Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

NO ONE ELSE CAN HAVE YOU is a tricky book to review. I think it’s a book you either love or hate. It’s dark, it’s quirky, and it’s definitely unique. I recommend checking out an excerpt if you’re thinking of reading it to see if the style is for you. Personally, I didn’t enjoy NO ONE ELSE CAN HAVE YOU. The events within are just so over the top I expected the characters to break out into song and dance as if they were on Broadway instead of in a book. I felt like the author was trying too hard to make the book dark and edgy. Kippy’s best friend, Ruth, is found brutally murdered at the start of the book. While the small town sheriff is convinced Ruth’s boyfriend is the one who did it, Kippy’s not so sure. Trying to emulate her hero Diane Sawyer, Kippy bumbles through an investigation, held back by the sheriff, her father, her only other friend — basically the whole town. Friendship, Wisconsin is a small town, and I did think the author nailed that small town mentality, where everyone knows everyone’s business, but there are a few secrets lurking beneath the politeness. There are excerpts from Ruth’s diary throughout the book, which reveal that she might not have been the person Kippy always thought she was. Those were probably the best part of the book for me, because Ruth was so unfiltered and honest. When I read “Ruth here. Kippy is so pathetic it makes me nauseous (p. 18),” I was like, “yeah, this is going to be a good book.” Unfortunately, that feeling didn’t last long. As I said above, the book just felt forced to me. Yeah, Kippy’s an oddball, but it’s like she’s *too* much of one. Her father, Dom, is over-protective, but he’s *too* over-protective, and there was something he did near the end to Kippy that made me sick. Then there was a scene where Kippy and Davey, Ruth’s brother, infiltrate a therapy group and pretend that Davey hits her. Making fun of domestic abuse is not okay. NO ONE ELSE CAN HAVE YOU just wasn’t the book for me.