2 Rules Book Reviews
My senior year of college, I realized that reading was a great way to avoid thinking about final exams, job applications and impending adulthood. The iBooks app supplied an endless stream of novels, and a group message supplied a circle of book lovers who received my unrequested literary opinions.
2 Rules Book Reviews was born.
Rule 1: spit straight truth
Rule 2: send straight truth to friends who didn't ask for it
Books Reviewed:
- Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult
- 13 Reasons Why by Jay Asher
- The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware
Currently Reading: The Girl Before by JP Delaney
The Woman in Cabin 10 - Ruth Ware
"The Woman in Cabin 10” starts with a robbery in London, but if you think that this measly crime is all the book is about then THINK AGAIN.
We're introduced to Lo, a character who is so predictable it hurts. A travel journalist who has yet to have career success? A woman who takes her nice boyf for granted? A self-medicator who drowns her sorrows in gin? Robbed while alone in her house? YAWN. Welcome to every main character in every average murder mystery EVER. Fast forward through 4 snooze-worthy chapters. Lo’s boss sends her on a writing assignment aboard a small luxury cruise—which she complains about, of course—but thank God it FINALLY throws her in the midst of a murder scandal involving, you guessed it, the woman in cabin 10.
You’ll notice that at no point on this cruise does Lo actually do her job which is, you know, to write about the cruise. She does have one redeeming moment: a verbal bitch slap to a gaslighting jerk. Don’t let my hatred for Lo keep you from embarking on the wild ride that is this mf plot though. I will personally hand over my life's savings to whoever can figure out the killer before it's revealed because you CAN’T. Ware makes you question every character in the damn book so much that by the end, you'll be wondering if YOU killed this chick.
3/5
This cover led me to believe there would be a storm. There was no storm, and I'm not over it.
13 Reasons Why - Jay Asher
The next addition to books-I’m-reading-to-avoid-thinking-about-the-future is 13 Reasons Why, which, unless you’re living under a rock, I’m sure you’ve already read/watched/heard of.
Why did a 21 year old woman spend three hours straight last night reading a Young Adult novel? Because this book has all the drama my tame white suburban high school years LACKED. We open with Clay, an angsty teen mailing an unknown package. Like, 2 pages later you realize you don’t even know what angsty even MEANS until you meet Hannah, our postmortem protagonist. Through a series of cassette tapes we find out what led to her suicide and you are 10/10 guaranteed to hate your high school self.
Give this to your future 13 year old son, ok? That little asshole needs to read it.
4/5
You still won't understand this cover after you read the book.
Small Great Things - Jodi Picoult
The author of everyone's favorite book-that-was-ruined-by-the-movie, My Sister's Keeper, is BACK yet again with a riveting page turner that pairs complex characters with Buzzfeed-worthy social issues. We meet Ruth, a black labor and delivery nurse whose white supremacist patient demands that no black personnel handle their baby. But when this baby's life is at stake and Ruth is the only one in the room to save him...
This novel tackles institutional racism with some SEXY courtroom scenes, told from the perspective of Ruth, her white lawyer, and the white supremacist father of the baby.
Buckle up, cause this shit is LIT.
4/5
(Roxane Gay's review explains the lack of a 5th)