Ahhh, it’s a wonderful life is a great comparison! I told my friend it reminded me of A Christmas Carol also. I read it all in one afternoon which helped me get through it, but I don’t know if I would have bothered if I hadn’t been home sick that day

Yeah, it’s hard to know based on reviews, especially some I saw on TikTok/Instagram. I don’t know if a lot of those creators are maybe just newer readers (as in they are just discovering their love of reading away from an academic environment) or if there is some sort of internal pressure to overhype things when they are also creating social media reviews. That’s really where I saw the overhyping. I felt similarly about The Midnight Library and I saw a lot of people calling that life changing. Maybe it was for them, but it didn’t hit that way for me at least.

I enjoyed it, but felt similarly. It was a quick, engaging read and left pretty much no lasting impact on me. I’m fine with this because that’s what I expected and sometimes those are exactly the kind of books that get hyped up. I personally would classify this book as a “fun” book. It’s not a book that will challenge you or change your mindset, it’s just a book that’s hard to put down for a few hours.

I think the Monique storyline weakened the book. I like the idea of it being from the perspective of the writer, but her being tied into it felt forced and melodramatic to me.