Book Review: Tangled up in you by Rachel Gibson- SPOILER

[sassy_n_savy]

This is the third installment of the writers series which tells Maddie's and Mick's love story. Now usually, when writing a review about the book I don't talk about the spoilers but this one was too difficult to resist.
I was so DISAPPOINTED with this book!! Like seriously!! The first two books may have set up too many high expectations for this book. So below is a summary (with some spoilers):

Maddie Jones or Maddie Dupree (her true crimes author pen name) had a secret, her mother was involved with a married man which resulted in his wife completely losing her mind and killed her husband, Maddie's mom, and herself. Consequently, because of the murder-sucide people in the small town of Truly have been traumatized but not as badly as Mick and Meg (the children of the married couple). Maddie returns and starts to dig up all the dirt from the past and really starts to upset people about the book that she's now writing about the affair.

I really, really liked Maddie in the first two books, when she was a side character. She was brave (she interviewed series killers for a living!), brash, crazy, and weird. And I really liked that, but it's like she went through a personality transplant in this book. She's so afraid of her feelings for Mick, and she had so so many opportunities to tell Mick why she's really in town and her connection to the murder. She should have grown a pair of balls and just stuck with honesty from the beginning, because it could have saved her a whole lot of heartache. She used sex as a method to avoid telling Mick the real reasons why she was in Truly!!! And for someone who's apparently really brave, that was just pitiful. No Joke. Using sex to cover up the truth has always left an icky feeling when reading.

So it wasn't a surprise that Mick is 'disgusted' with her once she FINALLY spills the beans (which is too late because by then both Mick and Maddie are in love with one another, and he still has yet to get over the past). She honestly dug her own grave, and she knew (she knew!) that telling him about her instead of leading him on blindly will hurt her in the end. I just expected better from this character.

I was disappointed because there wasn't that continuity of friendship between the four authors that are shown in the first two books. Once Maddie told Mick everything, she should have told her friends. Her friends are there for a REASON to support her no matter what!! Instead, she turns into a hermit and doesn't say a peep to her friends and they have to pry it out of her the day before Clare's wedding. Look, I get it..Maddie is the brave, fearless one, but she was also the one in the group to overshare and this is something to SHARE about!! In the first two books, when the main female character is in trouble or needs comfort they turn to each other for support and I guess Maddie seemed to have missed the memo. One of the main reasons why I liked this series so much is because of the support each of the writer friends give each other. Shame it didn't happen this time around.

Finally, I was also disappointed in Meg's character, although Meg was adamant to be NOT like her mother since everyone thought she would end up like her mother and commit suicide ...she sort of did end up like her mother as in she was emotionally fragile, and needed a man to support her. I'm all about female empowerment here! you don't need a man to make you happy. You don't need a man to help you get over a past that you have held onto so tightly!! You have inner strength woman! Use it!

So, overall big disappointment in this book but it might be because I've had too many high expectations ...sadness indeed