I'm so conflicted. On one hand, the writing, the layering & unfolding of the story, the utter batshit-craziness of the main characters... it's brilliant. The sheer amount of work Flynn must have put in to give Nick & Amy & Diary Amy their respective voices - and particularly crafting the details of the crime & resolution - is pretty incredible. Such despicable terrible people. I found her musings on the Midwest as expressed through Amy's observations, interesting, as well. So so many quotable one-liners & societal commentary in general. 

But the ending? It fell so far short for me that I can't manage to be excited. It felt like the book was essentially a metaphor for Nick - everything finally kowtows under the weight of Amy. As if Nick AND the ending just gave up. Gave in. Like they couldn't hold up under the impressive weight of the first 2/3 of the story (or Amy). I needed some resolution - or even a hint of one. Just something insinuating that Nick & Boney & Tanner & Go - or god, even Mrs. Collings - would nail the bitch down the road & Amy would get her just desserts. Or Nick. They were both despicable people. I'd even have settled for something simple & out of the blue like Amy falling down the stairs & snapping her neck a year later... It was all so absurd that choosing to end it that way just did not make sense. And maybe that was Flynn's intent, that sometimes terrible, ridiculous things happen & bad people get away with it & go on with their lives... But for all the pop & sizzle & execution of the first part of the book, I expected to be really gobsmacked at the end. 

I want to give it all the stars for the writing & nuanced layering of both plot & characterization, but the ending should have made what was a hell of a ride a lot more worthwhile. I'm glad to hear that for the movie, Fincher & Flynn have scrapped the last 1/3 of the book entirely & are going from scratch. 


“It’s a very difficult era in which to be a person, just a real, actual person, instead of a collection of personality traits selected from an endless Automat of characters.” 

“Tampon commercial, detergent commercial, maxi pad commercial, windex commercial - you'd think all women do is clean and bleed.”

This was by far my least favorite of Tessa Bailey's "Line of Duty" series. Or maybe my fever/flu has finally subsided enough for me to see clearly. IDK. From the outset, I really wanted to like Troy - he has the saddest backstory so I thought it would be interesting to see how Bailey would mesh that part of his past with the way she writes her typically dominant male protagonists. Unfortunately what I thought could be an interestingly sweet-but-alpha character turned out to be completely unbelievable for me. It was like a switch when he got into the bedroom & his brand of dirty-talk just didn't do it for me. Ruby didn't do much for me either, maybe it was the "busting the crime lord from her past" plot line that didn't interest me, or the continued bad choices she kept making, or maybe it was the fact that this was the third one of these I read in a row... I also realized that this was her second installment in the series and having read them out of order, this might account for the slightly stilted writing & choppy dialoge when compared to Officer Off Limits & Asking for Trouble. The rest of the series can easily be enjoyed without this one.

After the highly enjoyable Protecting What's His (cheesy titles, cheesy covers, sigh), I happily moved on to the next installment - and as it turns out thanks to the labeling on Amazon, I read these entirely out of order. Not that it mattered much at all, but after some confusion & double-checking I enjoyed the slight overlap of characters from the previous books, as well as the unique backstory given to each couple. Brent & Hayden were really enjoyable as a pairing - great banter, some nice humor, great chemistry, great dirty talk. Not as much insta-love as Protecting What's His, and the Stuart blackmail plot line was pretty flimsy (esp at the end) but all in all another fun read. Bailey writes excellent filthy talking characters, and Brent doesn't fail to disappoint. 

I gave Charlotte Stein one last shot & it's official - her stuff is just not for me. I know a lot of my fellow readers love her, but I just cannot get on board (though I really liked Addicted). Her female protagonists are always SO up in their own heads, they can't vocalize any of their thoughts (which is critical in a menage situation) and her sexytimes are so formulaic they just don't make up for it. I'm chalking this mistake up to the onset of the flu, and it must have been the delirium of my fever that even allowed me to finish it.