Tell Me Lies

not my favorite jennifer crusie, but still had everything that makes a jennifer crusie work great! namely a pet dog, lots of humor, a kick ass best friend, a love interest who would basically d!e for the main character… i loved the level of depth maddie had, maybe partially bc i’ve been reading / watching a few works where it feels like the mc is just flat / mary sue, but maddie is a real person with unique worries and insecurities and strengths. she’s great! this story is extremely complex, with a whooooole lot of moving parts, and overall i thought crusie pulled it off pretty successfully. there were many details that became important later that i didn’t expect to become important. that being said, i still thought the identity reveal for the murderer kinda came out of nowhere, and i’m not sure if i loved the exact extent maddie went to to ruin her reputation lol the exhibitionism is a choice, for sure. i don’t think brent HAD to die, like that’s an extreme choice on the part of the murderer, tho i can see why that works out best for maddie and em, and buenos aires kinda came outta nowhere. also i wish treva’s reveal had a bit more detail to it — like how exactly did [redacted] manage to seduce her? loved em tho, and the bits from em and mel’s perspective were such a treat. overall, crusie succeeded at what crusie does best, and tho she didn’t do it perfectly, she did a decent job at taking a stab at the murder mystery part as well.

Jennifer Crusie never lets me down and that's why I love her. I've actually read this book before and I remember it being one I didn't enjoy as much first time around. I liked it but I wasn't in love. You may be questioning why I reread with that kind of attitude but I really feel like I appreciate her books more as I get older. I mean, I discovered her books when I was about 14 and let me tell you they were an eye-opening experience but I'd never read anything like it and I knew what I wanted in a romance and it didn't involve a woman already married, with a kid, thinking about getting a divorce. That was not in my romance had which is why I didn't enjoy it as much. I'm older now and accept my MCs can by any age and it won't affect my enjoyment of some good old romance. This will never be my favourite Jennifer Crusie book, that's just not gonna happen, I have set books for that spot, but I still enjoyed it. Maddie was a hot mess and she needed to get a grip and stop caring what everyone thought about her, but she did show the other side of living in a small town as a good girl. People expect certain things and it's hard to move past that. She didn't have a bad life but it took her a kick in the butt to realise she wasn't happy. Sure, she could put up with an inattentive husband who cheated on her before, but she wasn't going to keep putting up with that. And especially not when she had a daughter she loved beyond anything. She had to make sure everything was ok for her. There was more going on, obviously, there was the cute younger guy in the form of CL Sturgis Maddie had a history with. And there was the question of where all that money came from because Maddie knows they shouldn't have a quarter of a million stashed away, she balances the cheque book and she knows. So there's a mystery and a second chance romance and it was so much fun. I had a great time and this why I always return to rereading Jennifer Crusie books.