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eloia_lue's review
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
I enjoyed this book because when you thought you knew where it was going it would offer another little twist that made you reevaluate what you thought. A pretty quick read with a relatively satisfying ending
Content Warnings
Minor: Sexual assault
mynameisrebecca's review
emotional
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Misogyny, Death, and Ableism
Moderate: Sexual content, Rape, Sexual assault, Racism, Blood, and Body shaming
Minor: Domestic abuse and Death of parent
sbeierle's review
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape and Sexual assault
lauriereadslohf's review
slow-paced
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
I listened to this audiobook courtesy of Netgalley. I was excited to give it a listen when I saw it listed in the horror category and the write-up mentioned “echoes of Misery”. But, most unfortunately, I’m rating it a 2 which on my personal scale means I didn’t like it all that much.
There are so many reviews here that are adoring this book and I always agonize over reviewing a book when I dislike it but it’s a NetGalley title and there’s an unspoken promise that the reader provide a review so here it is. Sorry in advance.
Dream Girl is told from the point of view of a 61-year-old man named Gerry. Gerry is a wealthy writer who took a tumble and broke his leg(s) and damaged his back and is now incapacitated in his expensive apartment and at the complete mercy of his daytime assistant and his night nurse. Gerry thinks he’s simply the best. A nice guy who treats all women well. But his thoughts tell you a different story. He’s rude, judgemental, and, well, a pretty damn awful specimen of manhood. He also reads more like a late 70’s man to me with his oldie references and ignorance of technology and his inability to keep up with modern times. Maybe he’s just a terrible old soul. Who am I to say?
Now I know someone is going to yell at me so I have to say that I do enjoy books featuring an awful character or two. I mean, I read horror, so many awful people reside in horror but here are two recent reads if you don’t believe me: (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3867038160?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1 & https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3999604942?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1) I love to hate a despicable character as much as most people but Gerry was not only awful, he was boring. It’s the boring combined with the awful that killed it for me. Gerry’s a very unreliable narrator too and I’m sick of that a little bit but that’s not the fault of this book, that’s on me for reading too many of them the past two years. He’s being drugged up and he fades in and out of dreamland and the story jumps around in time to hit the reader up with tales of Gerry’s past which only serve to prove he was boring then too. He was also a womanizer who talked himself into believing he wasn’t. How this man managed to catch himself three beautiful wives and several exes is beyond my comprehension. I know he has money but he also has a terrible personality and an unattractive penis (his ex shared that delightful tidbit!) and he claims they all still adore him. Oh Gerry. I almost felt sorry for him for this complete lack of self-awareness until I didn’t . . . But I suppose that is the gist of this story. We’re not supposed to like Gerry but it would’ve been great if he weren’t such a dull villain.
I don’t want to say too much because this is a thriller and things can be easily spoiled. I’ll only say that it takes a long while for something murderous to happen and when it does things start to get a little confusing and the jumping timelines didn’t help matters out. Just when I was getting excited about a turn it would take, I was thrust back into some random time in the past and often forced to listen to Gerry explain away his sexual inappropriateness or other missteps.
I guess what I’m saying here in this very long-winded way, is that this book wasn’t meant for me but maybe it’ll be meant for you? The mystery/thriller/horror-adjacent bits were interesting and the book was well written if you like a dreamy, off-kilter feeling but it needed some oomph, or a shared POV featuring one of his many women friends who “adored” him but that’s not what we get and I am disappointed in ol’ Gerry.
The narrator of the audio, Jason Culp, does a fantastic job with the piece and kept me listening and hoping it would take a turn into the unforgettable but I’m pretty certain if I were reading this in a paper version I would’ve DNF’d it at the halfway mark because I just don’t have the patience.
So it’s a two for me. No poo comments here will change my mind so don’t bother because you’re wasting your breath. I am who I am. I like what I like. Give it a read if you want and I hope you love it!
There are so many reviews here that are adoring this book and I always agonize over reviewing a book when I dislike it but it’s a NetGalley title and there’s an unspoken promise that the reader provide a review so here it is. Sorry in advance.
Dream Girl is told from the point of view of a 61-year-old man named Gerry. Gerry is a wealthy writer who took a tumble and broke his leg(s) and damaged his back and is now incapacitated in his expensive apartment and at the complete mercy of his daytime assistant and his night nurse. Gerry thinks he’s simply the best. A nice guy who treats all women well. But his thoughts tell you a different story. He’s rude, judgemental, and, well, a pretty damn awful specimen of manhood. He also reads more like a late 70’s man to me with his oldie references and ignorance of technology and his inability to keep up with modern times. Maybe he’s just a terrible old soul. Who am I to say?
Now I know someone is going to yell at me so I have to say that I do enjoy books featuring an awful character or two. I mean, I read horror, so many awful people reside in horror but here are two recent reads if you don’t believe me: (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3867038160?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1 & https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3999604942?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1) I love to hate a despicable character as much as most people but Gerry was not only awful, he was boring. It’s the boring combined with the awful that killed it for me. Gerry’s a very unreliable narrator too and I’m sick of that a little bit but that’s not the fault of this book, that’s on me for reading too many of them the past two years. He’s being drugged up and he fades in and out of dreamland and the story jumps around in time to hit the reader up with tales of Gerry’s past which only serve to prove he was boring then too. He was also a womanizer who talked himself into believing he wasn’t. How this man managed to catch himself three beautiful wives and several exes is beyond my comprehension. I know he has money but he also has a terrible personality and an unattractive penis (his ex shared that delightful tidbit!) and he claims they all still adore him. Oh Gerry. I almost felt sorry for him for this complete lack of self-awareness until I didn’t . . . But I suppose that is the gist of this story. We’re not supposed to like Gerry but it would’ve been great if he weren’t such a dull villain.
I don’t want to say too much because this is a thriller and things can be easily spoiled. I’ll only say that it takes a long while for something murderous to happen and when it does things start to get a little confusing and the jumping timelines didn’t help matters out. Just when I was getting excited about a turn it would take, I was thrust back into some random time in the past and often forced to listen to Gerry explain away his sexual inappropriateness or other missteps.
I guess what I’m saying here in this very long-winded way, is that this book wasn’t meant for me but maybe it’ll be meant for you? The mystery/thriller/horror-adjacent bits were interesting and the book was well written if you like a dreamy, off-kilter feeling but it needed some oomph, or a shared POV featuring one of his many women friends who “adored” him but that’s not what we get and I am disappointed in ol’ Gerry.
The narrator of the audio, Jason Culp, does a fantastic job with the piece and kept me listening and hoping it would take a turn into the unforgettable but I’m pretty certain if I were reading this in a paper version I would’ve DNF’d it at the halfway mark because I just don’t have the patience.
So it’s a two for me. No poo comments here will change my mind so don’t bother because you’re wasting your breath. I am who I am. I like what I like. Give it a read if you want and I hope you love it!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexism
Moderate: Sexual assault
gracereads82's review against another edition
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
4.0
This was such an quick read, a slow burn, psychological, popcorn thriller. I could not put it down once I picked it up and read it in two days. It was about a famous author who is convinced the character from one of his books is haunting him as he lays on bed rest after a fall. On bed rest he has so much time to think and this book dives into all of those thoughts. Be forewarned, there is not one likable character in this book, so if you need to like your characters, this is not the book for you. It is a bit different from the author's other books and I am not quite sure that I like how she chose to end it, but I would recommend it as a beach read or for those who like light thrillers.
There is a trigger warning that is a bit of a spoiler so check below if you have something you can't read about.
Thank you to William Morrow for my gifted copy.
There is a trigger warning that is a bit of a spoiler so check below if you have something you can't read about.
Thank you to William Morrow for my gifted copy.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual assault
fictionmajorette's review
challenging
mysterious
reflective
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
Full thoughts: https://fictionmajorette.blogspot.com/2021/06/dream-girl-laura-lippman.html
This was a big miss for me - there are tons of 5-star reviews on Goodreads where people found Gerry and his story compelling and thrilling and they were unable to put this book down. I found it to be completely the opposite. This read to me like a literary fiction book that decided at the end to go back through and put in some thriller elements. Lit Fic is not my genre and while I have found some thriller/mysteries that have a lit-fic writing style that I really enjoyed, this is not one of them.
I think the part of the story this book did the best with is Gerry's characterization. Which, when the whole story is one guy stuck in a bed, characterization is pretty key. We get a lot of his life through flashbacks that jump through time. We get him as a boy, in college, through his 3 marriages, and when he's a professor. This is a very well developed and deep look at Gerry and from that perspective, it was incredibly well done. At time, especially in the first half, this felt more like a character study than anything else.
I think if this was marketed as a sort of lit-fic story about a man looking back over his life and maybe having to rectify a few situations, then I would say this was a success. However, this was partly marketed as a mystery/thriller and on that side, I'd say the book was a pretty big miss for me. The thriller elements, in theory, would be really interesting and engaging. A bed-bound man getting mysterious and somewhat threatening phone calls from a mystery woman. What will happen when she arrives? Is Gerry in danger? What does this woman want from him? The tension is practically built into the very concept of getting mysterious phone calls. But for me, the pacing and choices made with the thriller beats made it pretty dead in the water. It felt like the first half of the story was just the flashbacks to Gerry's life and then the thriller/mystery of these phone calls really came in way too late in the story for me and then was resolved really quickly.
I thought the flashbacks were interesting and did a good job building momentum as the book progressed. I acknowledge the difficulty building pacing, momentum, and tension when the protagonist is just laying in a bed recuperating. I liked that we were hopping around and following multiple points in Gerry's life which helped me feel more engaged in the story.
Overall, my thoughts on this book fell into the category of 'not for me'. I can see how some other readers could find this story super compelling and interesting but it just wasn't clicking for me.
Thanks NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for review
Expected publication is July 1, 2021.
This was a big miss for me - there are tons of 5-star reviews on Goodreads where people found Gerry and his story compelling and thrilling and they were unable to put this book down. I found it to be completely the opposite. This read to me like a literary fiction book that decided at the end to go back through and put in some thriller elements. Lit Fic is not my genre and while I have found some thriller/mysteries that have a lit-fic writing style that I really enjoyed, this is not one of them.
I think the part of the story this book did the best with is Gerry's characterization. Which, when the whole story is one guy stuck in a bed, characterization is pretty key. We get a lot of his life through flashbacks that jump through time. We get him as a boy, in college, through his 3 marriages, and when he's a professor. This is a very well developed and deep look at Gerry and from that perspective, it was incredibly well done. At time, especially in the first half, this felt more like a character study than anything else.
I think if this was marketed as a sort of lit-fic story about a man looking back over his life and maybe having to rectify a few situations, then I would say this was a success. However, this was partly marketed as a mystery/thriller and on that side, I'd say the book was a pretty big miss for me. The thriller elements, in theory, would be really interesting and engaging. A bed-bound man getting mysterious and somewhat threatening phone calls from a mystery woman. What will happen when she arrives? Is Gerry in danger? What does this woman want from him? The tension is practically built into the very concept of getting mysterious phone calls. But for me, the pacing and choices made with the thriller beats made it pretty dead in the water. It felt like the first half of the story was just the flashbacks to Gerry's life and then the thriller/mystery of these phone calls really came in way too late in the story for me and then was resolved really quickly.
I thought the flashbacks were interesting and did a good job building momentum as the book progressed. I acknowledge the difficulty building pacing, momentum, and tension when the protagonist is just laying in a bed recuperating. I liked that we were hopping around and following multiple points in Gerry's life which helped me feel more engaged in the story.
Overall, my thoughts on this book fell into the category of 'not for me'. I can see how some other readers could find this story super compelling and interesting but it just wasn't clicking for me.
Thanks NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for review
Expected publication is July 1, 2021.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual assault
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