Laura Branch

Laura BranchGreat if you want to follow a murder case without getting into anything too dark or intense. Personally I prefer more intensity so I’d give the book 3 stars for myself, but I know this would be a perfect level for someone else so I wanted to give it 4. Mini spoiler: You find out who the killer is part way through, so choose this book if you’re more invested in the characters and how they handle all the lies going around than in solving a complex mystery. Although even tho the main mystery gets revealed, a side mystery helps maintain that type of intrigue. I laughed at some lines and scenarios, so this is a good lighthearted read!

Laura BranchSomehow this book seemed to incorporate such a range of obscure details from my life while taking me into lives completely different from my own. A very nice light read if you want to feel like you’re finally hearing the full story about people you’ve known and reshaping how you see them. The plot points felt scattered until things wove together more in the end, but I still enjoyed the individual storylines so that wasn’t a huge negative. Getting into some spoilers, I really liked how each character had different but related moments of realization for how they treated the people around them and addressed their hypocrisies by the end. For example, Sasha coming full circle by realizing she treated Mullin as an outsider like how her in-laws treated her really helped weave the story to a satisfying conclusion. I loved Darley as a character (practical, tries to be self aware, great relationship with her husband) and liked that she came to her senses about how her family treated Sasha on her own. I also liked that she still overlooked how she treated her husband’s position in the family until he confronted her about it, which gave her a good balance of how people realistically learn and grow. The one part I disliked about her ending was how her point of view often mentioned her regret for not continuing to work, but other than that there was no build up into her going back to her career. Instead, the fact that she started again was subtly slipped into the epilogue. Georgiana’s character was interesting with how she saw her self and the type of person she wanted to be compared to how she made characters like Sasha feel. I liked her pivot into philanthropy, but for the themes of inclusion and family her resolution felt like something she fell into rather than worked on. Overall, Pineapple Street was a great book to kick off my summer!