Eat Slay Love

Julie Mae Cohen has done it again! Another, surefire hit about female friendship and determination.
The tagline is fantastic, "A friend will help you move on. A best friend will help you move his body", and it sums up the storyline nicely when Opal, Marina and Lilah, find themselves coming together to deal with a troublesome male in their lives.
This story is fast-paced and very funny - admittedly, in a darkly humorous way, for example, this gem of a conversation, "The best revenge is violence,’...’But that’s illegal, so the second-best revenge is living well." Just brilliant.
I enjoyed reading the various PoV and also how the novel moved back and forth in the weeks leading to the 'event' but, also kept the pace moving swiftly.

Well, I've been looking forward to reading this for quite some time and I loved it! (I mean, it has a librarian in it, a mention of Anne of Green Gables and a hamster, so what's not to love?!)

But seriously, I loved that it brings together Julie's awesome, funny, smart way of writing about women's lives and mashes it all into a pretty gory thriller. I had no idea where it was going to go, and I was gripped, with these three women who, initially, I wasn't particularly drawn but who gradually became three wonderful, dear people who I was totally rooting for. I loved the biting child, and the matter-of-factness of the women and everything that they deal with. And the dead grandma! It manages to encompass huge issues alongside day to day issues covering everything from coercive control, domestic abuse, adultery, fraud, Patriarchy, feminism, MLM/pyramid schemes, childcare, hamsters, friendship, cooking...

I started to read faster and faster the closer I got to the end, as I was so eager to see what would happen - it was worth it, the whole ending upon ending is fabulous.

With thanks to Net Galley for my copy.

Who didn't absolutely love Julie's previous book Bad Men? It was phenomenal.

It is so much fun. I wanted this review to be quite long, but it's hard to review because it's such a great book that when you're reading it, I didn't really make a lot of notes at the time. So this will probably be briefer than I'd like.

It takes a good book to keep me from my bed, but I was completely hooked on this that before I knew it, I'd read a quarter of it and it was getting late. It's so much fun and Julie has such a knack for writing humerous, slightly quirky thrillers.

Kidnapping, hostages etc. and comedy shouldn't go hand in hand so well, but it really does. It doesn't shy away from the gore and morbidity but it is also packed full of humour.

I read the first quarter in about an hour, it was so addictive, and I'd finished it in less than a day.

I can sometimes be a little iffy about multiple points-of-views, because I can end up forgetting who is who, but this one was instantly recognisable because the three main characters are so well created.

We have Opal, the fitness freak, who appears benevolent and caring towards the other women but also comes across as hard and cold - she had the biggest journey throughout the book, for me. Then we have Marina, the single mum who is struggling to manage three young children and this unfortunate situation she finds herself in. She was great, and a real laugh. And finally there's Lilah, the grieving rich lady, who I really felt for frrom the off. She was a bit timid but there was definite strength underneath.

It finishes well and you're satisfied but in my opinion there's definitely room for a sequel, or even an additional novella.

I know that Julie writes books other than thrillers under Julie Cohen, but I have only read the two thrillers under Julie Mae Cohen. I will definitely keep my eye out for her other genres, as her writing is so well crafted that I'm sure it'll do well with anything. But I do hope she has more thrillers up her sleeve because I could read them forever. She's only two books in for me and she's already become a go-to author and one I would gladly recommend.

Yes it is about murder and whatnot, deception, lies, thievery, coerciveness, violence. But it's also about friendship and sisterhood and trust. Going against the patriarchy, standing up for yourself, love, what you'd do to protect your family and your friends, about finding yourself, coping with life being a modern woman, as a single woman, as a single mother.

It's got absolutely everything and it's told so expertly. Definitely one of my books of the year.