Title: Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers
Author: Jesse Q. Sutanto
Series: Vera Wong #1
Rating Out of 5: 4 (Really good read!)
My Bookshelves: Contemporary, Cozy mystery
Pace: Slow
Format: eBook, Novel
Year: 2023
I didn’t quite love the beginning of the Vera Wong series as I did the Aunties series. There was just something about it that didn’t quite hit as strongly and joyfully. But, that may be due to the age of the protagonist. I love a good novel, but I found it that little bit more difficult to connect with an elderly lady. Whereas, the Aunties series features a woman closer in life stages and age to myself, so she was much easier to connect to.
There was also the fact that I found Vera a little bit difficult to actually like. Although a lot of her thoughts and feelings come from a good place, I honestly found her kind of irritating. She was meddling, stubborn and a little bit challenging for many to deal with. This made it even more difficult to relate to her, and, again, challenging to truly get into the book when I really just didn’t care what was going to happen to the protagonist.
Although I enjoyed this novel to a degree and ended up reading the whole thing, I ended up skimming through big portions of it. I so badly wanted to like it and was intrigued by the premise, so I kept on returning to it. Plus, I wanted to find out who the murderer was. But, I also found it a little bit tedious and frustrating to actually read (mostly for the above readings). I did love the different points of view and the different suspects, it was difficult to figure out who might be the actual culprit.
All in all, I wanted to enjoy this more than I did. However, I really enjoyed that this was all about found family and embracing the people who life throws at you. I also found this to be a ridiculously cheerful murder mystery, which I found hilarious and enjoyable. Plus, ultimately, the villain wasn’t who I expected, and I do love when a murder mystery is able to surprise me. Not a bad book, but not one I’m desperate to dive into again either.
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