Sweet Virginia - Caroline Kepnes

Reading Challenge Category: Free from Kindle Unlimited

Official Blurb:

What’s a woman to do when she fails to live up to feminine ideals? It depends on what she’s willing to give up in this darkly comic short story by Caroline Kepnes, the bestselling author of You.
Shelby is struggling with parenthood, marriage, a passive-aggressive mother, and unemployment. But she also has a sweet escape in her beloved Hallmark movies. When a secret admirer promises to sweep her away into a world of those same romantic tropes, the temptation is so heady, Shelby can already smell the pumpkin spice. But this rom-com dream has a whiff of conspiracy…

My Thoughts:

What did I just read? That was the most bizarre 39-paged book I think I have ever read. I went in with no preconceptions but knew it might be a bit odd as this is the author of ‘You’. However, I wasn’t expecting that!
I had a few theories whilst reading it where the story might be going, but I was completely off the mark and didn’t guess anything that did happen.
Shelby is a very unlikeable character, but I think this is intentional, but who knows with this book. I’m not sure I picked up any of the nuances that were being fed me, and I certainly can’t figure out the bigger picture behind the story. Are we supposed to just take it for what it was, or is it supposed to make us think? Well, it certainly had me baffled at the end. We don’t really get answers as to what is happening.
I’ve read a couple of the other reviews on this as I just wasn’t sure what to make of it, and a few people have even questioned whether the author even wrote this? I’ve not read ‘You’ but watched the programme. If that is anything like the book, I expected cleverness and shocks, but with this book, I didn’t find it clever, and even though it shocked me, it wasn’t really in a good way.
I hope that if I ever read ‘You’, it is a million times better than this!

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