Jody GehrmanBesprekingen

Nope. Don’t care for books with a bunch of drugged-up kids.

Dnf

Sadie, a J.K. Rowling type author, disappears during a girls weekend at her family compound. Why can't the women remember anything that happened last night? Where was her husband?

I am a huge fan of YA books, I like the cleanness of them, even though they are romances, they are all innocent. The Truth About Jack was exactly what I like about this genre.

I liked both Dakota and Jack’s characters and Jody Gehrman described them well.

Jack did seem like a bit of a stalker at first but getting to know him, it wasn’t long before I realised why he was like he was, home schooled after being kicked out of school and not socialising with people will make you shy. When he spots Dakota though he wants to get to know her more but he goes about it all the wrong way by pretending that he is Alejandro from Barcelona and he is travelling. The problem is Dakota starts falling for Alejandro even though she has sworn off boys and Jack knows he has to come clean.

Things get worse when Dakota’s ex and her best friend come back and she finds out the truth about Jack, will it send her back into her ex’s arms? or will she manage to forgive Jack.

I thought this was a very good book, well written and fast paced. I hope to read more from Jody Gehrman in the future.

I decided to read this after seeing a couple of friends raving reviews. I listened to it on audiobook and overall it was a great book full of suspense. The authors prose was catchy and it made me become fully invested. For me, this was a non-gorish type thriller.

TW: rape and suicide; however, neither was triggering for me as it wasn’t in depth.

It was a fairly predictable story. It seemed like the author took the storyline from the movie "She's the Man", which was funnier and more interesting than this book. Thought it would be more in-depth. It is okay, but definitely not one I would read again.

I kept going to the end, but shouldn't have

June Moody joins he college friends for a weekend getaway. Old resentments and memories rise up and cause tension. Suddenly, there is a murder and everyone becomes a suspect because everyone has a possible reason to have committed it. The plot line is unusual and very well thought out. Ms. Gehrman uses the power of insecurities and twists them into empowerment in some cases. I found the book very enjoyable.

This was just an ok read for me. The storyline was promising but much of the "action" was going on in Sam's head, and that was just not a place I wanted to be.

I don't mind novels that are written from multiple points of view, but I found Sam's narration in secondary present first person to be a distraction. Maybe it's just me, and others will enjoy this story more than I did. There really wasn't much of anything "dark and twisty" as promised in the description. I mean yes a psycho stalker is dark, but as far as twisty goes you could pretty much see the path the story was taking, which was slow and straight ahead.


I received an advance copy for review

I checked this out due to idle curiosity. I'd read other books with a similar premise, and similar pretty covers. They were often so bland that I couldn't finish them, and turned to Goodreads for spoilers and to learn if anyone shared my opinions. This book was a little different in a few ways. It was indeed boring. I did finish it, however. Aside from boring, it was also heavy on the melodrama. It was full of unfortunate implications: xenophobia, classism, victim-blaming and shaming rape survivors, while poking fun at the Me Too movement, as well as the existence of statutory rape. What a horrible sentence I wrote. It's all in the book, though. There is only one woman of color in the book, Kimi. She is Japanese-American, but also has Italian heritage that is repeatedly and strangely emphasized. She's portrayed as terrible for bringing up her understandable worries about the cops. She runs her own business, but oh noes, it's a pot dispensary. (grumble) It's good money and a stable living, author. Weed and weed products are also heavily taxed here in Washington State, and the money goes towards schools and social services. Chill out. Kimi is portrayed as a huge stoner, violent, scheming, and the person who thinks it's funny to spike people's drinks. Her son is apparently dealing crack. And he's apparently twelve years old. At the end, he supposedly lectures his mom about what a stoner she is. Wow, author. No.

Did the author put thumbtacks in a map of Washington State before writing this so she could name different cities? Because she got the -values- of each city wrong. Kimi would likely be from South Seattle since that's where most of the nice pot shops are. Maybe even Renton, but the author tries to make her seem like she's from downtown or something. Amy at first claims to be pregnant via a college student in Walla Walla. Uhh...Pullman is also a college town in Eastern Washington, where Washington State University is located. WSU is a huge party college. Walla Walla's college is a private, Christian one and I found it on Google in two seconds. I'm not saying they can't party, I'm saying it's unlikely to be a successful dating scene for Amy. Several characters are said to be from Western Washington, but aren't convincing at all as such. It's a lot more liberal here than the author portrays.

No one has any characterization at all besides Kimi, Amy, and Sadie. Amy's bipolar disorder is used as a shorthand for being violent, unstable and delusional. It is used to make her into a child in an adult's body. She's even coerced into sleeping with someone because their spouse can't conceive a child. I particularly hated everything about how the author chose to portray Amy. Hey author, easy fix: just have her go into a manic phase--one symptom is hypersexuality, and another is violent, sudden rages. Some people even do get delusions. You could have done that, author, and -stated it as such.- But all you did was warble on about her depression in the blandest way! You kept calling Amy delusional, but never -showed- it. You're trying to make a mentally ill person the villain, and you're doing a shitty job of it. Go onto WebMD. Hell, even Wikipedia would be helpful. Did you fall asleep while researching for less than one second? I was friends with a few people who were strikingly like Sadie, so she's not actually a stereotype. (Woo, that sentence contained tons of unintentional alliteration!) People similar to Sadie make interesting villains in books and movies, but meeting and knowing them IRL is exhausting if you're lucky, and creepy and dangerous if you're not so lucky.

This book was utterly terrified to use the word 'rape,' yet it has Rape As Backstory used as the sole character trait for someone. She was assaulted by her mom's boyfriend at fifteen. She is now close to forty but no, that's all the characterization the audience gets. The book implies over and over that she seduced the mom's boyfriend, and keeps portraying the rape as consensual sex despite the character repeatedly stating how upset she was by the incident and her clear self-blame. AUTHOR, YOU ARE TERRIBLE.

Everyone got an unrealistic HEA. They were each of the kinds you would find in romance novels, not at all fit for psychological thrillers! The villain reveal happened close to the end and had me rolling my eyes. I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone.

I thought the narrator did a good job. I was able to speed the recording up to 2.0 and still understand everything.

There were a few twists I did not see coming which kept the book interesting. Selene is very narcissistic and it makes it hard for the reader to like her or have any compassion for her. Tansy is a bit of a push over and you just want to shake her and say "seriously, what are you thinking? It won't end differently this time?" The book was written well enough that I had strong feelings about most of the characters.

Tansy just had a surprise visitor. A blast from her dark past. Selene. Selene has come to collect on a debt from years ago. She wants Tansy to help with her daughter, Jupiter. Jupiter has cut all ties to Selene because she is in an abusive relationship. Tansy is not really equipped to help in this situation. But, because of their cryptic past, she decides she must do something!

There are a lot of moving parts to this tale. But, it is a bit contrived…maybe that’s not exactly the word I am looking for. I knew what was coming, there were no real surprises. Plus, I expected more out of Selene. She is the “crazy” one. As a reader, I expected a bit more drama from her.

The narrator, Emily Ellet, really kept the story moving for me. I just expected more dramatic sequences. But, I did love the characters, especially Jupiter. I felt for her situation and her growing up years were no piece of cake!

Need a good mystery…THIS IS IT! Grab your copy today.

I received this novel from the publisher for a honest review.

Entertaining read, but full of far fetched, unrealistic happenings. I was left scratching my head at some of the situations. I wanted some of the characters to grow a backbone and act like an adult. A few twists, which I saw coming, but didn’t expect the ending as it was.

I found some scenes in the book, Tansy’s ex and a sex scene, totally unnecessary and felt like it was just thrown in for something different.

The ten year age difference sets up the friendship between young, impressionable Tansy and the unhinged, manipulative Selene. One dark night everything changes, and Tansy finds it in herself to end the friendship. Twenty years later, Tansy is a college counselor who receives a threatening visit from Selene with an ultimatum. This sets the tone for the rest of the story.

Thanks to Ms. Gehrman , Crooked Line Books and NetGalley for this ARC. Opinion is mine alone.

I understand why Gehrman received a six-figure advance for this debut novel. A story at once hopeful and tragic, it chronicles the summer of awakening discoveries for Anna, the daughter of a guitarist/luthier/father who committed suicide and the harpist/techy/mother whose secret life destroyed the underlying stitches that hemmed the family together.

A poignant, rambling journey full of fun and quiet surprises, Summer in the Land of Skin will remind you of the importance of living today.

A modern day Cyrano de Bergerac story with a twist!

When the long-term substitute English teacher arrives at Sonoma Valley High, both Amber and Geena fall head-over-heels in love with his good looks and sophisticated style.

Geena pens sophisticated messages through MySpace to Mr. Sands in the hopes that he will woo Amber, her best friend who is anything but the classic reading, college-aged literature geek Mr. Sands thinks she is. Geena's fascination with Mr. Sands complicates her troubled relationship with Ben, whose one-time dalliance with Sophie de Luca, the mirror image of a teen beauty queen, stirs up all of Geena's insecurities about who she is and who she should be, both as a young woman and as a girlfriend.

In a wild and wacky turn of events that will leave you staying up all night reading, Amber and Geena discover the value of self-acceptance and the quiet endurance of true love.

I had the pleasure of listening to Jody Gehrman talk about how to write a scene at the 2009 Redwood Writer's Conference this year. I picked up her young adult novel, Confessions of a Triple Shot Betty, but not quick enough to get her to sign it!

For those fans of Gingerbread, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, and Stealing Heaven, this one will be sure to please. Geena, aka Skater Girl, hopes her best friend, Amber aka Blowjob Beezie, and her cousin, Hero, aka Virgin, will get along once they meet. But Amber and Hero hiss like territorial cats in an alley fight once they step inside Triple Shot Betty, the closet-sized drive-through coffee shop where they will all work during the summer.

Geena's attempts to get the two girls to become friends becomes entangled in a web of scheming, lies, and boy antics that escalate at Hero's 16th Birthday party.

Will the three girls ever become friends? You'll have to read the novel to find out.

A treat for psychological thriller fans................

The Summer We Buried by Jody Gehrman is, indeed, an excellent psychological thriller. The plot has some very sharp turns which keeps your interest. Reading it felt like I am on a rocky terrain, could not relax myself a bit. Every page brings you a fresh mystery and thrill which restrains you from putting down the book. The book, definitely, defines friendship and loyalty in a very dangerous manner.

I would, definitely give the book 5 stars. Thanks to Netgalley and Crooked Lane Books for giving me an opportunity to read and review the book.

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Read something else if you're curious about this one. The Girls Weekend is a reunion of college friends as well as a baby shower for one of the girls. Very flat and juvenile characters. These 'girls' do not act or think like someone close to being 40. This book is more of a cozy mystery than a thriller.

Good summer read

This is a very readable novel in the mold of Gone Girl. June Moody gets dumped by her boyfriend and on the spur of the moment goes to a reunion of college friends being hosted by their fabulously successful classmate, the author Sadie MacTavish, at her seaside estate. Sadie disappears, her body is found, and, after June takes up sleuthing, the perps are eventually unveiled.

If you like this kind of book and need a quick read, you will be satisfied. June is quite bright and tends to approach things with her brain, which is refreshing. The remaining characters are not quite as well done. Even though you will be able to identify the models for a few of them, the familiarity probably won't bother you.

I received a review copy of "The Girls Weekend" by Jody Gehrman from Crooked Lane Books through NetGalley.com.

I liked it..
It wouldn't be the first book to reach out off of the shelves to recommend, it would be the fifth or sixth perhaps?

Here we are with a group of ladies who were super close in college, but now have all separated to live their lives. Most all went in very separate directions.

June Moody is in her late thirties and a community college professor, who was just broken up with over a text message! What kind of person would do that?? Jerk.
Well June reaches out to Em (a college buddy whom she is still close to), to respond to an email they received from Sadie (their old college friend who has it all: money, child, estates, and the attractive college professor). Sadie wants to have a baby shower for Amy (sister and friend) so she invites everyone to her mansion to have a good time.

Well....things go terribly wrong and there is blood, a lot of blood.


So, like I said, I liked the book. It helped me during this quarantine and easing my mind into being a stay-at-home-mom and homeschooler.

June Moody is a thirty-something college professor when she is invited to go to the San Juan Islands for a girls weekend with her closest college friends. At first, she not interested. Sure, she likes her friend Em and enjoys keeping up with Kimiko. But she really doesn't want to see Sadie McTavish who was her rival in all things in college and who seems to have a much more successful life than her own. She even married Ethan who had proposed to June first.

But when June's boyfriend dumps her for another woman via a text message, June decides to go to the reunion. She walks into a situation filled with tension and resentment. Amy, their fifth friend and Sadie's cousin, is pregnant. She has always had mental issues and Sadie has taken care of her and controlled her life.

Sadie is a master manipulator who wants to control everyone around her - her husband, her daugher, her cousin, even the gardener. June can see that but is still sort of envious of the life Sadie has created in her lush estate because she happened to write a book that had success similar to the Harry Potter books. June's own single novel is long out of print.

A long evening of drinking ends with memory loss for all of the girls and with Sadie having gone missing. Each of the girls has a reason to be resentful of Sadie as do Ethan and his daughter Dakota. All of them fear that their issues with Sadie will make them wonderful suspects for the police and decide to cover up what little they remember of the past evening.

But suspicions grow among the girls about each other and June spends a lot of time and imagination coming up with various scenarios about the lost time and about what happened to Sadie.

This was a tensely written locked room mystery filled with all sorts of twists and turns. Fans of that sort of thriller will enjoy this one.

Riveting thriller for the summer season! Five college friends get together for a reunion of sorts and to have a baby shower for one of the friends that has had problems in the past. Readers soon find out that these women are more like ‘frenemies’ than friends.

Sadie, the hostess for the weekend getaway, has made millions as an author and seems to have the perfect life. She also has a tendency to control every activity. After a night of too much drinking, the women wake up to a house in shambles and find that Sadie is missing. To make matters worse, there is blood spattered throughout the house.

They feel the need to call the police right away, but each woman has a reason to delay—what if the police suspect them? Each woman has a secret involving Sadie, except June Moody. Everyone knows June dated Sadie’s husband in college. And everyone wonders if they still have feelings for each other.

I feel quite sure most readers will have the mystery solved well before the story ends, but trust me, the fun is in the getting there. I enjoyed being a part of the cat and mouse game as the women, and mostly June, tried to figure out what really happened.

This was a very enjoyable mystery/thriller, set in a picturesque location, with some complicated characters. I highly recommend this one for a quick summer read.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for allowing me to read an advance copy and give my honest review.

Watch Me is a compelling psychological thriller about how far obsession can go. It's easy to see why this would be compared to [b:You|20821614|You (You, #1)|Caroline Kepnes|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1411958102s/20821614.jpg|39913517]. Sam's narrative is reminiscent of Joe's but that's about where the similarities end.

Watch Me alternates between the POV of Sam Grist and Kate Youngblood.
Sam is a grade A sociopath. No doubt about that. He sees the world the way he wants and won't let anything - or anyone - derail his plans. He's worked 5 years to get to Kate and well...he's not about to let go of the fantasy life he's created in his mind.
Kate's had a rough go of it. She's a struggling author, recently divorced and at 38 feeling increasingly invisible. In walks Sam, a 22 year old student in her writing workshop who really sees her. The attraction is undeniable but she's determined not to cross that line. Problem is, he's relentless in his pursuit and seamlessly integrates himself into her life. She just has no idea how far he's willing to go - or has already gone.
I really enjoyed the writing style and despite how disturbing Sam was, I quite liked his character.

Would definitely recommend to fans of psychological thrillers - especially ones featuring stalkers or forbidden desires.

*ARC provided by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

3.5 stars.

Watch Me by Jody Gehrman is a tangled tale of obsession and murder.

Kate Youngblood is in her late thirties and still reeling from her recent-ish divorce. She is a college professor struggling to make tenure and a published author whose latest novel is rejected by her agent. With her best friend, Zoe, about to give birth, Kate is feeling left behind and unnoticed by the opposite sex. Needless to say, she is quite flattered by the attention of one of her students, Sam Grist. Realizing she would be committing professional suicide if she acts on their mutual attraction, she tries to keep the intense twenty-two year old at arm's length. However, unbeknownst to Kate, Sam has been quietly and carefully stalking her for quite some time and his obsession could turn deadly if she thwarts the plan he envisions for their future.

Sam is quite charming and oozes sex appeal. But Kate notices a few less than savory aspects of his personality that do not initially alarm her. She is astonished by his poise and maturity and her low self esteem leaves her very vulnerable to his attention. Kate is a bit of an annoying character who whines a lot about her life yet she is unwilling to do anything to change her circumstances.

Sam is sly, cunning and deeply troubled. He has been obsessed with Kate for years and he will do anything to make his intricate fantasy about their future together a reality. Sam well aware that he is quite different from everyone else and he has made a very conscious effort to mask his inadequacies.

Written from alternating points of view, Watch Me has an interesting storyline but it is incredibly slow moving and somewhat repetitive. None of the characters are overly appealing and for the most part, they are a little under developed. Sam's past is nominally more interesting than Kate's but both characters lack depth (which is maybe the point?). Sam's obsession with Kate is quite creepy and the way he stalks her is chilling. Kate is incredibly self-absorbed and it takes her a little too long to clue into the fact that someone is paying a little too much attention to her. And her reaction once she does realize is eyebrow raising (but not in a good way). Jody Gehrman is a gifted storyteller whose latest mystery is intriguing but never quite measures up to its potential.

A long overdue girls’ weekend goes horribly wrong when controlling queen bee Sadie goes missing leaving only a bloodstain behind. None of her friends can remember what happened and each of them had reason to resent Sadie. Did she pull a “Gone Girl” or did someone kill her?