The redeem

The redeeming part for me was when Erivo speaks about her role in The Colour Purple -- it's such a tender and insightful deep dive into a character from soneone who has spent so long in that person's shoes. I wish the whole book had been formatted like that, alas.

2.5⭐️

Evenings and Weekends is a sizzling debut novel. It’s a love letter to Londo

Evenings and Weekends is a sizzling debut novel. It’s a love letter to London with an incredible ensemble cast of characters. Each person is messy and going through their own inner turmoil, whether that’s needing to tell their son about a cancer diagnosis, panicking about pregnancy, navigating heteronormative propriety, or being caught in a love triangle.

What I love is that there are no villains. McKenna writes each character with warmth and empathy — we’re truly rooting for everyone. Set during a heatwave, there’s a peculiar intensity to the drama, in which every character feels a little too close for comfort — it’s claustrophobic and intoxicating. There’s also a whale stuck in the River Thames and a reporter who bears an eerie resemblance to Princess Diana. Naturally she is crowned “The Princess…. Of Whales”. Moments of levity and triumph provide relief from the emotional complexity of this tale.

It’s certainly a rollercoaster, but one you’ll immediately want to ride again.

Imagine a dystopian world in which your people are oppressed and marginalised. Your uncle has just been murdered by the regime. You are left with no-one in the world, truly and utterly alone....

But you’re

Imagine a dystopian world in which your people are oppressed and marginalised. Your uncle has just been murdered by the regime. You are left with no-one in the world, truly and utterly alone....

But you’re just too damn horny to do anything about it.

Yes, our main character spends the entire novel just lusting over her oppressor. The "dystopia" is just the backdrop for the smut, rendering it meaningless.

*SPOILER WARNING*** YOUVE BEEN WARNED: (view spoiler)[ YES there’s a twist but it’s very convenient when your hot oppressor turns out to be on your side all along, especially when you would otherwise have been too horny to care. (hide spoiler)] Diabolical.

These interlinked short stories give voices to those women, before the final story ignites a ga

These interlinked short stories give voices to those women, before the final story ignites a galvanising call-to-arms which will leave you just as fuming as the author. It's brutal but so compelling, with a bucketload of personality.

Great BBL blends three genres: literary fiction, romance, and a little bit of mystery. Howeverrrr, I'm not sure it will fully satisfy fans of any of those genres, because it doesn't succeed particularly well in any of them.

The mystery aspect is flimsy at best. It's not well-paced and, frankly, a bit gimmicky. It's tacked on at the end and doesn't really add much texture (view spoiler)[ as we hardly ever actually saw the two characters the twist is based around interact. (hide spoiler)]

The romance doesn't really make sense, because the FMC falls in love almost overnight and yet -- aside from being tall? -- the MMC doesn't really have any defining character traits. It's classic grumpy x sunshine but all of a sudden he stops "glowering" and she's in love with him. I'm not really sure what their attraction is based on, aside from being the only young people within a 10-mile radius.

The literary fiction comes in the form of Margaret: a socialite who disappeared from the public eye but wants to tell her story. If that sounds like Evelyn Hugo............ that's because it kind of is. EmHen tried to re-heat Taylor Jenkins Reid's nachos and they were... a little stale. It's been done! And it's been done better. The first half of Margaret's interviews are really really boring, and seem to just interrupt the original story in pointless ways. We should've skipped most of Margaret's lineage and backstory, and I feel like a good editor would've got rid of that immediately. Why the fuck were we learning about her grandparents!!!! Entire chapters could've easily been reduced to a few sentences.

To me, this reads like a screenplay. It would probably work on screen, but as a novel it's just a bit underwhelming.

I can't help but feel that Great BBL was rushed, and that the mammoth edits required would've set back the release so much that she just pushed through. I fear her publishers are so committed to rinsing Emily Henry dry that they're sacrificing the quality writing we have come to love (and expect) from her. In this press run for this book, she's ALREADY teasing a new (snowy) novel that she's writing. I'm not saying she shouldn't be writing something new yet, but I think her team should be advising her to let people focus on one book at a time. I'd rather wait longer for something consistently good.

The premise of Great BBL was brilliant, but this is clumsy handling of a delicate thing. A bit more time to work on it, and it could've been salvaged. I'm frustrated because I know this author can do so much better. This iteration is disappointing.

2.75 rounded up ⭐️⭐️⭐️