Cover Image: She Regrets Nothing

She Regrets Nothing

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Member Reviews

This book gave me all the Gossip Girl feels. Drama and intrigue so good I couldn't put it down.

I look forward to reading more from this author!

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I picked this one up but it wasn’t for me. I’m not really one to DNF a book but I’m also not going to put myself in a slump. The writing is really great it just was t for me.

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With my first experience with Andrea Dunlop's writing, I was pleasantly surprised. She Regrets Nothing has a sophisticated heir about it. The story was a mix of Gossip Girl and Sex and the City. She Regrets Nothing has everything you could want if you are craving a story anything like the two mentioned television shows: scandal, money, sex, affairs, and the lavish life of the upper class in New York City.

The story centers around Laila Lawerence, the estranged cousin to Liberty, Leo, and Nora. Her cousins are from the wealthy side of her family that live and rule New York City. After becoming orphaned, Laila reaches out to her cousins, with whom she meets at her mother's funeral. They take her in and show her the lavish life they have grown up in within Manhattan.

Since this book is not yet out, I will not give away the plot of the story. However, I felt this book was very well done. It held extremely complex characters, each driven by something different. Laila is driven by the thought of money, fame, and the lavish life she feels was stolen from her and will stop at nothing to make sure she achieves this life. Nora and Leo, the twins, are spoiled and rarely have to lift a finger to do anything. They have never worked, or done so seriously, and use most of their days to experience all of the luxuries that New York City has to offer. The supporting characters to the Lawerence family are equally complex and each have their own interesting stories.

I could easily see this book becoming the next binge-worthy television show or dramatic movie. This book is very addictive and well-done and I want to thank Taylor from SparkPoint Studio for giving me an e-galley copy!

I give this book 4 out of 5 stars.

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I struggled getting into this one and ended up DNF'ing it at 40%. I may pick it up again in the future and try it again.

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This book was an overall well received book. There was lots of family drama and scandal. The book moved ahead at a steady pace. As a fan of Gossip Girl, I could see some similar tropes/charactrizations. However, as a Canadian I had some issue with how the city of Banff was described. Such an easy fix and it just slipped through the cracks.

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A little Gossip Girl meets designer shopping spree in NYC, I was really excited for She Regrets Nothing. Being originially from Michigan as the main character starts, I loved seeing the little mentions of the area, made me have a connection to the character. However, once she gets to NYC and moves in with her cousin, it felt like there wasn't much going on in the story, keeping it very hard to keep focus. All in all it is a good mindless entertaining read, which is sometimes a very important thing to have!

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She Regrets Nothing was surely intriguing and the twists that were happening were great! Unfortunately, I wasn't a complete fan. I just couldn't really understand much of this world. I know a lot of readers for this book who, in one way or another have live in New York, were able to relate and understand the storyline, but to me, it was a trainwreck, to put it mildly, and not one I wanted to watch.

I do feel like this is more of a me problem, instead of the story itself. I do plan on giving this another chance sometime in the future.

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I did not find the characters relatable at all. There was too much, and unnecessary at times, drama that dragged the story. The heroine was difficult to like.

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I felt this one was well written. However it was just not for me. Too many rich girl problems that I couldn’t relate to. Too many characters I didn’t connect with.

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I loved the characters in this book! Laila was so conflicted throughout the novel, but her drive never wavered. I can’t say I agreed with every choice she made- I mean some were really stupid- but nonetheless, I really enjoyed her journey. I love how Dunlop let us in on the secrets little big little, which kept me wanting more! Definite recommended read!!!

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I found the premise of She Regrets Nothing to be very intriguing and I was quickly drawn into this story of a long-lost family member who has suddenly become an orphan - albeit, an adult with a job and an extended family nearby. That is actually part of the issue I had with Laila Lawrence -- she is very ungrateful for what she actually does have in life. She is hateful to people who seem to genuinely want to help her just because they don't measure up to her arbitrary (shallow) standard.

Laila loses her mother, whom she doesn't particularly like or respect. She is in shock and her cousins that she never knew existed show up at the funeral. When she finds out that they are extremely wealthy and her father's side of the family are so wealthy and pretty famous in New York, she gets the idea that she somehow deserves to have the same life. Laila is conniving, deceitful, envious, shallow and a total social climber. She has virtually no redeeming qualities.

Her cousins are spoiled and super wealthy, kind of shallow, but not as hateful as Laila. Liberty, the oldest of the siblings is a really nice person and has no use for the family money. I am pretty certain that Laila isn't supposed to appeal to the reader - at least I hope not. She is just really not likable.

After having said all that --- I actually was unable to put the book down! I enjoyed reading all the drama, the backstabbing and the various scandals . I had fun and read the book in one day. What does that say about me? I had fun reading about Laila's pathetic social climbing and snickering at her shallowness. This was all pretty Gossip Girl -type reading.

But then there were some really awful things that happened to her. But characteristically, she put herself in some really stupid situations and I kept hoping she would learn from her mistakes. There is one particularly tough part to read where Laila thinks she will use someone who is rich and powerful for her own benefit and social climbing. Unfortunately for her, this person is even more ruthless, uncaring and just awful than she is and things don't turn out at all the way she expected.

There is plenty said about our society, women, what constitutes work, how we think about wealth -- lots of thing touched upon.

I won't give away the big, huge, threw-me-for-a-loop surprise twist to this novel, however. I mean, I really did not see that coming! So, kudos to the author for totally blind-siding me. I'm sure that She Regrets Nothing won't appeal to everyone - what book does? But if you want a fast-paced, fun, gossipy, novel with some pretty wild twists, check out She Regrets Nothing.

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Not a book for me I'm afraid. But those who love Gossip Girl will LOVE it.

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I didn't like any of the characters in this book besides Liberty (because she has anxiety and she works at a literary fiction publishing place and she is the most down to Earth out of all the Laurence's). Laila is a very unlikable main character, but I feel like as a reader we aren't supposed to like her (I could be totally wrong though), but then I ask myself if the reader is intended to dislike Laila in this book, then what is the point? This isn't a mystery or a thriller where I wouldn't mind an unlikable main character - this is a contemporary fiction novel and I guess I just don't really understand the point of this book? Am I supposed to care about Laila and her poor decision making skills? She's incredibly selfish and is a gold digger and doesn't care about anyone. Also the amount of times people are refereed to as sexy and hot in this book is absurd, do these characters not have any other redeemable qualities? (Cause if they do, I don't see any.)

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This novel follows the lives of a super-wealthy family living in NYC who learn they have a cousin they've never met. She ingratiates herself into the family and learns the ways of the privileged. Honestly, there wasn't a ton to like about this book. It's told from pretty much every character's perspective (including really minor ones), so it lacks focus, and most of the characters very unlikable - making it difficult to root for anyone or to care what happens to them. There's really no plot development until the last 10 percent of the book, so it felt very dragged out. Disappointing to be sure.

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What struck me the most upon finishing this book was how relevant the book title was. It was repeated at the very end and up until that point, I kind of forgot the title until I reached that sentence. Since then the story and everything about it stuck with me.

This is the kind of family drama you find in books and wonder if it really does happen in real life. Are there people that rich out there who have long lost family members, get reunited and welcomed as part of the family, but never feel like they can reach the level to make it on the inheritance list?

I enjoyed reading about Laila's drive and ambition. Most of the time it was directed towards the wrong thing, but if she had her priorities straight I'm sure she could have made it in NYC on her own accord. But that obviously wasn't her goal. I have to admire her for that. She never gave up. She always found a way. And she clearly regretted nothing.

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My Highly Caffeinated Thought: An addictive tale of family secrets and social climbing.

SHE REGRETS NOTHING takes a look at the New York elite and the girl desperate to be one of them. The beauty of this book, for me at least, is the characters and their interactions with each other in the city that I love so much. The way the author manages to create a narrative that encapsulates what being rich and privileged can look like without making it seem trite pulls the reader deeper into the story.

As the pages flew by, I enjoyed getting to live in this world just for a little bit. Then you add in the dark undertones and lies to make the story even better. The balance of emotion, love, scheming, and duplicity was right on point.

If you are one of those people who loves to follow socialites and get the nitty gritty on the who's who of the world's wealthiest families, then this book is for you. In truth, SHE REGRETS NOTHING is as addictive as a tabloid, engrossing as any tell-all book, and contains just the right amount of intriguing deception to make it fly by.

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I absolutely loved this book. It was a really good read and something I would recommend to anyone!

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Laila doesn't know she has other family members until they show up at her mother's funeral. And they're not just any family members: they're the Lawrence twins, and their older sister Liberty, heirs to the Lawrence fortune. Laila, too, is a Lawrence but grew up outside the spotlight, and the wealth, that her cousins did. Laila gets a glimpse at what her life could have been but goes back to living as a dental hygienist, marrying her boss, and living in Grosse Point, Michigan. Until that, too, falls apart. Suddenly free, Laila contacts her cousins and moves to New York. 

Nora, one of the twins, invites Laila to live in her Tribeca penthouse, complete with a hidden door behind a bookcase that connects to her twin, Leo's, penthouse. Coming with nothing but not-New York City appropriate clothing, Nora takes Laila to Bergdorf Goodman and starts Laila's Pygmalion-esque transformation from midwest suburbanite to Page Six-ready socialite. Meanwhile, Liberty, a former model turned literary agent, gets Laila an internship at the agency she works for. Liberty is different from her siblings in that she believes that they still need to work, despite their trust find---a work ethic she tries to instill onto Laila who doesn't actually have any claim to the Lawrence fortune. 

As Laila social climbs from one bed to another, each conquest putting her into a higher social sphere, at the back of her mind she's still hoping to meet her grandfather and convince him that she, too, deserves Lawrence money. When her hopes of meeting him and convincing him (via blackmail, from letters she found between him and her mother) are dashed, Laila turns her attention back on finding the perfect match: rich, well-bred, and someone who won't see through her ever-changing facade. 

With elements of a family saga, thriller, painted with broad brushstrokes of the glamorous life of New York's social elite, Andrea Dunlop does not disappoint with She Regrets Nothing. The story is fast-paced, with a writing style reminiscent of Lauren Goff's Fates and Furies. And like Goff, Dunlop takes on class systems and gender roles, all the while delivering an ending no one could see coming. This is the year's first beach-bag necessity.

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I don't think I have ever been so disappointed by a book. I have DNF'd books before, not because they were like this one, but because I knew I just wasn't in the right frame of mind to enjoy them. One day, I'll get back to a lot of those books and I know they'll be good.

This one though... Oh man. She Regrets Nothing made me regret requesting it on NetGalley. When I read the synopsis, I was getting a lot of Gossip Girl vibes, and yet I don't think anyone in Gossip Girl was as entitled, selfish, and hypocritical as Laila. And that's saying something, because the GG Upper East Side was fierce.

Laila is the perfect example of how wealth, or even aspiring to inherit wealth, can corrupt one's character. While we begin the book sympathizing with Laila's situation, that sympathy quickly dissipates as we see how she begins to treat people once she sees money.

There is gold digger and then there is Laila. She hopes to take New York by storm, and ride on the coattail of her rich and famous cousins. She gets into the good clubs, meets billionaires, and betrays basically everyone who is ever nice to her. Her cousins - Liberty, Nora, and Leo - take Laila under their wing. Nora and Leo let Laila live with them for free, Liberty gives Laila a job, and yet Laila remains the more ungrateful ingrate on earth. She continues to claw for more.

However, this is where the hypocrisy comes in - she faults the men that she meets for doing the exact same thing she is - trying to rise above their station and all that, and she looks down upon them from a high seat that no one ever gave her, and no one really thinks she deserves. Now this plot line goes on for about 80% of the book, and all I could do was sit there utterly exasperated by her. I stick by the rule of not quoting ARCs, but I'm fairly sure at least some of the quotes I have saved up are in the final version, and none of them make her look like a good person at all.

Then there's the family scandal - no only is that plot line a stub as short as the TTC's Sheppard line, but it's not even acknowledged by the older people in the book until about 95% through the book. I was waiting for this huge revelation and I got nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Which leads me to the regret. I spent weeks trying to get through this book because I knew that I wasn't turn off from it because of my mood, but because of the main character and her terrible character. In the end, I only liked Liberty and Reece, but at the same time, they were barely developed as characters and that drove me bonkers.

As a whole, I was left unimpressed by this book, not just for the terrible MC, but for the lack of plot, the poor execution, and the feeling of what-the-hell I was left with when I turned the last page. Definitely not a satisfying read for me.

Plot: 2/5
Characters: 1/5
Writing: 2/5
World Building: 4/5
Pacing: 1/5
Overall: 1/5
GoodReads Rating: 3.65/5

eARC obtained via Atria Books via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

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This was my first foray into Andrea Dunlop's books and I'm definitely curious to see what else she'll write. She created such unlikeable characters in SHE REGRETS NOTHING that I sometimes had a hard time pushing through some of the more lengthy chapters but to her credit, I hated just enough to see what would happen to them.
I did enjoy Liberty--she was the respite in it all --so levelheaded and a character I wanted all the good things for.
This would be a good beach read.

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