Dead Dead Girls

Really enjoyed this book. It wasn't the best mystery I've ever read but it's a good start from a new author and I actually really loved the characters. They're a little caricaturish but it works with the noir theme. I'll read the next books in the series when my library gets them in!

The story was engaging enough to keep me reading, and I finished the book pretty fast. However, the characters imho would have needed more development and depth, the plot and characters' decisions sometimes didn't make sense at all, and the ending felt kinda abrupt and rushed. The writing style was at times confusing and repetitive. In the end I was left with so many questions concerning the murders, the whys and hows. On the plus side, we get queer Black characters and a glimpse into 1920s Harlem. I will certainly read the next book in the series because I want to know how it all further develops - the story as well as the writing.

Did not finish at about 33%.

Gorgeous cover. I really wanted to like this. Clumsy foreshadowing, oddly short and repetitive sentence structure, characters without personality that also fail as tropes/archetypes. Our heroine pulls herself up to her full height of five feet two inches about 25 too many times even in the section I finished. Louise is hard-drinking and hard-dancing--is this supposed to be a noir with Louise as the hard-boiled investigator? It seems like maybe it's supposed to be, but it missed the mark. Library loan expired and I won't bother to renew.