Happy Tuesday, friends!
I have TWO very different posts for you today.
First up, in honor of today officially being the first day of fall, it’s SIMPLE WAYS I’M SAVORING FALL (because we totally need another fall post around here!).
And because it’s the 22nd of the month, it also means it’s BOOK CLUB DAY!
FALL + BOOKS is the best way to kick off autumn!
Alrighty, let’s head to…
Before we start, if you would like to read the “rules” of Shay’s Book Club and see a complete list of every book we’ve read as a group along with my personal “star” ratings, they are all RIGHT HERE.
In this blog post and in the comment section, WE WILL BE DISCUSSING SPOILERS. If you are interested in reading this book, you might not want to read below this line. In SEPTEMBER’S BOOK REVIEW later this month, I will give a quick recap and let you know if I recommend the book or not, so if you haven’t read it, you might want to wait until that official BOOK REVIEW because there will be no spoilers and based on that, you can decide whether or not to read the book.
***Anything below this though will include spoilers as everyone commenting here has already read the book.***
Ready, set, here we go!
This month’s book was…
…The Story Keeper by Kelly Rimmer
Just as a reminder, I absolutely adore this author!
Her book The Things We Cannot Say was MY FAVORITE BOOK OF 2019, A-N-D her book, The Paris Agent, was my FAVORITE BOOK OF 2023!
She’s the only author that has ever received my #1 spot multiple times.
All of that to say…
…for the love.
Sigh.
Geez.
This is not my year, people.
In 2025, my Top 3 Favorite Books of the entire year (out of 58) were…
#3: THE SECRET BOOK OF FLORA LEA by Patti Callahan Henry
#2: BROKEN COUNTRY by Clare Leslie Hall
#1: ONE GOOD THING by Georgia Hunter
…and do you know what they all three have in common?
THEY WERE ALL THREE BOOK CLUB PICKS!
All three of them.
This year, it’s like I’m specifically picking terrible books and making you all read them with me.
What. Is. Happening?
My apologies because once again, our book club selection has let me down. Now, if you disagree and absolutely loved this book, I would love to know in the comment section. Truly, I would. In the meantime, I will keep my thoughts brief because I really do typically love this author, I just thought she missed the mark on this one.
Honestly, I don’t even know where to start as there are so many things I didn’t like about this book. It was predictable, it had way too many coincidences (after decades, she just happened to find the ring behind the toilet or the loose floorboard with all of the SUPER important information just sitting there RIGHT after she read that chapter in the book), it was cheesy, the “spooky” element was so ridiculous and not flushed out at all in the story…my list could go on.
You know me, I hate when there are ghosts in my novels, but for the love, I’d have taken a ghost over a stray cat in this book just to make it more interesting.
I think blog reader Addy said it best…if Kelly Rimmer’s name wasn’t on the cover, I wouldn’t have believed she wrote it. The writing seemed very immature which is NEVER a word I would have used to describe this author in other books.
I don’t hate the idea of “a story within a story”. Oddly enough, the same thing happened in last month’s book club book too (When You Loved Me by Beatriz Williams), but I don’t love when the “story within the story” is better than the actual story. Which, once again- oddly enough- happened in this book as well.
I know that unlike Williams’ book last month, the story within the story comes full circle back to the “main story” in this novel, but I just found it way more entertaining than the “real life” version that was playing out.
I’m going to stop with “my thoughts” because honestly, when it was over, I was just SO ANNOYED that I had suggested it for our book club. Ugggggg, I want a do over, friends. This one fell super short.
Next month, we are either going to continue with me selecting the worst books OR we are going to hopefully redeem the situation when we read…
…Hollow Bones by Jodi Picoult.
Surely this one will be better, right?
S-U-R-E-L-Y.
Let’s head to the comment section to chat books and then make sure you pop over here to see all the ways I’m trying to savor fall this season. xx
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