A Likeable Woman By May Cobb- Summary

A Likeable Woman By May Cobb Goodreads Summary (salty review below): She’s back in her affluent hometown for the first time in years and determined to unravel the secrets of her mother’s death hidden in the unpublished memoir she left behind…even if it kills her…

After her troublemaker mother’s mysterious death, Kira fled her wealthy Texas town and never looked back. Now, decades later, Kira is invited to an old frenemy’s vow renewal party. Though she is reluctant to go, there are things calling her back . . . like chilled wine and days spent by the pool . . . like her sexy childhood crush, Jack. But, more importantly, it’s the urgent texts from her grandmother who says she has something to give Kira. Something about her mother’s death, something that looks an awful lot like murder.

When her grandmother gives Kira a memoir that her mother had been working on before she died, she is pulled into the past and all of the sizzling secrets that come along with it. With few allies left in her gossipy, country club town, Kira turns to Jack for help. As she gets closer to what–and who–might have brought about her mother’s end, it becomes clear that someone wants the past to stay buried.

And Kira might be next.

A Likeable Woman By May Cobb- Review

There won’t be any character or final thought sections in this review because there isn’t that much salt in the world to go around.

Moreover, I can’t emphasize enough how much I was anticipating May Cobb’s latest work. I LOVED Hunting Wives and Summer Darlings. A Likeable Woman? Throw it in the great salt lake.

I just did a list of things I want to see less of in books (linked), and when a book hits two of those categories? Houston, we have a problem. Plus, it made me realize that I should have added a third to that list. Although, I guess it could fall under marketing. The summary of A Likeable Woman just lies. It is wrong.

There is so little mystery and thriller, and so much old-town drama, this book could be Sweet Home Alabama but with a boring, predictable mystery in the middle of it.

Disclaimer: I’m not saying there is a baby in a bar in A Likeable Woman. But you get the point.

There is so much drinking and wasted, catty old-friend mean girls in A Likeable Woman that I felt like an outsider reading the damned thing. AND TO BE CLEAR BECAUSE YOU KNOW I LOVE SOME UNLIKEABLE CHARACTERS, but these are just written poorly. To add salt to my salty wound, there are so many characters. I mean, there had to be a dozen or more. And half of them don’t matter, but boy, does it confuse the shit out of me. I would have to draw a tree mapping out who the characters are and how they are connected. A Likeable Woman is not worth that effort. I felt bad for the narrator (yes, there was only one for all these characters). She did the best she could. But let’s move on.

Thank you to Berkley and Penguin Random House Audio for the advanced Audio ARC for A Likeable Woman by May Cobb, which releases on July 11, 2023.

I also talked about how I am sick of books that are too slow for half the book and then explode (slow-roll mysteries/gothic/horror books not included). Well. May Cobb took this to a new level with A Likeable Woman because it never even gets off the runway. In fact, I don’t even think there is a runway. The entire book is just sitting on the grass, waiting for the runway to be built. Then again, I’m not sure I want it to take off. That might have been worse. The pace is slow throughout the book, filled up with this catty and drunk behavior, then the last tenish percent rushes through solving everything.

The mystery? It is as predictable as the sun is hot. Not only is the actual answer predictable but so are the red herrings. So, when they come around, you already know they aren’t the answer because… duh.

Put the above pieces together, and you get a book so boring it was like sitting through a first-period French Class. A book so predictable it is like homeroom, and a book so slow, it is like last period on a Friday.

Yep. That’s it. That’s what I’ve got and as you can tell it isn’t good. I can’t express how much regret I have over spending an entire day with May Cobb’s A Likeable Woman. It did in my head.