Cover Image: What’s the Matter with Mary Jane?

What’s the Matter with Mary Jane?

Pub Date:   |   Archive Date:

Member Reviews

3 stars

An odd murder mystery. Not the best story or characters, but I did enjoy the snarky MC who narrated events & her jerk-face cat, Bunnywit. It would be 2/5 stars if not for the enjoyment I derived from the writing style.

[What I liked:]

•This book is hilarious! The MC narrates it & she has a sassy, slightly cynical sense of humor that is one of the highlights of this book.

•Bunnywit was great. I loved Bunnywit. Also, the thing with the lawyer & cat inheritance at the end was pretty great & hilarious.


[What I didn’t like as much:]

•The romance was insta-love, & it didn’t seem based on much at all. Thus, when tragedy struck, it didn’t have much of an emotional impact.

•Most of the plot made no sense to me, it was just shocking yet random events strung together, overlaid with the narrator’s annoyingly frequent interjections of, “if only I had known”.

•The character development just was not there. The MC is snarky, her friend is mysterious & quirky, her love interest is handsome & stupid rich & brilliant, & the villain is OOT evil. Very two dimensional, almost caricatures of people.

CW: murder

[I received an ARC ebook copy from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. Thank you for the book!]

Was this review helpful?

“What’s the Matter with Mary Jane?” has, indeed, a very unique and interesting concept. From the get-go you are drawn by its uniqueness. This book is kind of a mystery, sort of a thriller, and somewhat a love story -which is fun, don’t get me wrong. I started this book without fully having a context / idea of what I was getting into and I think that is the way to go. Although, yes, sometimes it was too confusing and the story was hard to follow. I want to focus on the positives more than the negatives - because I did not fully enjoy this book (I wanted to though, I truly did). One of my biggest turn offs was the insensitive language presented as “jokes”.

Was this review helpful?

This was a decent book but not one that really stuck with me or I felt compelled to keep reading or didn't want to put down. It's definitely a fast-paced book and I'm sure many people will love it!

Was this review helpful?

It can be difficult to find mystery books with queer protagonists, which made me appreciate this one all the more. So gripping, twisty, and unique—it stands out.

Was this review helpful?

Our nameless postmodern amateur sleuth is still recovering from her first dangerous foray into detective work when her old friend Priscilla Jane Gill breezes back into her life and begs for help. Pris, now a famous travel writer, fears she’s being stalked again after a nearly fatal attack by a deranged fan a year earlier. In Pris’s dizzying world of wealth and privilege, nameless meets dreamy but sinister tech billionaire Nathan and his equally unnerving sidekick Chiles. Pris’s stalker is murdered outside her book launch, and the shadow of obsession continues to stalk Pris. With no one she can totally trust, nameless knows she’s not going to like the answer — but she delves into her old friend’s past, seeking the mastermind behind Pris’s troubles before it’s too late. Bunnywit does his level best to warn them, but no one else speaks Cat, so background peril transforms into foreground betrayal and murder.



In the second installation of the Epitome Apartments Mystery Series, our heroine walks a dangerous path in a world where money is no object and the stakes are higher, and more personal, than ever.

Was this review helpful?

This second installment in the Epitome Apartments Mystery series was nearly as fun as the first! It kept me on the edge of my seat and was gripping from beginning to end. I wasn't sure if the chapter naming conventions and similar gimmicky aspects of the narration such as the snark and the deep love of grammar were going to carry over well into a second book but I was pleasantly surprised. I really like the narrator of this series. She is an unnamed amateur sleuth who is ethically non-monogamous and pansexual. I love that representation and then add to it her dry sense of humor and instance on good grammar; I'm so glad I fund this series! I'm already eagerly awaiting a third installment!

Was this review helpful?

I found this book to be very unique. First of all, let me preface that I found our halfway through it was a sequel. But I will say that not reading the first book does not take away from the plot.

The nameless narrator was super cool. I loved her way of talking. She is not your typical narrator, without her rubbing in your face how unique she is. Also bisexual rep is awesome.

This plot is fun, but it dies down a lot. It’ll be POW one minute, and then nothing happens for the next 20% of the book. The choppy sections also just made it hard to follow at times.

It’s one of those books you read and have a fun time, but probably won’t think much about after you read it. I do recommend this book for a casual mystery.

Was this review helpful?

I received an ebook-ARC of this book from Netgalley and ECW Press in exchange for an honest review:

Content warning: stalking, violence

*review contain minor spoilers*

I wanted to like this book much more than I did. While I enjoyed the concept of the book, I found it very hard to follow the narration and writing.

What I liked: the story line- an old college friend shows up, asking for help with a stalker and mysterious past. The nameless narrator agrees to help investigate and gets pulled into her friends world of the super rich. I also liked the short chapters/ sections

What I didn’t like: the narrator gives a sort of stream of consciousness narration of events, but this is extremely hard to follow. She is so preoccupied with grammar and her financial situation, or that of others, that it was easy to get lost and not know who or what she was talking about, or even where she was.

The main character is also described as grammar-obsessed, but this was so frustrating to read. You would be waiting for details about a police investigation while the narrator went on about whether or not “guys” is a gendered term. I found myself bored waiting for the story to get back on track.

The same goes for all of the footnotes in the book. They would include useless information that only served to distract from the main points of the sentence and interrupt the flow of the entire narrative. Whether someone ate 8 or 9 hors d’oeuvres did not add to the story at all, and interrupted an already choppy and hard to follow narrative.

I also did not enjoy the language used at times to describe characters, especially in the case of describing skin tone. The phrase used to describe one POC character’s skin tone was “no cops would kneel on his neck” - I found this to be a very insensitive and made me uncomfortable.

Overall I liked the idea behind this book but the execution fell flat.

Thank you to Netgalley and ECW Press for this ARC

Was this review helpful?

What a lovely change!! a different twist on the norm for a psychological thriller. Fast paced, funny and sometimes a little fun.
You follow the nameless amateur sleuth, who has been recovering from injuries she got from a previous mystery she was involved in. Of course, she gets herself caught into a whole new mystery. Along the way, you meet a whole bunch of characters who add their own layers to the story creating an amazing whodunnit. (Not to mention Bunnywit, who does his best to warn people, but no one understands his niaows!!)
This book had a very different feel than a lot of the thrillers or mysteries I'm used to reading. It's refreshing to have more humour and even though it is a murder mystery, it's not an extremely heavy read.
A great strong, female lead character, kicking ass and helping to solve crimes.
Doesn't that sell it to you already?

(PS, please write more in this series!!)

Thanks to Netgalley and ECWpress for allowing me to read this book!!!

Was this review helpful?

This book sounded really good and i really enjoyed getting to know the characters. The plant was good and held up all the way throughout the book keeping me intrigued. highly recommend to anyone wanting to read this its a really good fun book to read.

Was this review helpful?

This was a fun read! I liked the writing style a lot and it really added to the atmosphere of the book. It felt kind of like a film noir, which I enjoyed.

Was this review helpful?

This was a fun, thrilling novel, but not super memorable. I often found myself skimming and skipping over paragraphs, which is not something I tend to do as a reader. I do think it could be popular as a fall read, it doesn't quite fit the mood of summer.

Was this review helpful?

Dorsey’s nameless Canadian freeloving amateur detective is back. Arranged to yet another poem as is the gimmick with this series, the story introduces the ever adamantly bisexual protagonist to a complicated love triangle of her former friend, Pris, of some two decades ago and her two companions, a short famous tech billionaire and his tall sidekick.
There’s a murder to begin with, a murder of Pris’ stalker. So technically it is a mystery. But it isn’t much of a detective story. The nameless protagonist doesn’t actually have (or wants to) much with what’s going on, more like the events occur all around here and she narrates them and sorts them out. At best. Just to prove her bisexual (making fun of it, because in the first book she would not shut up about it) stripes, she embarks of a passionate affair with the billionaire. So it’s a tangled web of deceit among friends that she eventually must find her way out of. Because money. Greed. Etc.
That’s basically it. The return trip to the Epitome (pronounced funny) apartments and the easy breezy charm of the tales of their owner’s life.
I didn’t love the first book, it was kinda cute and a quick read. This one was very much more of the same, but knowing what to expect actually enhanced the reading enjoyment somewhat, so there was that. If you haven’t read book one, book two does a pretty good job of summarizing its predecessor. Should you read either of the books? Well…it’s a why not kinda thing.
If you’re a huge fan of smart alecky pansexual narrators with penchants for proper grammar and casual approach to romance who tend to step into crime doodoo now and again…go for it. Very light fare, this book tends to alternate between cute and cutesy (footnotes and all) and occasional slip and slide into tiresomeness. Quick, fairly entertaining read. Thanks Netgalley.

Was this review helpful?

Excellent, fast-paced psychological thriller and one that had me gripped from the beginning!
The book is fast paced, exciting, and full of suspense.
Priscilla and a nameless nameless amateur sleuth go on a wild adventure!
These characters were seriously bad@ss and I couldn't have loved them more!
Overall I loved this book! It was fun, different, unique, thrilling and full of mysteries.

Thank you NetGalley, ECW Press and Author for the amazing chance to read and review this book!

Was this review helpful?