I did not finish this book. Originally, what captured me was the idea of reading a story about cuadruplets-- the concept. However, as I continued, I lost interest. The characters were not engaging and I just couldn't get into it.

…it feels a little like it was during those days and weeks after we were born— like we’re all still part of one greater whole. The older we get, the more we all stretch into our own identities, but I still love the reminder that we started out together”. -Reagan from ‘Four Of A Kind’



Hello people of the internet!!! On today’s ‘Monday Memos’ we have a new book review courtesy of Patchwork Press. Today we’re going to change things up a little bit by reviewing 2 books in 1 blog post. I was given the AMAZING opportunity to not only review the 1st book in a new series, but also the prequel novella. Because of how the books are written, it just makes more sense to give you all of my thoughts in 1 review so you can truly know if this series is for you. So 1st up we’re briefly discuss the novella entitled ‘Where We Were’, followed up by the 1st main book in the series called ‘Four Of A Kind’, both written by Kellie Sheridan. So now on to the review. Ready? Ok, let’s go!!!



In ‘Where We Were’ we meet our 4 central characters: 14 year old quadruplets Reagan, Reece, Reilly, & Rhiannon Donovan who are in the process of moving from their home in Richmond, Virginia to a small town in another state called Fairview. Throughout the book we get alternating chapters in which each girl narrates what’s going on in each of their lives in the final weeks before their move. This novella does a really great job of showing us each girl’s individual personality, as well as what their sister’s think of them through the use of a quote before each chapter begins. ‘Where We Were’ perfectly sets the stage for the beginning of ‘Four Of A Kind’, which is told from Reagan’s perspective & begins once the girls have moved to Fairview. We immediately see that the entire town has such a fascination with the girls’ birth, that they are minor celebrities in town. The story follows the girls (through Reagan’s eyes) as they deal with typical teenage drama such as friend & relationship issues, as well as trying to find their own identities in a town that watches their every move.



So now that you know the plot, let’s look at the book a little closer. First of all , Reagan is one of my new favorite protagonists. She is relatable, interesting, and most of all someone who you don’t mind spending the entire book with. She wasn’t a perfect character, but she was the kind of person that you can definitely see yourself befriending in real life. Now let’s move on to the love interest Kent, the son of a local reporter. Thank goodness for Kent! It is SOOOO hard to find a love interest in young adult literature that is loveable. They do exist, but they’re hard to find. I know that we are all tired of the bad-boy, the rebel with a heart of gold, the emotionally/physically abusive guy that our protagonist falls for because they’re “wounded inside”, basically the ‘you should never actually date this guy trope’. With Kent we don’t see any of this, instead we get a nice, friendly guy from beginning to end, he respects Reagan & honestly always seems to want what’s best for her. I thought that at some point he would turn on Reagan to help his mother write a scandalous story about her & her sisters but he never did. Needless to say there is definitely a great need for more characters like Kent in young adult literature. Next I really want to compliment the author on her awesome writing style. Although the story is told from Reagan’s point of view, you really feel like you get a sense of each sister’s personality. In both stories each sister is instantly identifiable, & none of them feel as if they get lost in the plot. We also get some diversity through the character of Reilly when we find out that she’s a lesbian. Although this is not thoroughly explored, it also doesn’t feel like a tacked on label in order to check the diversity box, but instead a real part of who the character is. Honestly there is so much that I can & do want to say about this book, but I would have you here all week. This is one of those truly great books that you instantly know will be one of your favs as soon as you finish it, & this definitely made this author an auto-buy author for me. With all that said I HAVE to give these books a 5 smiley face rating because I will DEFINITELY be re-reading them again this year, & look forward to reading the sequels that are already out, & any additional books in the series that are released in the future.

This was a pretty nice intro to the actual series starter Four of a Kind!

This got me interested in pursuing the series further and didn't take long for me to get through. We get to see the impending move through each sister's point of view. My favorite part was that each voice was very distinct. I could tell who was who based on how Sheridan wrote each chapter!

While the voices were distinct, some of the storylines seemed immature and petty, and the writing wasn't my favorite.

I do wish it could've been a little bit shorter. I found myself wanting to just get to the actual series!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with this e-galley for review!

It was short but I'm hooked already and can't wait to read more about the quadruplets.

Didn't like this at all. Content I didn't like and it was just a blah story. I knew it was going to be a short read, so that didn't bother me, I just didn't like how choppy it was and parts of the story made me uncomfortable.

*I received a complimentary eBook copy via NetGalley for my honest review.*

In this books, its like going in depth to know exactly each of the characters - Reagan, Reece, Reily and Rhiannon. More like telling the readers, what is about all of them in personal, so that we can get a better view of the stories.

So of course I was brought here by the description of this book and I wasn't disappointed.

The author did a good and solid job in being able to split the book equality with all the sisters so as too not get too little or too much. You get to get the feel of each sister in the first couple of chapters but my only complain is that we didn't get a prologue to kind of know what was happening before being thrown into the story, Also, I was super thrown off by the age of the girls, the cover and actions seemed like older characters when truly they were 14. I had to keep reminding myself of that.

This is a prequel to Four of a Kind. This is a story of four sisters -a quadruplet. They are Reagan, Reece, Reilly, and Rhiannon.

This book was just an introduction to the four sisters. I was disappointed when I reached the last page and realized that nothing really big happened. I did not realize that this was just a prequel to the first book. I was really surprised when the story ended that way.

Anyway, as I said, this just introduced the four girls. Honestly, I had quite a hard time differentiating and remembering which sister was what, which is also true in real life. I had a classmate in high school who had a twin but luckily, her twin is in a different class. I had gotten close to this classmate, so even if they will pretend to be the other, I could still identify which was my classmate and not. Before this book, I often wondered why authors do not name their characters, especially siblings, with names that start with the same letter like in real life. Guess what? This book answered that long standing question for me. It's because it's confusing. That was what happened to me in this story. I was confused and had to re-track and check back how was the other one described or differentiated from the other three. Yes, them having their names starting with letter R did not help. And as I have mentioned, this was just an intro, right? So, nothing really major happened which marked each character uniquely from the rest. Until the story finished, I was still trying to figure out which girl was who. Only two things were clear - one of the sisters had a boyfriend and one was gay.

All in all, in a way, I was still curious to find out what will happen next. Yes, in spite of the confusion that I went through with this story, I still wanted to read the first book. I wanted to know what the big deal is why these sisters were reacting violently to the move.

I give the book three stars, mainly because of the confusion. I still can't get over it. Maybe, if I read this again, everything will be clearer and I will be able to clearly distinguish one girl from the other. But I am hoping I won't have to. I would like to move on to the next book, once I get a copy. I am also hoping that a lot of things will happen in the next story that will allow me to at least give each character a distinct identity and not confuse her with the others. Just like in real life, I have to really get to know each sister to be able to pinpoint which of the four she is.