Updated: December 2019: So, I am a dumb ass. I thought I liked this book when I first read it. Since I was in a reading slump I grabbed this and a few other books to re-read during Christmas Day. Ugh. This is still goofy and irritating for all of the reasons I said below. However, having wine and cheese while reading this made the book much more palatable.
I have always been fascinated by the 20s. You had the so-called Jazz Age, women fighting for the right to vote in the U.S., etc. and all of it ending when the U.S. enters the Great Depression in the 1930s. I never much thought of what the 1920s was like in England, and now I still would want a book about that since “Twenties Girl” did not hit the mark for me.
The big reason why I didn’t rate this above 2 stars though is that I hated the main character Lara. She was awful. She honestly only gets a bit better a couple of chapters before the book ends which is just way too long for me to be reading about an insufferable character. I guess you can say the other main character in this one is Lara’s Great Aunt Sadie. Sadie is a spirit that is tied to Lara for whatever reason and is now following Lara around to find her necklace so that Sadie can move on.
Lara’s life is a mess. She is trying to hold onto her dwindling recruiting business after her best friend goes off with some random guy. Her parents are concerned about her since she has grown obsessed with her ex boyfriend who dumped her via email. Okay that last bit is a jerk move, but her texting and also stalking the guy didn’t win me over to her side. When Lara attends her great aunt’s funeral and realize her spirit is back from the dead and “haunting” her, Lara initially hopes she’s just imagining things. But when she realizes Sadie is here to stay, she does whatever she needs in order to get her life back.
I don’t know. This could have been a funny book, or a book version of Ghost (without the weeping and wailing at the end). But it just didn’t work. Lara is insufferable. She uses Sadie in order to make herself more popular. She also uses her to manipulate others around her (to hire her as a recruiter) and uses her to force her ex to get back together with her.
Sadie is no prize either since she uses Lara right back to get her to do what she wants too.
There are additional characters in this book, and a side plot dealing with Lara’s jerk of an uncle, but honestly I don’t even want to go down that road.
The writing was okay, the flow was too. I think if I had liked the central premise and characters more this would have been a 4 or 5 star read.
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