Posted in Books, Reviews

Book Review – The Happy Family (Daniel Hurst)

Hey Dearies!

This is the last book of the thriller series that has caught me on the edge of my seat. The way the last one ended, I had to know if Luna is actually getting away with all this. I will be recapping the second book.

If you haven’t read that one, a spoiler alert is needed!

So, the second book starts off with Sadie trying to figure out who had done all this, and the only reason she could think of was Reid. He was the closest to her who would make the most sense to cause all of this.

She meets Gemma in prison, and they decide that they both agree that Reid had to be the one to falsely put her in prison and cause Sadie to get a DUI. They start working together to see if Reid will slip up and reveal he did this it all.

However, they are looking at the wrong person.

Luna is living her best life as she got what she wanted, but the man who saw her start the fire, she’s still sleeping with him, and comes up with the idea to murder him. In her first attempt, she tries to give him sleeping pills so that once he is out, she can pour alcohol down his throat to make it seem like he has drunk himself to death.

When that fails, she tries again by giving him these sex pills that will supposedly help with making sex more “pleasurable”, but she makes him take 4 dosages in one pill that she crushes up. He gets a heart attack while in the middle of having sex, and he dies right there.

Luna then finds his phone and erases all his contacts with her so it won’t be traced back to her when they find him dead. She thought all was well, but someone saw her leave his apartment. Reid’s son, Arthur, did, and he ended up telling his mom.

Sadie found it strange that she was leaving a man’s apartment and thought that Luna might be cheating on Reid, but she started to think something else had happened when it came out in the news that he was found dead in his apartment. She ends up telling the same detective who helped with the fire at her parents’ house.

Luna was able to talk out of it by saying she was a friend of his and that they used to go to AA meetings, and before he died, he checked in on him, saying he was heavily drinking again. Of course, she walks away from that scot-free, but she was pissed when she realized that Sadie was the one who told the detective to check her out.

What do you think this crazy woman ends up thinking she needs to do next? If you guessed murdering her, you are right on the money.

While Luna is planning on coming up with a way to get rid of Sadie, Reid caves and visits Gemma in prison. Gemma also tells Reid that she and Sadie are onto him about everything he’s done lately. Of course, Reid is too stupid to believe Gemma since he still thinks she is the one who started the fire.

Then he tells her she needs to leave him alone for the sake of his family and new girlfriend. Gemma is shocked by this information and tries to question if Luna had anything to do with this all, but he leaves before she can get any more information.

Meanwhile, Luna tries to lure Sadie into the forest in the middle of the night, claiming Reid and the kids wanted to go looking for foxes. Sadie doesn’t come alone and ends up leaving because of the bad feeling she has about this whole situation, but she wants to make sure Reid is telling the truth, so she decides to stop by and see the kids.

However, Luna gets there as soon as she pulls up and asks her how the trip with the kids and Reid was in the forest, before Sadie can knock on the door, since Reid and the kids are all inside and it would’ve blown up in her face if Sadie saw them all inside.

That’s not even the craziest part! Reid finds a positive pregnancy test in the bathroom trash. You read that right, Luna is pregnant! Reid gets all excited to have another baby, which shocks me because little did he know that the mother of his new unborn son is a complete and crazy monster!

That same night, Sadie gets a message from Gemma saying why didn’t she tell her about Reid dating someone new so quicky and then everything starts to make sense to Sadie that Reid wasn’t the one to do this, but Luna.

Sadie goes to confront Luna and get both her kids and her ex-husband out of the house. Little did she know that Luna was up, and they got into this fight, which ended with Luna being stabbed in the arm and Sadie falling down the stairs and hitting her head.

The way the second book ends, Luna gets stitched up at the hospital, and Sadie had a bad head trauma, so she ended up in a coma so her brain could heal.

So, the third book starts out after Luna has had the baby, a son. Sadie is still in a coma, and Ruby, Reid, and Sadie’s daughter, isn’t handling it well. I felt so heartbroken for those kids because they have been through so much stuff in the past 2 years.

Anyway, Luna thinks she is in the clear until a month after she had her baby, the doctors let Reid and Sadie’s parents know that she has started to show brain activity and might wake up any day now. This puts Luna in a panic because she’s afraid Sadie will tell everyone about what she has done.

Gemma finds out that Sadie’s been in a coma and knows that Luna did it. She gets help from one of the prison guards to try and tell Reid that this was all Luna’s doing, but of course, Reid doesn’t believe them because Luna has him wrapped around her finger.

Not only does Luna have to worry about Sadie, but she also finds out Gemma is onto her. Luna is willing to do anything and everything to protect what she’s gotten so far. I mean, anything, she’s already gotten away with killing one person, so fair.

She tries to kill Sadie when she gets admitted to the hospital, but when she unplugs everything that is attached to Sadie, Sadie wakes up. Of course, the nurses rush in; they question why Luna is in there, but they are attending to Sadie. So far, Sadie doesn’t remember anything that happened before she went into the coma.

Of course, Reid, the kids, and Sadie’s parents come to the hospital when they find she’s awake. Luna also sees that her luck hasn’t quite run out yet, as she sees Gemma visiting one of the patients with a guard. Turns out Gemma’s mother is dying from cancer and was released so she could say her goodbyes.

The amount of luck Luna gets at that happens is ridiculous. Nurses don’t really question her about Sadie or the fact that she had a pillow in her hand that she was going to smother Sadie with. Then, to be in the same place as the other person who suspects you, it was like she was handed this golden opportunity.

I won’t say anything else because I really don’t want to ruin it, but the way the story ends, it’s just shocking how dumb Reid is about all this. It’s like he doesn’t believe that Luna would do what she did just to get him and his kids. Karma is a bitch, and boy, she delivers at the end of it.

Overall, this series kept me on my toes, waiting to see what the next crazy thing she is going to do next. It just blows my mind how unhinged she gets, even towards the end. This series was also a quick read for me; I pretty much read the last two books in less than a day.

I also honestly didn’t think I would be able to get into a thriller, but it was more enjoyable than I thought! Plus, with books like these being page-turners, I will no doubt be on my way to completing my reading goal for the year!

What did you think of this unhinged character? Were you just as shocked as I was with some of the stuff she did? Let me know in the comments down below!

Posted in Books, Reviews

Book Review – If Only I Had Told Her (Laura Nowlin)

Hey Dearies!

This book is actually the sequel to If He Had Been With Me. If you haven’t read the first one, I highly recommend you do so, as this post contains spoilers from the first book.

So, a spoiler alert is in effect.

At the end of the first book, If He Had Been With Me, Finn and Autumn confess their feelings for each other. They slept with each other, and Finn had planned to see Sylvie the next day to end things with her so he could be with Autumn.

However, he got into a car crash and was fine, but he saw that Sylvie didn’t have her seat belt on and was launched through the window when they crashed. He went to go help her and got electrocuted, as it was also downpouring in the rain. Finn didn’t make it, but Sylvie did.

Autumn, of course, is heartbroken about this and tries to end her life. She did get saved in time and was taken to the hospital to recover, and also found out she is pregnant with Finn’s baby. This was a month after Finn had died that she tried to take her life.

That’s how the book ends, and when I read that, I had so many questions about what would happen after that. You just can’t end a book at a cliffhanger like that, not know what happens next!


The sequel pretty much starts from Finn’s POV, I want to say right before the accident. So, he’s helping Autumn with the breakup with Jamie. Spoiler alert: he dumped her to go be with her best friend, Sasha. I saw something sort of happening because Jamie was spending more one-on-one time with Sasha, and I guess they had better chemistry.

I honestly think that because Autumn never slept with him, I think that’s why he sort of went to Sasha, because before Autumn and Jamie started dating, Sasha also liked Jamie, but Jamie was more interested in Autumn than Sasha.

Anyway, Finn and Autumn spend the summer together, spending time like they did when they were best friends and before the distance had happened. Finn was starting to pull away from Sylvie, but he did tell Autumn he wanted to break up with her in person, since that’s what his best friend, Jack, suggested that he do.

I really liked that we got more of how Finn was feeling because you didn’t really know until towards the end of the book when he confessed he’s always been in love with her. I honestly wish the first book were a mix of both Finn and Autumn’s POV, but having him in this POV definitely showcased his feelings for her.

Plus, you also have to read about what the fight between Sylvie and Finn was about. Apparently, Sylvie already had a feeling that Autumn and he were getting closer while she was away on a trip to Europe. She confronted him while he was driving in the rain, which led to the accident.

However, after Finn’s POV ends, it goes to his best friend, Jack’s POV. I really had a hard time reading his POV, I really did. I swear I was falling ASLEEP trying to get through his point of view. I’m not kidding, I read during my breaks at work, and my co-workers saw me dozing off while reading his POV.

First of all, you only hear about him and meet him once in Autumn’s POV. Which is why I really wished the author did it in both POV’s because you only get Autumns and only really get to know about Jack’s in Finn’s POV. If we knew more about him BEFORE in the first book, I could relate to him more, but he’s just a stranger, and honestly, not really necessary to have in this book.

It also doesn’t make any sense to have his POV, I’d rather Sylvie’s POV be in there instead of his! You guys, I really almost gave up on this book completely because of his POV. However, I made it through, thankfully, which brings us back to Autumn’s POV.

Thankfully, her POV was her coming with the terms that she’s pregnant and both Finn and her mother, or the Mothers, as Autumn calls them, are helping her cope with not only the loss of Finn, but preparing her to become a new mother so young.

She also gets some help from one of her friends, Angie, who ended up getting pregnant while in high school, just to understand how different your life is after having a child so young. It also makes me feel better that she still goes to therapy and group therapy, too.

You do find out she’s having a girl as well, but the book ends before she gives birth, which I was bummed about because it would be nice to see her raise their child and that scrapbook she wanted to create for the baby, with memories that they had with Finn when he was alive.

Honestly, I’d like the book more if it went into details and skipped to when their daughter is older and can react to seeing what her dad was like. I’d probably get more tearful about those verses when he died, since I figured that is what had happened.


Overall, it wrapped up the book okay. It wouldn’t be something I’d read again, honestly. Jack’s POV just ruined it for me. It was okay to know how his other best friend was dealing with it, but Jack is so emotionless that it’s hard to relate to or sympathize with him.

I did like how it showed the aftermath of how difficult it was to lose a loved one very suddenly, and learning how to cope with the loss. Again, I really wish the original book were in both Finn’s and Autumn’s POV. Then again, the name of the sequel would definitely have to change. It would’ve been interesting to switch Jack’s POV with Sylvie’s POV.

Anyway, what did you guys think about the sequel? Did you struggle to get through Jack’s POV as much as I did, or did it wrap up loose ends from the first book? Let me know down below!

Posted in Mom Talk

The Fear Of Losing All Your Adult Teeth (The Mom Odysseys)

Okay, so this is something that really isn’t talked about, but I figured I would brush on it because it has always been a fear of losing an adult tooth. The real why I’m talking about it is because I’m not the only one who fears of losing their teeth.

When you are little, losing teeth was exciting because we would always get a visit from the tooth fairy that took our teeth and replaced us with money, but when you become an adult, losing an adult tooth can cause more anxiety, fear, and panic, especially if you don’t have any control over it.

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The real reason why I’m bringing this topic up because a few months ago, I was, still am, freaking out over my teeth. One of my top front teeth was loose, just a little bit, but any adult tooth that moves, to me, it’s gonna fall out. I when to the dentist and they told me to take it easy and not bite into anything hard.

To me, my mind was racing everywhere, my anxiety was making me think that I was gonna lose it, I’m gonna have to get an implant or worse, they’ll pull all my teeth out and I’ll have to get dentures. Not to mention, the big key factor, it’s gonna cost money that I don’t have for it.

You are probably laughing about it, but you don’t understand, this is how my anxiety is.

With that being said, I started to do what you shouldn’t do when your anxiety is as bad as mine is. Google.

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I was searching for everything from bad gum disease to implants to getting dentures. Not to mention, I started watching videos about everyday people who have had dentures since they were young.

It was bad, I couldn’t sleep a few nights because of my research.

Anyway, let’s get back to what happened when I felt that my tooth was moving. I was flossing and sometimes, my gums bleed if I floss too hard, not to mention that I haven’t been to the dentist in almost 2 years because I couldn’t afford it. So, I freaked out.

I tried to have breakfast and couldn’t finish it because I thought I felt my top tooth move, so I called my dentist and they scheduled me to come in right away. So, I went in and they took a look at the tooth and did confirm that I wasn’t nuts and it was moving slightly, keyword slightly.

Not to mention, I’m 22 and I STILL have my wisdom teeth in, they told me I needed to go get those pulled. They don’t bother me, but up until now, they are starting to push my teeth together, not to mention if I’m getting one pulled, you might as well get them all pulled.

With that being said, I’ve been brushing, flossing, and mouth rising like it is a religion because I’m afraid to have dentures.

But why are we so afraid to get dentures? Well, because we think it’s for old people, which you aren’t wrong, but there are young people who have them as well. The youngest person to ever wear dentures is 3 years old.

That’s crazy, but depending on what their genetics are, it can force you to be without your teeth. If you go on Youtube, you’ll find lots of people, young and old people, who had dentures and how they are trying to make it so it isn’t just for ‘older’ folks.

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Some of them even have dental implants, which can cost a fortune, just to get them. Hearing their stories and what they struggled with losing their teeth, especially at a young age, makes me inspired. Not to mention, it won’t make me feel alone because there are people at my age that have fake teeth.

It’s something no one should be ashamed about, but instead, embrace it.

Especially since I’ve had 2 children and pregnancy can do a HUGE number onto your teeth. So, if it happens to me, it happens. Seeing those videos and reading about these people that have dentures or fake teeth, relaxes me in a way and it lets you know that you aren’t alone.

Do you have fears that your teeth are going to fall out? Leave a comment down below, I would love to know that I’m not the only one that has a fear about it.