Theo of Golden - Allen Levi --------------------- 3 Stars

People love Theo of Golden. I've been hearing about how much people enjoy it for over a year since it came out. It has an impressive 4.7 star rating on Amazon and 4.41 on Goodreads (also strong, considering the platform). While I enjoyed the book too, I just didn't find that it made the same super strong impression on me.

If you are not aware, this is a fictional story about a character named Theo who spends a year in the the charming southern town of Golden. He is mysterious, sweet, old, thoughtful, wise, etc. He truly is a great character. The town is pretty idyllic too, yet he finds ways to improve the lives of many people during his time. 

So, you are probably thinking, what's wrong with this book and why didn't it earn more than 3 stars (which is quite average on this blog)? Well, all fault belongs to me. I can totally see why this book is so well liked and revered by many. It's a great little story and Theo is a great character..... it's also super saccharine to the point that it just felt over the top to me. 

It reminded me a ton of the book A Man Called Ove. Both books are very heartwarming and the main character - Ove/Theo - are the best and most interesting parts of the books. Both have connections to a small community and both, at least to me, don't seem like anything that is remotely close to reality. Here is my crushing review of that book; it earned 1.5 stars. 

And I think that last part is what really got me about this book. Perhaps that is the paradox with this story - it seems both ludicrously unrealistic and wonderfully hopeful. I presume all those people giving it 5 star reviews are doing so because of how wonderful the story feels to them and how optimistic this type of novel sits in our current world. I get all that and appreciate those aspects of the book. I just found it to be one note. And even though the author includes some sad things that helped elevate the happy things, I just couldn't fully buy in to the story and characters. 

While it only earned 3 stars, I do recommend reading it. I think the strong public opinion probably is a better indictor of large scale enjoyment of the book then my middling rating. Again, it's got some great aspects to it and even I finished it and thought it was "cute." Just know that you may be part of the minority of readers who it simply didn't resonate with in the same way.

In the Woods - Tana French ------------------ 3 Stars

I'm trying to remember how exactly this book came on my radar. I'm not quite sure, but I'm fairly certain that I was reading a New York Times article listing some of the best mysteries that were recently released, and this came up. I'm not sure I would've found In the Woods otherwise, but I think I'm fairly happy I did.

When I think back about the books that I read or look back at my reviews, it's rare that I have a purely mystery focused book; but that's what this is. The Irish author, I believe, has a number of mystery books called The Dublin murder squad, and I think this was the first one. Either way, it really is a pure mystery novel with a "whodunnit" murder.

The book is about 450 pages long and felt mostly too long with a couple of bright parts where it really hit it's stride. Like a lot of the books I read, I found the first part to be really exciting, and the ending to be pretty interesting, but this one really slowed in the middle. In some ways, I'm wondering if the author was trying to make it feel like the investigation, as the investigation took a long long time as well, so the reader perhaps felt what it was like to be one of the detectives. Speaking of, the two main characters are a male and female detective team who are young, and one of them has a secret that is connected to the murder.

I did find the book pretty interesting, and was certainly curious about who the murderer might be. As a warning, the book is quite specific in some of its details, and is what I would call a gritty, dark book in many ways. I'm not sure if it's because there are the author was Irish, but there were certain parts of the writing that I found odd or just I couldn't quite follow what she was trying to say. It was sort of bizarre because I found most of the book actually written quite well, other than these rare parts.

Three stars feels right for this book, as I was fairly entertained during much of it, but didn't feel quite satisfied at the end. I thought the premise was, in many ways, the best part. I did learn there was a miniseries made, and I watched a few episodes of that and couldn't quite get through it. Besides being 10 one-hour episodes, it reminded me of the book and that I got to the middle part pretty quickly and just realized it was far too slow and I already knew the ending (which was perhaps the best part).

Ultimately, I understand why the New York Times included it as one of the best mysteries. I think it's hard to find good mystery novels that truly captivate and hold the reader, and I will say that this one felt about as realistic as it could be about two detectives truly investigating a child's murder. I think if you're into murder mysteries, you probably could do a lot worse than this, though just temper expectations as I wasn't blown off the page at any point.