Author: Ripley Jones

Recent Reads | The Other Lola and Just for the Summer

Posted March 21, 2024 / Book Reviews, Recent Reads / 0 Comments

I didn’t love Ripley Jones’ debut for a variety of reasons (the number one is that I fully predicted the mystery/whodunnit and thought it was absurdly predictable). For some reason, I told myself I’d give their second book a shot. I ended up liking THE OTHER LOLA more, so I’m glad I did. This story centers around another missing girl from the same town as the first book. I didn’t fully realize this was a companion novel but it follows Cam and Blair, the podcasters from MISSING CLARISSA. They are approached by a younger girl at their school whose sister went missing five years ago and suddenly returned. The catch? She thinks this Lola is an impostor. Her family doesn’t believe her so she enlists the help of Cam and Blair to figure out what’s actually going on. I thought the mystery here was quite interesting but took a little while to get going. Cam and Blair are going through their own stuff, which takes up a lot of the plot. If I really think about the progression of the mystery and investigation, it honestly didn’t get as much page time. I liked the found family vibes of this one with Cam’s mom’s new boyfriend and Mattie joining in their little crew a bit. Those were wholesome chapters. This book has a ton of political references and discussions. I don’t want to get into it in depth here but I am a very liberal person, so I agree with many […]

ARC Review: Missing Clarissa

Posted March 8, 2023 / Book Reviews / 0 Comments

I was beyond excited for this book – I was really hoping for the second-coming of the GOOD GIRL’S GUIDE books. I wanted a true crime podcast and best friends solving the case of a missing girl. I love all that stuff! Unfortunately, MISSING CLARISSA was a disappointing and predictable read, despite being an overall enjoyable ride. Cam and her best friend Blair come from a town with an infamous missing girl case – Clarissa Campbell. She was the popular cheerleader who left a party in the woods, never to be seen again. The two girls decide to focus on this case for their journalism class project and create a podcast about it. I loved this setup and the fact that both Blair and Cam had no experience in solving mysteries or making podcasts. The story went through the actual moments they had to figure out logistically where to even start. I didn’t mind reading about Blair and Cam but they (especially Cam) made very stupid decisions a lot of the time, especially toward the end. It was terrible to read about Blair’s shitty boyfriend. I didn’t mind Cam’s romantic arc but she was still frustrating. The writing was pretty good – I can’t figure out if it was the characters that annoyed me because they were annoying or if the writing made them more annoying lol. Their internal dialogue was a little cringe-worthy but again not sure if that has to do with the author’s writing or just the characters […]