Friday 9 October 2020

Book Review | Milkshakes For The Almost Dead by Lulu Wood

Title: Milkshakes for the Almost Dead
Author: Lulu Wood
Publication Date: 21st June 2020 by Handsome Words
Format: ebook via Kindle Unlimited
Target Audience: Young  Adult
Genre: Mystery  

Goodreads, Amazon.co.uk, Waterstones

 

Welcome to Lattering, the surprise of your summer.

In a sleepy seaside town full of secrets and lies, first love, missing girls, hot boys, psychopaths in cowboy boots and bodies on the beach, sixteen year-old Diana will make the best friends she’s ever had, during the worst summer of her life.

After her dad is arrested, scholarship student Diana is forced to move to Lattering with her crazy aunt, Vita. With no friends and two boring jobs, Diana thinks her life can’t get any worse, until the day they find a body on the beach...

 

                                                                         Rating

                                                 My Thoughts

This book revolves around Diana, who after her father is arrested is sent to live with her eccentric aunt in a sleepy seaside town for the summer. There's a mystery involving a boy's boarding school as well as something that doesn't quite add up about her mother's death.
 
I appear to be in the minority when it comes to this book because all I see on Goodreads are five star reviews but it just wasn't a great read for me. I initially picked this book up because Meg from megwithbooks on booktube talked about it (I was going to link the video but now I can't find which one she mentioned it in, whoops!) and I was browsing through Kindle Unlimited and spotted it on there and decided to read it before my subscription ran out. 
 
For some bizarre reason, maybe I just wasn't listening whilst Meg was talking, but I thought this book involved zombies for some reason. Now that I've read the book I honestly have no idea where I got this from because yeah, there are no zombies in this book unfortunately. Maybe I misread the title and thought it said undead instead of almost dead?? Anyway, this is essentially a YA mystery and to be honest I just didn't really care throughout the majority of it.
 
I did give this two stars so we'll talk about what I did like first. I thought the setting was pretty good, I really like books that are set in small towns, I just like the vibes they give off. I also thought that the mystery aspect had potential and that was the part that kept me reading on.  
 
The characters were just ok in my opinion. I didn't despise them but I didn't fall in love with them either. Diana came across a bit immature at times, I just didn't connect with her at all really. I liked her Aunt (who's name I can't remember!), she was quirky but she was always just coming and going and her relationship with Diana isn't really developed as much as I would have liked. Diana's new best friend Gloria was intriguing but again I didn't feel like I got to know her very well to form a full opinion.
 
There are two love interests in this book. One of them is a boy Diana works with who is quite sweet and I would have liked to have seen more of them together. The other is a boy who goes to a local boarding school and who was just very cringey and everytime he opened his mouth I wanted to tell him to shut up but for some reason Diana is obsessed with him after one brief meeting because of course she is...
 
It's the writing that annoyed me the most though. It wasn't bad but the chapters were just so short and it meant that the pacing felt all over the place. It's a fairly decent sized book at 425 pages but nothing happens for so much of it. The synopsis mentions a dead body being found on the beach but this doesn't happen until over halfway through. The mystery kept getting to a point where it was starting to get interesting and then it would slow back down again which just frustrated me to no end.
 
Overall, I can definitely understand why some people will like this book but I just found it boring for a mystery. I wasn't invested and too many elements got on my nerves so I probably won't continue with this series. Judging by a lot of peoples glowing reviews this is probably just a me thing and I would encourage you to pick it up if it sounds like your kind of thing.

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