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I already talked enough. Giving my five blazing stars! I truly more books of the author. She did amazing job! Walking across the college campus, having fun with your friends, falling in love, making mistakes, no responsibility. The best thing I discovered in college was that I had access to free counseling. (This is true of grad school, too.) What a gift. Talking to someone else about how you’re feeling is healing. In My Dreams I Hold a Knife is Winstead’s debut book. She followed that with The Last Housewife (2022) It looks like she’s also publishing romance, including Fool Me Once (2022). I guess she likes balancing the light with the dark when it comes to writing. Solidly written fast-paced mystery! Definitely had shades of The Girls Are All So Nice Here with the reunion theme and something terrible happening while they were at school. I felt like this novel did more justice to the theme and kept me more intrigued and entertained.
In My Dreams I Hold a Knife is whatever you're looking for: a mystery, broken hearts, very deep secrets and unbearable truths.
I also listened to this playlist of dark academia music while I read the book and it was LIFE CHANGING: https://youtu.be/uQpmIm4I1dw Part murder mystery, part coming of age, these flawed (and somewhat unlikable characters) will challenge you in the best way possible, and perhaps convince you to feel for them just a bit by the end? I cannot wait to discuss this one with more readers, and I believe it will be in my Top Ten Reads of 2021 wrap-up as well. Highly recommended to other thriller readers who may be feeling jaded towards the genre like I was. There were some elements to the story that I did appreciate. First, the writing was truly entertaining. It was definitely melodramatic with lots of cliffhanger chapter endings and bold one liners, but it worked for the story and it kept me reading. I also enjoyed the structure of the novel. Though there were two clear timelines – “during college” and “college reunion” – the “during college” timeline jumped all over the place which kept me on my toes and was something unusual. Finally, I also liked that all the characters’ motivations were explained without being excused and sometimes those reasons were fairly interesting. Book Genre: Adult, Adult Fiction, Contemporary, Crime, Fiction, Mystery, Mystery Thriller, Suspense, Thriller In My Dreams I Hold a Knife definitely offered more drama than plot. Or rather, the friend and relationship drama was the entire plot.
Ashley Winstead’s mordant debut novel is the latest entry in the budding subgenre of “dark academia,” where the crime narrative takes place on a college campus...At its heart, Winstead’s novel examines what it means to covet the lives of others, no matter the cost." — The New York TimesMy University days were prior to this story in a different time and place with very strict rules. I was unable to relate to this University and the events that occurred there. Reading this book was like wandering solo in some remote, little-known country, not knowing its culture, expectations, or language. I do believe many readers will find his a tense, compelling thriller, and I am probably in the minority. I studied myself the way I’d done my whole life, searching for what others saw when they looked at me….I could never tell which story was right - Exceptional Jessica, or Mediocre Jessica. My life was a narrative I couldn’t parse, full of conflicting evidence.” The story follows a core group of seven(ish) characters, all keeping one, if not more, big secrets from each other during their time at Duquette University. There is also a second major timeline which follows the characters through a college reunion – and, of course, they’re still keeping secrets from each other, though they are arguably not as big this time around (minus the secret of the murderer, lol). The reader learns the barest details about each of the characters throughout the story, and from those details you can easily predict what secrets they’re keeping from the rest of the group (particularly during the earlier timeline), primarily because the characters are, in my opinion, not very original and we’ve seen these types of characters with these types of secrets many times before – in all kinds of media. The clearest examples of this, in my opinion, are Frankie, the star football player, and Courtney, the mean-girl. sat down to read, took a dinner break, and then read the rest of it. I love stories about old friends coming together when there are secrets to deal with, and I thought the characters were so well-drawn. You know how critical I am with thrillers, but this was FANTASTIC. Each of the East House Seven carries some form of guilt over Heather’s death. Compare the ways they manage that guilt. Besides the murderer, do you think any of them should be blamed?
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