Genre: Mystery
Mass Market Paperback: Digital Book
ISBN #: 9781496713032
Kensington Publishing
407 Pages
$7.29; $6.89 Amazon
January 30, 2018
⭐
Newly widowed and stuck in a middle-aged funk, Poppy has been running on cookies, infomercials, and one-sided chats with her cat for months. There's no way on earth she's attending her twenty-five-year class reunion - especially after receiving a very bizarre letter from Barbie, the popular cheerleader who taunted her all through high school. At least, not until Poppy's best friend practically drags her to the event...
Using the dreaded homecoming as an excuse to visit her eccentric Aunt Ginny, Poppy vows to leave Cape May with pride and Spanx intact. Too bad Barbie is still the queen of mean at the reunion. And worse, that her dead body is lying right in front of Poppy's old locker. Singled out as the killer, it's up to Poppy to confront her past and clear her name. But between protecting her aunt from disaster and tackling a gluten-free diet, can Poppy crack the case before she's voted "Most Likely to Die" by the murderer?
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It's been six months since Poppy has lost her husband, and she can't seem to pull herself together. She sits around eating and missing her beloved husband, John. It doesn't help that her mother-in-law hates her and wants her out of the home she shared with him (which she won't leave). When she receives an invitation to her twenty-fifth class reunion, she has no intention of going. She's gained weight (obviously) and doesn't want to see the people who made her high school years miserable. But she's convinced by her best friend Sawyer Montgomery to go - and she winds up taking her cat, Figaro, and heading to her Aunt Ginny's in New Jersey.
When she arrives she's surprised at the state of Ginny's large Victorian. It's been neglected, and there is dust everywhere. It doesn't help that the social workers are trying to put Ginny in a home, thinking she's getting senile. Now Poppy is trying to keep her sanity while helping Ginny and trying to avoid her nemeses; but when she learns her old boyfriend Tim is going to cater the reunion, it's just about all she can stand.
Then, when Barbie, her main tormentor, is found murdered and Poppy might be the prime suspect, she figures the only way out of this is to find the person who wanted Barbie dead. But with so many people who hated her, it's not going to be easy...
I wanted to like this book after reading the blurb, but there were so many things wrong. I understand that she was grieving her husband, and sometimes you never get over it. But staying home for six months eating your way to larger dress sizes? It's not like she woke up one morning and looked at herself and said, "How did this happen?" I really got tired of her complaining about her weight. There are women of all sizes, and they're all beautiful in their own way, so the self-fat-shaming was getting to me.
I also didn't like Amber one whit. She should have been taken off the case because she was part of the problem, hating Poppy in the first place. And when I found out why Amber hated Poppy, it was like, are you kidding me?
Okay, then there's the ending, which really threw me. Supposedly she adored her husband. She's been mourning him (which is natural) but after six months, she wants to get involved with someone else? How did she go from 'I miss John so much' to 'this is going to be great' so quickly? Nope. Not buying it. Sorry. I won't be reading any more in this series.
https://www.amazon.com/Class-Reunions-Murder-McAllister-Mystery/dp/1496713036/ref=
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2205047423
More on Libby Klein's Books: https://www.fantasticfiction.com/k/libby-klein/
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