Time for another round of Yvo’s Shorties! This time around a 2021 release that failed to hit the mark for me and a classic that did.

Title: Second First Impressions
Author: Sally Thorne
Genre: Contemporary, Romance
First published: April 13th 2021
Publisher: William Morrow
Finished reading: August 15th 2021
Pages: 354

“It’s amazing how life works. You can wake up in your current existence and then go to bed with everything changed.”


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This third book has proven to me that my reactions to the work of this author are all over the place. I loved my time with her debut, but book number two was a total miss for me. I still wanted to try Second First Impressions as I liked the sound of the blurb and I hoped of a repeat experience of my time with The Hating Game. In the end I ended up having mixed thoughts instead… It’s not exactly a bad read, but the plot was rather weak and this put too much pressure on the characters. Character driven stories can go both ways for me, and I’m not sure this one was 100% successful for me. I felt like the characters were trying too hard being quirky and flawed and as a result I don’t think they were all that credible or realistic. Did I still have fun reading about Ruthie and Teddy? Yes. But I think the whole insta-love as well as opposites attract vibe didn’t work in the story’s favor here. Also, I think the Parloni women stole the show here, and I had so much more fun reading about their shenanigans than I had with Ruthie and Teddy’s angle. I wasn’t too sure what to make of Melanie either to be honest… And the fact that Ruthie is so gullible and sheltered could get really annoying. I did love the turtles popping up in the plot though and the writing is easy on the eye and makes it easy to keep turning those pages. It’s still an entertaining read, just not as good as I hoped it would be.

Title: The ABC Murders
(Hercule Poirot #13)
Author: Agatha Christie
Genre: Classics, Mystery, Thriller
First published: January 6th 1936
Publisher: William Morrow
Finished reading: August 16th 2021
Pages: 266

“Words, mademoiselle, are only the outer clothing of ideas.”


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I’ve been slowly reading the Hercule Poirot books these recent years and I’m trying to read them in order, but I’ve wanted to read one of her more famous stories The ABC Murders for a while so I decided to just give in. The plot of this one was sadly already spoiled thanks to mentions in at least one other book, but I was still excited to read it. And as always, I highly enjoyed my time with Hercule Poirot and Mr Hastings! This is without doubt one of my favorites so far, and this might just have to do with the fact that this is the first time Poirot has to deal with a serial killer. As always I love the writing style and dynamics between Hastings and Poirot; the dialogues really help making them come alive for me and it’s very entertaining to read. The case itself is interesting too, with enough twists as well as a glimpse inside of the suspect along the way. I can also appreciate just how easy it is to read the books as stand-alones, although some books do make references to past cases so I’m still hoping to read the rest in order just in case.

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