Hello everyone! It’s been quite awhile (about 2 months to be exact) since I’ve graced you with my insanely long ramblings of my thoughts and books. Needless to say I went hard with reading in January of this year and literally burned myself out from February on. It’s hard to hit a brick wall when it comes to one of the only hobbies you have that completes you, and it’s definitely been hard for me. However, when I hit these walls, I find myself gravitating towards my virtual friends on Litsy for help in how to overcome this. Typically the response is pretty similar: Either listen to an audio book, read some short stories, or just embrace the wall and binge watch a show you’ve been putting off until you complete it–typically any of these will help. With me, all of these are a little difficult. A) I can’t listen to just any audio book– my mind is so bad at focusing at times, that it has to be a book that I don’t have to put much thought into OR somehow True Crime normally will keep me hooked– I also only listen to audio books on my commute to work– so there can be times where I go days without listening because I sometimes work from home; B) I know this one may get some angry responses (so don’t @ me) but I have a hard time counting short stories towards my reading goal. I honestly can not give you an answer for why I feel this way- and lets be real, I only want to read things that will count towards my reading goal; and C) I’ve been SO BAD about watching anything since I moved out of my parents house— I don’t know what it is, but if you give me the choice of watching TV or just sitting on my couch in complete silence– I’ll choose the latter every time. However, I will say, about the only TV I do watch is HGTV and the Cooking Channel/Food Network– so I guess I could always binge those… ugh I digress.
Anyway, this is why I have been absent- because I literally couldn’t find the motivation to read, and when I did find the motivation I couldn’t sit down and focus long enough to even get into a book. But with all of this rambling being said, I’M BACK!!! And now moving on to the reason you’re actually reading this post— A BOOK REVIEW!
I was lucky enough to receive an ARC through Netgalley of Riley Sager’s new thriller, Lock Every Door. It was released this past Tuesday and I’m going to start right off by saying, if you haven’t picked this book up yet, WHY NOT?!?!?!?!?!?!? I’ve been a devoted fan to Sager since Final Girls, but not devoted enough to know that he has several different aliases as a writer (literally just found this out within the past week), but either way, I love his writing. The Last Time I Lied blew me away last summer and was, hands down, one of my favorite books of 2018. I truly did not think it could get any better then that one. But then Lock Every Door came along, and once again made a liar out of me.
This story follows Jules, an orphan who really has had a crap sandwich dealt to her in life. She lost her parents before 20, her big sister disappeared before she graduated high school, she lost her job, and found out she was dating a total and complete douchebag. She has been bumming it on her best friend’s couch and really, you feel for her. She then stumbles upon an almost “too good to be true” job posting for a very prestigious apartment complex in New York City called The Bartholomew. This place houses the who’s who of the wealthy, without people even knowing it. The Bartholomew takes pride in being very discreet when it comes to their residents. Jules takes an interview with the director of the place and lands the job of apartment sitting for 3 months (I told you it sounded to good to be true). Jules is to essentially live in the apartment for 3 months until the owner of the apartment’s (who passed away) family, can decide what they are going to do. Jules feels as though she has finally caught a break: She has a place to stay for 3 months, she is going to get paid 12 grand, she can start looking for a new job, and bonus: she has a killer view of Central Park.
But everything isn’t always what it seems…
Soon Jules starts to learn of the dark past of the Bartholomew and of the history of the apartment sitters before her. The climax of this book literally made me say “holy shit” out loud while reading. The outcome is stuff that you only hear conspiracy theorists talk about and make you think: “Nah this couldn’t happen,” but if it really did you’d say “Okay I’m not surprised…”. Sager takes you on a crazy ride, but it’s a ride you definitely want to make sure you’re on. I would, as usual, give this book a 5/5 stars and would recommend it to anyone who loves a good thriller.
Hopefully yall’s 4th of July day and weekend is full of swimming pools, fireworks, tons and tons of hotdogs, and of course, reading. xoxoxo
Brit
@callemarie – Litsy
@bookreader_craftbeerlover- Instagram
Librarian Wannabe 
First, a crap sandwich, I’m dying. Second, I completely agree. Sometimes it feels like when you start a thriller you’re a conspiracy theorist because you’re just constantly trying to read between the lines and figure it out and see the plot twists before they unravel. This one had me thinking of so many different tangents and I wasn’t sure which one to double down on. I will say, the twist in this wasn’t one I had come close to thinking of. And it freaked me out more than any talking doll could (but that’s not a challenge, so please don’t make me read a book about possessed toys, Britain).
Great review. So glad you’re not hitting the book block wall any longer 🙂