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In My Dreams I Hold a Knife
June 2022: LGBT
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In My Dreams I Hold a Knife by Ashley Winstead - 4 Stars
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I read a few pages of this book and gave up. It seemed like a true romance and I just gave up. Thanks for the review. I think your review is good but it did not entice me to go back and read it. Your comment about "partying and Greek life" sealed it for me. I have read enough like that. Thanks for the review. I was enticed to read your whole review, even the spoilers and I think I made the right decision - no rating for me. Did not read enough to quality for a review. Thanks for writing this. peace, janz
Peacejanz wrote: "I read a few pages of this book and gave up. It seemed like a true romance and I just gave up. Thanks for the review. I think your review is good but it did not entice me to go back and read it. Yo..."Oh, I can totally understand how someone could bounce right off this book. I was looking for something campy and fast after cycling out of a super long, dense read and I think if this hadn't been exactly what I was looking for at this moment I'd have rated it more harshly. There is a lot of silly romance stuff in the beginning that doesn't feature as prominently later on – though I found the multiple love triangles a bit much and confusing as to who was dating who. I found the Greek life stuff extremely opaque too, as this was never a part of my higher education, so I had a difficult time understanding why the characters cared so much about it.
It also occurred to me the cops would have had to be especially incompetent to have missed so much evidence about Heather's murder, but I was already suspending my disbelief so much that I thought, "Okay, sure, why not!"
I'm glad you found my review helpful, and I definitely don't begrudge you DNFing this one. It was fun for me but pretty light and forgettable.
I understand what you wrote exactly. I know how you feel - sometimes you feel like a grape, sometimes, an orange. I read several books at a time and after a long serious one, I need the quick mystery. I cannot do several heavy books at the same time - on the other hand I promise myself that I will read one true romance a year, one Stephen King every five years or so. I have my rules, by golly. Thanks again for the review. peace, janz
I was thinking the same exact thing about the title!!! They even have scissors on the cover which I thought was funny.I agree, the murder didn't feel like the main focus of the book but for some reason it was a quick read for me.
Kelly wrote: "I was thinking the same exact thing about the title!!! They even have scissors on the cover which I thought was funny.I agree, the murder didn't feel like the main focus of the book but for some ..."
Right?! When I realized the scissors on the cover were the murder weapon I thought, "They really committed to that title knowing full well a knife will never come up, huh..."
A pretty solid campy thriller. Exactly what I was looking for as a summer read, so I'm satisfied even if I don't think it was the most brilliant thing I've ever read.
32-year-old Jessica Miller is determined to return to her ten year college reunion at the prestigious Duquette University and prove to her old college classmates just how successful she's become since graduation. Just one problem: her senior year was marred by the horrific murder of her best friend and roommate, Heather Shelby. Now that all her old friends are reuniting, Heather's brother Eric appears, determined to find his sister's killer. And he's convinced it's either Jessica or one of her friends...
In My Dreams I Hold a Knife has a fun premise for a thriller, and it delivers on that premise. The narrative jumps back and forth between present day and the past, putting together the pieces of the mystery and Jessica's place in it. The formula works well, although I found most of the characters – including Jessica – rather petty and unlikeable. Coop stood out as tolerable, as did Frankie and Caro at different points, but the rest of them were the kind of people I'd probably love to hate in real life. A lot of drama abounds, and only a small part of it truly relates to Heather's murder. I had a difficult time seeing exactly what Coop saw in Jessica. I also had the murderer pegged about halfway through, but still enjoyed the campiness of the plot and the ride to the reveal. (view spoiler)[I never really bought Jessica as the killer, either; I wish that particular red herring was more believable. Instead Jess is sorta just shitty by inaction, and her lack of remorse at the end was a little offputting. (hide spoiler)] I found Jessica's perfectionism and fear of failure extremely relatistic and relatable, however – more so than anything related to the murder plot.
I will say, for supposedly being the 16th most prestigious college in the US, Duquette's students didn't seem to do a lot of studying. Everything was about partying and Greek life, which gives the book a "teen romcom" feel to it.
Also, I love the title, but it really should have been called In My Dreams I Hold Scissors (not nearly as catchy, I know), or the murder weapon should have actually been a knife. It bugged me that such a great title is more or less a non sequitur to the text itself.