Grave Expectations
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Description
“This book has bags of humor, bags of heart, and a proper murder mystery at its core.” —Janice Hallett, author of The Appeal
Almost-authentic medium Claire and her best friend, Sophie, agree to take on a seemingly simple job at a crumbling old manor in the English countryside: performing a seance for the family matriarch's 80th birthday. The pair have been friends since before Sophie went missing when they were seventeen. Everyone else is convinced Sophie simply ran away, but Claire knows the truth. Claire knows Sophie was murdered because Sophie has been haunting her ever since.
Despite this traumatic past, Claire and Sophie are still unprepared for what they encounter when they arrive at the manor: a ghost, tragic and unrecognizable, and clearly the spirit of someone killed in a rage at the previous year's party. Given her obsession with crime shows—not to mention Sophie's ability to walk through walls—Claire decides they're the best people to solve the case. And with the help of the only obviously not-guilty members of their host family—sexy ex-policeman Sebastian and far-too-cool non-binary teen Alex—they launch an investigation into which of last year's guests never escaped the manor's grounds.
What follows is somewhat irregular detective work involving stealing a priest's cassock, getting too drunk to remember to question your suspect, and of course, Chekhov's sparkly purple dildo. As Claire desperately tries to keep a lid on the shameful secret that would definitely alienate her new friends, the gang must race against their own incompetence to find the murderer before the murderer finds them.
Book Information
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I had high expectations on this book based on the general themes and topics. But it did disappoint me. Let's first talk about what I loved: The comedy and fun stuff was really entertaining, if I were to rate it based off of entertainment, it'd probably be 4/5⭐. The "trio" (living) of Basher, Alex and Claire plus Sophie was also really cool and made me smile a few times. Like a found family. Now about what I didn't like: Oof did I not like Claire's persona. She was freaking 30 and acted like a teenager. Even Alex, a literal teen, was more an adult than she was. Of course being 30 doesn't mean you're like a wise old person but you at least have some kind of experience and wisdom. I have to say, I could not picture her being 30 at all. 23 or younger was my mental image throughout the book. ⚠️(Spoilers ahead) Another important note is that Claire seemed really clueless. She can see freaking ghosts and doesn't think of interrogating them?? Or talking to them about the case? Really?! She spent over 10+ years talking to ghosts and doesn't think of using this as a tool? That made no sense to me. ⚠️ Apart from that, the writing was also really cringe. Like a full body cringe. The LOLs and all that made me want to dnf this book sometimes. I'm happy I didn't but I was close. The fact that we didn't find out much about the characters other than Claire made me a bit well... Sad. I wanted to know more about Figgy and some other characters. To conclude, this book was funny when it came to dildos but it was slightly too "try hard" for me.
3.5
The book was very intriguing at the beginning and at the end. In between it sometimes was kind of boring. It had a character development and you could not really see what’s happening so it wasn’t that obvious. _______________ little spoiler ________________ I did like the main characters characteristics, but it would suits a teenager more because she doesn’t seem like a 30-year-old. But I assume that’s however, you preferred to be . But she definitely seems younger than she is in the books 
Ich hab eine Weile gebraucht, ums zu Ende zu lesen, aber insgesamt wars eine schnelle, einfache und unterhaltsame Lektüre. Einige Entscheidungen der Hauptfiguren waren frustrierend, und besonders am Ende hatte ich das Gefühl, dass sie durch „Plot Armor“ geschützt wurde, aber es hat trotzdem Spaß gemacht das Buch zu lesen.
Description
“This book has bags of humor, bags of heart, and a proper murder mystery at its core.” —Janice Hallett, author of The Appeal
Almost-authentic medium Claire and her best friend, Sophie, agree to take on a seemingly simple job at a crumbling old manor in the English countryside: performing a seance for the family matriarch's 80th birthday. The pair have been friends since before Sophie went missing when they were seventeen. Everyone else is convinced Sophie simply ran away, but Claire knows the truth. Claire knows Sophie was murdered because Sophie has been haunting her ever since.
Despite this traumatic past, Claire and Sophie are still unprepared for what they encounter when they arrive at the manor: a ghost, tragic and unrecognizable, and clearly the spirit of someone killed in a rage at the previous year's party. Given her obsession with crime shows—not to mention Sophie's ability to walk through walls—Claire decides they're the best people to solve the case. And with the help of the only obviously not-guilty members of their host family—sexy ex-policeman Sebastian and far-too-cool non-binary teen Alex—they launch an investigation into which of last year's guests never escaped the manor's grounds.
What follows is somewhat irregular detective work involving stealing a priest's cassock, getting too drunk to remember to question your suspect, and of course, Chekhov's sparkly purple dildo. As Claire desperately tries to keep a lid on the shameful secret that would definitely alienate her new friends, the gang must race against their own incompetence to find the murderer before the murderer finds them.
Book Information
Posts
I had high expectations on this book based on the general themes and topics. But it did disappoint me. Let's first talk about what I loved: The comedy and fun stuff was really entertaining, if I were to rate it based off of entertainment, it'd probably be 4/5⭐. The "trio" (living) of Basher, Alex and Claire plus Sophie was also really cool and made me smile a few times. Like a found family. Now about what I didn't like: Oof did I not like Claire's persona. She was freaking 30 and acted like a teenager. Even Alex, a literal teen, was more an adult than she was. Of course being 30 doesn't mean you're like a wise old person but you at least have some kind of experience and wisdom. I have to say, I could not picture her being 30 at all. 23 or younger was my mental image throughout the book. ⚠️(Spoilers ahead) Another important note is that Claire seemed really clueless. She can see freaking ghosts and doesn't think of interrogating them?? Or talking to them about the case? Really?! She spent over 10+ years talking to ghosts and doesn't think of using this as a tool? That made no sense to me. ⚠️ Apart from that, the writing was also really cringe. Like a full body cringe. The LOLs and all that made me want to dnf this book sometimes. I'm happy I didn't but I was close. The fact that we didn't find out much about the characters other than Claire made me a bit well... Sad. I wanted to know more about Figgy and some other characters. To conclude, this book was funny when it came to dildos but it was slightly too "try hard" for me.
3.5
The book was very intriguing at the beginning and at the end. In between it sometimes was kind of boring. It had a character development and you could not really see what’s happening so it wasn’t that obvious. _______________ little spoiler ________________ I did like the main characters characteristics, but it would suits a teenager more because she doesn’t seem like a 30-year-old. But I assume that’s however, you preferred to be . But she definitely seems younger than she is in the books 
Ich hab eine Weile gebraucht, ums zu Ende zu lesen, aber insgesamt wars eine schnelle, einfache und unterhaltsame Lektüre. Einige Entscheidungen der Hauptfiguren waren frustrierend, und besonders am Ende hatte ich das Gefühl, dass sie durch „Plot Armor“ geschützt wurde, aber es hat trotzdem Spaß gemacht das Buch zu lesen.