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This was interesting only as a comparison to the movie. I probably wouldn't have read it if I hadn't watched the movie first and been interested in how it compared.

All of Jasper Fforde's books are weird on some level but this was the weirdest by far and I can't say I enjoyed it. I finished it because I wanted to see how it would end but I don't feel better for sticking with it.

I initially picked this up as a book to sleep to but quickly realized I would like to listen to this while awake haha

I really liked the GBBO-setting and would probably listen to more from this author/narrator. The narrator's voice reminded me of one of the judges on the Great American Baking Show so that's what the main character looks like in my head

The first time I saw this book, I skipped over it because of its boring cover/title. Then I heard a quick synopsis, which sounded interesting, so i added it to my tbr. It still took more than a year to actually start reading it because it never grabbed my eye while looking for something to read. That was a mistake because I actually really liked this and was the kind of book where when I wasn't reading it, I was thinking about how much longer until I could get back to reading it.

I found this infinitely readable. Even though the story moved a bit slowly at times, I read this during every bit of downtime I had. I appreciated the number of POC characters in the book though I did wonder about a man writing about a heavily pregnant woman. Overall I enjoyed this and would read more from this author.

This was interesting but on some level I think I wish it was a more definitive retelling of what happened nationwide during the early days of the pandemic and didn't just focus on California. I understand Lewis had to use the sources he had, but as a New Yorker, I wanted to read about how things were unfolding on the East Coast as well. I also thought the book ended somewhat abruptly and the bit about Charity burying a piece of herself next to that patient she thought she failed was weird and seemingly out of step with the rest of the book.

I read both this and the Brian Moylan Housewives book and truthfully now I can't remember what was discussed in one versus the other. I do remember both spent a fair amount of time talking about the tv/bravo landscape before the Housewives started. This one went city by city and because OC was the first city, spent so much time on this one. It's not a city I watch so I wasn't super interested in the oral history here but it was interesting to go city by city to see how each cast was formed and how the production changed and figured things out as they kept going.

My issue with space books always seems to be the authors want to explain the science behind whatever they've got the characters doing, and I truly don't care. I don't care about methane, I don't care about how to make aluminum on the moon, I don't care about how airlocks work.

I agree with other reviewers that the portrayal of Jazz left a lot to be desired - it reads exactly the way you would expect a white cis man to write a female character - which is not a compliment.

I enjoyed this and am slightly sorry it took me so long to read it. I don't know what the marketing was like when this book was first published but I think the cover does it a disservice because the book was much more engaging than the floating woman on the cover would seem to indicate.

I enjoy Maggie and Hope as amateur detectives who don't try to take over from the actual detectives. I didn't care for the fact that the cops weren't able to make the case. I'm certainly not pro-police in my everyday life but I think in my fiction I want to know that murderers will get caught. I did find just desserts in the way Hugo got his comeuppance, I guess I just sort of thought it was a second best ending. I'm sure Florence's sister didn't find that satisfying either.