We Could Be Beautiful by Swan Huntley

Has it been Hades hot where you live? If not, consider yourself the luckiest person in the world, because the weather out here has been like living inside the oven, and I'm not ready for that. It cooled down a little for the last week, but that's all we got. It's about eighty degrees right now, cloudy and humid, and I want to die. Or at least live in a cold shower. One thing that helps me get my mind off the sweltering heat {and how disgusting I feel because of it} is reading, and this week, I've got a good one for you guys.

Catherine West has spent her entire life surrounded by beautiful things. She owns an immaculate Manhattan apartment, she collects fine art, she buys exquisite handbags and clothing, and she constantly redecorates her home. And yet, despite all this, she still feels empty. She sees her personal trainer, she gets weekly massages, and occasionally she visits her mother and sister on the Upper East Side, but after two broken engagements and boyfriends who wanted only her money, she is haunted by the fear that she’ll never have a family of her own. One night, at an art opening, Catherine meets William Stockton, a handsome man who shares her impeccable taste and love of beauty. He is educated, elegant, and even has a personal connection—his parents and Catherine’s parents were friends years ago. But as he and Catherine grow closer, she begins to encounter strange signs, and her mother, Elizabeth (now suffering from Alzheimer’s), seems to have only bad memories of William as a boy. In Elizabeth’s old diary she finds an unnerving letter from a former nanny that cryptically reads: “We cannot trust anyone…” Is William lying about his past? And if so, is Catherine willing to sacrifice their beautiful life in order to find the truth? 

I requested this book from NetGalley after reading the synopsis because it sounded interesting and I've been into mysteries lately. It took me a few tries to get this book going, though, because one thing kept throwing me off: Catherine West, the narrator of this story.

Catherine is a...brat. There is no other word for her. She's a horrid, selfish, snobby brat...and that's the way she's supposed to be. She's been raised in a family that never wanted for anything, and when her biggest problem is whether to get that McQueen dress in blue or green, you know she has it made. The first quote of hers that I highlighted was, "The first thing I wanted to do was complain about the nachos, but Vera was actually fat. She wouldn't understand." At one point, I made a note that only said, Could she {Catherine} get any worse?

She did, and it was kind of wonderful.

Catherine is so concerned with her outside appearance and how other people view her, so she knows that she needs a husband that will complement her perfectly. Enter William Stockton, the most perfect of perfect men. He seems to do everything wonderfully and he only wants to love Catherine to the best of his ability, which seems to mean an endless amount of anything she wants. Catherine, for her part, changes some of her habits and aspects of her personality in order to accommodate William. In short, they are the perfect couple and nothing can tear them apart.

Dun dun dunnnnnn.

I don't want to say that the ending was predictable, because it really wasn't, but you do start to piece out the puzzle that is William Stockton. It starts off with a strange mannerism, a little tic in his personality that maybe, just maybe, could be nothing. Then there are the weird questions that come up at the oddest times, the fact that Catherine's mother practically falls to pieces whenever his name is mentioned. When the end does come, you're adequately prepared, but it's still a shock. I think I was 100% correct on one secret, but another one came out of left field for me, so there you go. 

Besides, the novel isn't really about the mystery that is William Stockton. I saw this book as being about Catherine and how she isn't truly satisfied with her life. She has no job really to speak of {she owns an artisanal card shop {if that makes any sense} and lives off her trust fund. But when even that comes into some trouble, she realizes that she has to make some changes in her life. Some are not so good, and some are for the better. It's interesting to watch this character that you absolutely loathe at the beginning become something of a...person. She's not exactly a good person, but she is better, and for that, I have to give her credit. She makes the best out of a terrible situation, and begins to understand that maybe it's not the outside that counts. She says, "You are so paranoid and you have always been so paranoid and you think the world is out to get you when really the world doesn't give a shit about your silly little life."

It makes you think.

The other characters that populate Catherine's life are just as spectacular, especially Catherine's best friend {???} Susan. She's another trust fund baby with her own bonsai shop {honestly, do these people own anything that isn't quirky?}. She doesn't take to William right off the bat, but she's a bit insane herself, so I was never really sure if I was supposed to trust her or not. Marty, the wedding planner, is a card, and I know that makes me sound like an eighty year old, but there really is no better word for him. He's so over the top and exaggerated that no word seems good enough for him. Then there's Dan, sweet, sweet Danny boy the masseuse. He comes to Catherine's every week for her massage and becomes a friend, even though she's constantly worried that he's only pretending to be her friend because she pays him. 

We Could Be Beautiful ended up being an awesome book. Just remember, Catherine is supposed to be that shallow and vapid and rude and out of touch. She's supposed to be a huge brat. And I know that Swan Huntley did an amazing job at writing Catherine because when bad things happened to her near the end, I didn't find myself thinking, That's what you get. No, I found myself thinking, Oh, poor girl, how is she going to get out of this one?

Because she always does.

All The Missing Girls by Megan Miranda

Are you ready for some rambling, incoherent book loving? Good, because you're about to get it. In heaps.

It’s been ten years since Nicolette Farrell left her rural hometown after her best friend, Corinne, disappeared from Cooley Ridge without a trace. Back again to tie up loose ends and care for her ailing father, Nic is soon plunged into a shocking drama that reawakens Corinne’s case and breaks open old wounds long since stitched.

The decade-old investigation focused on Nic, her brother Daniel, boyfriend Tyler, and Corinne’s boyfriend Jackson. Since then, only Nic has left Cooley Ridge. Daniel and his wife, Laura, are expecting a baby; Jackson works at the town bar; and Tyler is dating Annaleise Carter, Nic’s younger neighbor and the group’s alibi the night Corinne disappeared. Then, within days of Nic’s return, Annaleise goes missing.

Told backwards—Day 15 to Day 1—from the time Annaleise goes missing, Nic works to unravel the truth about her younger neighbor’s disappearance, revealing shocking truths about her friends, her family, and what really happened to Corinne that night ten years ago.

I've always read about people suffering from "book hangovers," and I've wondered what they mean when they say this. Do they wake up the next day, disoriented and wondering what they did the night before? Did they close the book and immediately feel a sense utter loss? How did one accurately describe this book hangover?

I not only suffered from this, but also understood what I was suffering, and that made it a thousand times worse.

The reader is thrown into the mystery from the first page, and it's non-stop from there. We meet Nic as she is preparing to go home to see her sick father and to maybe get their house ready to sell. We meet her brother, Daniel, an overbearing insurance salesman that communicates with his sister best when they're angry. Tyler, Nic's high school boyfriend, also makes an appearance, alongside her young neighbor Annaleise. Then we're propelled two weeks into the future, where everything has already happened and we are counting down to the moment where it all began.

This might be confusing, but it's really not. After an initial set-up, Nic takes us to the future and slowly walks us through the last two weeks of her life, adding bits and pieces about her life back in Cooley Ridge, her time in high school with her sociopathic best friend Corinne. Just as you're positive that you've solved the mystery, Nic adds another layer to it all, and then you're back at the beginning, going over everything you know and coming to another conclusion that you're a thousand percent sure is correct. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Because I have 20/20 hindsight {a gift, I KNOW}, at the end, I could see all the hints Megan Miranda tried to give us. She told us the story in glances, choices, words that weren't spoken. She gave us what we wanted to know starting from the very first chapter, but we were too busy trying to piece out everything in front of us that we ignored those things that we pushed aside as not important. This book reminds me a lot of card magicians, where they show you what you want to see while also hiding the simple truth to their trick.

Back to the book hangover, though. I finished this book sometime last week and planned on writing a review at the same time. HOWEVER, I couldn't do it. I had stayed up late one night to finish All The Missing Girls, and I hadn't been able to fall asleep easily afterward. My head buzzed with what I had just read, what I had gone though. Because Nic isn't the only one that hurtles through the rabbit hole. She digs her nails into you and takes you along, forcing you to see what she has done, what others have done, the terrible nature of small towns and small people. The cast of characters - Daniel, his wife Laura, Tyler, Corinne's boyfriend Jackson - are all flawed, but those flaws are there for a reason, there to protect themselves and those around them, no matter the cost. At the end, you sympathize with those that have committed horrible crimes. You find yourself in their shoes and wonder, wouldn't I do the same? Wouldn't I do whatever I could to keep those I love safe? Your thoughts are so jumbled and you're thinking things that you normally wouldn't, and then you begin to wonder if you're a monster, if these characters are monsters, or is everyone just so damn misunderstood?

Like a night of drinking.

I really wish I had enough words for how much I loved this book. It's one of those that I'm going to reread, knowing what I know now. I want to see what I missed, what I saw and tossed aside. I want to feel stupid and marvel at the brilliance of Megan Miranda. There is so much in this book that I haven't touched on, but, honestly, if I did, this review would be a million pages long and I would have to call work and I'm sure my boss wouldn't be thrilled with me telling her that I can't come to work today because I have to tell the internet how much I love this book. 

I mean, isn't that the American dream, really?

The Girls by Emma Cline

Yipes, sorry it's been so long! I had planned to write a review for this book last week, but I sat down and realized that I needed some time to process this story. Since it comes out next Tuesday, I figured today would be the best time to get it done!

Northern California, during the violent end of the 1960s. At the start of summer, a lonely and thoughtful teenager, Evie Boyd, sees a group of girls in the park, and is immediately caught by their freedom, their careless dress, their dangerous aura of abandon. Soon, Evie is in thrall to Suzanne, a mesmerizing older girl, and is drawn into the circle of a soon-to-be infamous cult and the man who is its charismatic leader. Hidden in the hills, their sprawling ranch is eerie and run down, but to Evie, it is exotic, thrilling, charged—a place where she feels desperate to be accepted. As she spends more time away from her mother and the rhythms of her daily life, and as her obsession with Suzanne intensifies, Evie does not realize she is coming closer and closer to unthinkable violence, and to that moment in a girl’s life when everything can go horribly wrong.

I have been looking forward to this book since I saw it on NetGalley in about January. Unfortunately, back then, it was only available in the United Kingdom and Australia, so I waited patiently {or planned on moving to one of those places for a month to get it, whatever}. And the moment they emailed me to get a copy, I did. I seriously spent a few days hoping and praying that I would get this book, and when I did, pure euphoria. Good thing the book was just as amazing as I imagined.

Poor Evie. Her parents are divorced, her father is living with his young co-worker, her mother is changing every day, and her best friend decides that they shouldn't be friends anymore. Enter Suzanne and Russell, plus a troop of mesmerizing young girls and boys that want to help Evie be happy. They also want her to conform to their non-rule rules, and she is only too happy to oblige.

This book is told in two different time periods: when Evie was young in the 1960s and now, when Evie is in her forties and trying to figure out what her life is about. Now Evie is a mess masquarding as an adult. She's staying in her friend's house while he's gone and comes into contact with his son, a complete jerk of a young adult that treats his girlfriend like a sex doll. Evie sees a lot of herself in the young girlfriend, and that brings on the memories of her days with Russell and the others. She had been a young girl then, too, right around fourteen, "uncertain how to move, whether I was walking too fast, whether others could see the discomfort and stiffness in me." Young Evie is the embodiment of every awkward teenager ever.

But then she spots Suzanne and her entire world changes. Suzanne is not glamorous in the way we think now, but with her straight hair, honest smile, and enviable body for a fourteen year old girl, Suzanne is everything that Evie wants to be. They become friends, or whatever passes as friends with a girl like Suzanne. Suzanne helps Evie come out of her shell, to understand that they were different, these girls. As Evie says, in what is possibly my favorite and the most heartbreaking line in the book, "We all want to be seen." They would go out places in bikini tops and cutoffs, offending the general public, but knowing that their "hatred only made us more powerful."

As the story goes on, Emma Cline sprinkles her narrative with a sly wink to women, an inside joke about all the men we've every rolled our eyes at. Evie recalls an incident with a filmmaker that made her feel less than a person, like she wasn't in charge of her own life. She says, "None of this was rare. Things like this happened a hundred times. Maybe more. The hatred that vibrated beneath the surface of my girl's face - I think Suzanne recognized it. Of course my hand would anticipate the weight of a knife. The particular give of a human body. There was so much to destroy." The girls in this book are treated like nothing more than scenery by the men around them. The moment where Evie first meets Russell is hard to read and you're immediately disgusted by him. There are no men in this book that you hope Evie ends up with, because they're all terrible. But that doesn't mean the women are angels. They commit an unspeakable act of horror, and although Evie might not have been involved, the fact that she could have been is what keeps her up at night.

Look, I could go on and on about this book for another million words, but I can't accurately convey how this book made me feel. When I said I had to process this story, I really meant it. I'm still not sure how I completely feel about The Girls, but I know I love it. I know that when it comes out next week, I'll most likely buy a hardcover copy so I can share it with my only-hardcover-reading boyfriend. I want everyone to read this book and make up their own minds and have an experience with Evie. Because you do. You live right alongside Evie as she grows up with these girls, makes mistakes, finds her confidence.

Why are you still here reading this nonsense? Go! Get this book!