - too much descriptive make out sessions - we get it. Not enough slow burn. Their banter with each other when they finally got more to teasing than sexual harassment was not fun or flirty in my opinion. I never saw much chemistry between these two. They think they're in love, but I think it's more that they're just obsessed because of the physical attraction. When that fizzles out, these two are totally going to break up.

At the beginning, I listened to this book at 1.10 speed, but as it continued to get worse, I kept speeding it up to just get it over with. I listened to a lot of it at 1.45 speed - slow enough to still understand (and not have her sound like a chipmunk), but fast enough for the boring, repetitive stuff to go by quickly. I actually put the sex scene at 1.8 or so because I really didn't care - great, they finally did it, can something more interesting please happen???

I think this may have been the worst book I've ever read or listened to. And I read Fifty Shades of Grey and thought that was pretty terrible too. Somehow that book was less cringey than this one!!!

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1 person found this helpful

Cliche plot and underdeveloped characters

Reviewed: 08-25-22

This book was just ok. It's supposed to be funny, but I didn't find the "witty" dialogue very witty. And ALL the dialogue is written the same way. Every character talks the same! It's not realistic, and I eventually found it annoying.

The most interesting part of the story was her new family. There was a lot of wasted potential there for interesting character development and plot. I wish the author had done more with that and dropped the romance with Tom. I didnt think there wasn't any chemistry between Nina and Tom. The whole romance story just felt forced.

Overall, the story was cliche and the characters were underdeveloped. I'm giving it 3 stars, but I think that might be a little generous.

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Interesting premise, lackluster execution

Reviewed: 08-19-22

The book has an interesting premise - it definitely made me think about whether I'd want to know the length of my life. Would I open my box? I also wondered why these boxes suddenly appeared. What is the point of giving people this knowledge? It almost seemed like a social experiment being played on humanity by cruel gods.

Unfortunately, I felt the execution wasn't as exciting as the premise. The story dragged sometimes, getting into the minutiae of characters' lives that, frankly, got boring. I found some story arcs were more engaging than others, and I started to get impatient for the book to end. But Julia Whelan's narration was great. She made the most of the material she was given.

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Just ok

Reviewed: 08-01-22

I found this very engaging at first, but at some point it got tedious and dragged. I think it could have been shorter and still delivered the same story, potentially with more impact. By the time I got to the big reveal at the end, I didn't care. I just wanted the book to be over.

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