A Splendid Ruin by Megan Chance

Rating: ★★★

I received a copy of this book in exchange for a review.

This story follows naive May Kimble who leaves New York when her mother dies to be with rich relatives in San Francisco at the turn of the 20th century. The first part of the story has May being overwhelmed, and then bored, by all the glamour of society. There are a couple of big twists, so I’m not going to give much more away about the plot. May goes through a lot throughout the story, and the narrative tells me she’s a changed person by the end, but I frankly didn’t believe it.

This book is a good example of plot driving the story, of plot happening to a character, instead of the character taking action. I found myself rather annoyed at several instances, and I can think of only a couple times where May makes a decision for herself. Still, the story intrigued me enough to want to know how everything would end. I admit I was rather let down. The end seemed to fizzle out in the third act. There was really nothing remarkable here, but it wasn’t a bad read.

Confessions of a Curious Bookseller by Elizabeth Green

Rating: ★

I received a copy of this book in exchange for a review.

DNF at 12%. I tried to push myself to at least completing 30% of this book, but the humor does not work for me and the main character is too unlikeable. She’s not unlikeable in a “this is a good character” type of way either.

The story is told in bits of correspondence, mainly emails, with some journal entries from our main character, Fawn. I expected the journal entries to be more enlightening to her motives and her character, but she’s just as, well, annoying in her private writing. She seems to lack all self-awareness. I believe this is meant to be funny, but nothing about Green’s writing made me even smile.