Summer Reading Bingo 5

Reading challenge bingo card

Welcome to my summer bingo book series, where I post five short reviews at a time. I'm giving myself the whole summer to finish the bingo card, not just the month of June. This is my fifth and last set of reviews; you can find the first set here, the second one here, the third one here, and the fourth one here.

1. Best friends. Best Friends by Josie Morgaine. This book had an interesting premise: what if the one-night-stand (with a fake name) father of the main character’s baby ending up being the unacknowledged half-brother of your best friend?

Unfortunately, the writing had a lot of problems, and one of the most glaring ones was incorrect paragraph breaks for dialog. It was often unclear who was speaking as dialog floated on the page without tags, sometimes from the previously tagged speaker, but other times you couldn’t tell. The characters were mostly one-dimensional with singular motives. No one seemed to care about a career or have friends, hobbies, tastes, or interests outside of whatever monomaniacal goal they were pursuing (for good or bad). The worst thing is that we never found out what was wrong with Connor! I assumed we were headed toward a Munchausen by proxy syndrome dx by either Brian or Sadie, but nope. Just a horribly sick kid who needed intensive medical intervention and then poof he was fine, no explanation.

Since the story had promise, I am giving it two stars instead of one.

2. Island setting. The Island by Sarah Goodwin. This story kept me riveted! It was full of fast-paced action at a music festival where some shady shenanigans were going on. Our heroine Jody was suffering from low self-esteem due to her abusive ex-boyfriend and her hyper-controlling mother. Her character was very sympathetic and relatable. The rest of the characters were a mixed bag of Jody’s friends with nicely layered personalities and stereotypical bad guys. I don’t mind a couple characters from central casting if the main character and at least some others are well developed. The ending and the epilogue were very satisfying. Four stars!

3. Sun on cover. Midnight Sun, Second Act by Samuel Elle Swanson and AI. I enjoyed the descriptions of the majestic scenery and the geological info, which I hope were from the author’s personal travel experience and not AI generated like the characters and dialogue obviously were (he disclosed that the book was written with AI assistance). The “flirting” between Mara and Einer was so bad that after a bit it simply became funny. There was never a moment where their dialogue approached being romantic ~ it was like two machines trying to have a conversation. Beyond that, there was some formula going on where every so often a bizarre metaphor jumped in. “The windows made the horizon look like a bad decision.” LOL. What a weird book. Two stars.

4. Summer in title. The Summer House by Keri Beevis. This started out as an interesting read with layered characters. Lana returned to her hometown to sell her beloved Nana Kitty’s house and became entangled in a mystery from the past surrounding her older sister’s violent death on the property. Lana has to deal with her semi-estranged twin brother, his irritating fiancé, and the presence of her former high school sweetheart, among other characters. We don’t know who the bad guy is until the end, but there are several interesting suspects. I was getting very intrigued by the story until everything went bonkers. The events from the past were over explained and unbelievable. The climax was a crazy sauce of gore. I was disappointed, as I often am, with the twists being unearned and seemingly stuck in merely for shock value. This could have been a lot better. Three stars.

5. Under 200 pages. Final Descent by Audrey J. Cole. This was a super fun, super fast thriller read! I wasn't sure if we were dealing with a crazy, unreliable narrator or a vengeful ex or even something else. Definitely kept my attention throughout. I'm glad it was a novella (90 pages) because if it had been longer, it would have been too unbelievable. I like that things weren't over-explained too. The plane flight was terrifying! It certainly reinforced my hatred of both dating and flying. Four stars.

Thanks for following along with my Summer Bingo book reviews! We are done, woohoo!