Everything We Keep
I found Everything We Keep in the Kindle Unlimited selections. When I read the premise that it was about a woman whose fiance died before their wedding and then what was meant to be their wedding day was his funeral. Then she gets a message from someone that he may still be alive and that what was buried at his funeral was not him.
This is not the kind of book that I normally read. A lot of times when I read novels that are meant to be suspenseful I am very disappointed in the conclusion. The Couple Next Door, I Let You Go and Girl on the Train are all in the categories of books that are meant to be popular suspense stories that I did not like. With all of the books that I mentioned I liked them enough to keep reading but I always had a WTF feeling at the end so it is a genre that I tend to be wary of. But one of the joys of a Kindle Unlimited subscription is that I have been able to try some genres of books that I normally stay away from due to the cost being too high to justify the purchase or the wait for the digital library book is too long for a casual interest in the title.
However I found the ending in this one to be satisfying. I found this enjoyable enough of a book to keep reading. When I first finished it I clicked on the 5 star rating for Amazon and Goodreads like I have the choice to when I first finish the book. I thought it was a fun read.
It was not until I completed the book that I started to read the comments that people had for this book on Goodreads. Sometimes if I am on the fence for whether or not to spend my time reading a book other people's reviews matter a LOT. But I have learned to decipher reviews into reviews based on quality and based on preference. I recently mentioned in a Facebook conversation in the Harlequin Community page that if I find that someone says that a romance novel is good because it is a "clean, family values oriented" book I won't take my time with reading it. I generally prefer the smuttier romances. However if someone says that a book is good because they find the characters to be emotionally complex for the kind of situation they were in I will be intrigued. Then there are occasions that I love an author so much that I won't care what the reviews say. Stephen King is a writer whose book I will order right away when I find out when it is coming out regardless of what reviews say.
There are times where hearing other people's impressions will actually ruin a book for me. When I got into a discussion about the gender dynamics in On Strike For Christmas I just could not continue reading the book. I could not relate to the domesticity of the women in the novel and I realized that none of the men I knew where as incompetent as the men in the book were portrayed. But before that I thought that women starting a Christmas strike seemed pretty cute even though it was far from my reality as a feminist city gal.
I finished Everything We Keep on a high note, having a difficult time putting it down and thinking that the end had a very good twist. I enjoyed it enough to download the next book Everything We Left Behind right away since it was a Kindle Unlimited selection.
Then I started reading other people's reviews of the book to find that people either LOVED the book or HATED the book. The criticisms that I kept on reading were that the characters were not convincing or were too 2 dimensional. Other critiques were about the plot being suitable for a Lifetime Movie. (A plot akin to Lifetime is generally perceived of as a major criticism) As I thought about these comments I realized that a lot of the criticisms were valid points. It was not a remarkable book but I kept turning the pages wanting to find out what would happen next. I realized that I really enjoyed the book but it is not the kind of book that I would likely recommend to a friend. Yet I am excited to read the next book.
It made me wonder how much weight other people's reviews really should get. More and more I find that what is the most important to me on buying and reading a book is whether or not I enjoy the process of reading the book or not. I've read books by people with high literary acclaim and found them to have exquisite sentences coupled with dull characters or plots. I've read books that follow series romance formulas with two dimensional characters and been entertained. In our internet era I would argue that reviews that people have of books are great ways to evaluate books and on some websites review are a good way to engage in dialogue about books. Reviews are a great way to help decide whether or not a book is what I want to spend my time and money on. But ultimately the impression that matters the most on whether or not a book is worth my time is me. And the first question that I often ask myself is if the book sounds entertaining.
This is not the kind of book that I normally read. A lot of times when I read novels that are meant to be suspenseful I am very disappointed in the conclusion. The Couple Next Door, I Let You Go and Girl on the Train are all in the categories of books that are meant to be popular suspense stories that I did not like. With all of the books that I mentioned I liked them enough to keep reading but I always had a WTF feeling at the end so it is a genre that I tend to be wary of. But one of the joys of a Kindle Unlimited subscription is that I have been able to try some genres of books that I normally stay away from due to the cost being too high to justify the purchase or the wait for the digital library book is too long for a casual interest in the title.
However I found the ending in this one to be satisfying. I found this enjoyable enough of a book to keep reading. When I first finished it I clicked on the 5 star rating for Amazon and Goodreads like I have the choice to when I first finish the book. I thought it was a fun read.
It was not until I completed the book that I started to read the comments that people had for this book on Goodreads. Sometimes if I am on the fence for whether or not to spend my time reading a book other people's reviews matter a LOT. But I have learned to decipher reviews into reviews based on quality and based on preference. I recently mentioned in a Facebook conversation in the Harlequin Community page that if I find that someone says that a romance novel is good because it is a "clean, family values oriented" book I won't take my time with reading it. I generally prefer the smuttier romances. However if someone says that a book is good because they find the characters to be emotionally complex for the kind of situation they were in I will be intrigued. Then there are occasions that I love an author so much that I won't care what the reviews say. Stephen King is a writer whose book I will order right away when I find out when it is coming out regardless of what reviews say.
There are times where hearing other people's impressions will actually ruin a book for me. When I got into a discussion about the gender dynamics in On Strike For Christmas I just could not continue reading the book. I could not relate to the domesticity of the women in the novel and I realized that none of the men I knew where as incompetent as the men in the book were portrayed. But before that I thought that women starting a Christmas strike seemed pretty cute even though it was far from my reality as a feminist city gal.
I finished Everything We Keep on a high note, having a difficult time putting it down and thinking that the end had a very good twist. I enjoyed it enough to download the next book Everything We Left Behind right away since it was a Kindle Unlimited selection.
Then I started reading other people's reviews of the book to find that people either LOVED the book or HATED the book. The criticisms that I kept on reading were that the characters were not convincing or were too 2 dimensional. Other critiques were about the plot being suitable for a Lifetime Movie. (A plot akin to Lifetime is generally perceived of as a major criticism) As I thought about these comments I realized that a lot of the criticisms were valid points. It was not a remarkable book but I kept turning the pages wanting to find out what would happen next. I realized that I really enjoyed the book but it is not the kind of book that I would likely recommend to a friend. Yet I am excited to read the next book.
It made me wonder how much weight other people's reviews really should get. More and more I find that what is the most important to me on buying and reading a book is whether or not I enjoy the process of reading the book or not. I've read books by people with high literary acclaim and found them to have exquisite sentences coupled with dull characters or plots. I've read books that follow series romance formulas with two dimensional characters and been entertained. In our internet era I would argue that reviews that people have of books are great ways to evaluate books and on some websites review are a good way to engage in dialogue about books. Reviews are a great way to help decide whether or not a book is what I want to spend my time and money on. But ultimately the impression that matters the most on whether or not a book is worth my time is me. And the first question that I often ask myself is if the book sounds entertaining.
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