I’m not sure how I feel about this one still. I liked it while I was reading it but I found it very forgettable. I did really like the characters and the story line.

Oh how I wanted this to be more....

I was really hoping for something like the Finlay Donovan series, a nice cozy mystery, but unfortunately this was not it. It was all over the place (writing and story wise), I couldn't connect to the characters and I just couldn't do it.

I absolutely loved this book. It hooked me and kept me turning pages until I was done. Finished it in two days! The character development was strong, and the premise was unique enough that it didn't feel like anything else I've read.

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC for an exchange for an honest review.

This book was interesting indeed.

When you try and make your book look like Finlay Donovan then it had better be a good one and this was jut not it. I'm not sure the author knew when she wanted out of this book but I sure couldn't work it out - maybe that was the mystery? I may be being a bit too harsh but I really struggled to get through this book. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for a review.

Sigh. This sounded and looked like a snarky little romp but it fell way flat for me. The story seemed disjointed and choppy and I had a hard time figuring out what was going on, which wasn't helped when I decided to just skim through the rest of the novel to get to the end instead of DNF'ing it like I should have.

I didn't quite know what to expect when I requested Call Me When You're Dead, by A.R. Taylor. Was this a serious revenge thriller? A rom-com? A story about life and death? This novel had some elements of each. But also, it was a screwball comedy that I think would make a terrific movie. This is a comedic, modern-day look at thirty-somethings in Manhattan, friendships, and the world of advertising. The main character, Eleanor, in her quest to seek revenge on her dead friend's ex-boyfriend, transforms from a quiet, librarian, into a woman at ease in the New York social scene. I found her journey to be a reminder to live life to the fullest now, because one never knows when life will be cut short. There were also many other wonderful characters, especially the ex-boyfriend, Jon, and his brother Walter, along with a cadre of Jon's colorful advertising colleagues. While the antics sometimes were over the top, the behind the scenes look at making commercials was hilarious. This was a fun, engaging book. I highly recommend it.

What I Liked:

Characters:

Eleanor lives in Buffalo, New York and has a job that she loves as a research librarian. But her social life is pretty stagnant. The antics of her high school friend Sasha provides lots of exciting stories whenever they get together for dinner. But, when Sasha suddenly dies, Eleanor feels obliged to grant Sasha a last request: get even with the man who broke Sasha's heart. But what is Eleanor supposed to do? She doesn't even know the guy's last name! Well, Eleanor does what a librarian does best; she does her research. Also, luckily, she teams up with another of Sasha's friend, a New York actor who knows everything about New York. While figuring out what she needs to do, Eleanor undergoes a transformation, inspired by Sasha. What I loved about this change was it was driven by Eleanor finding out what she really liked. She didn't change into a fake version of a Manhattanite, but into her authentic self.

Jon, is a career-driven advertising executive. Far from trying to hurt Sasha, he is just so busy, and under so much pressure, he can't focus on anything but his job. And (probably unknown to Sasha) Jon has a very complicated family that includes overbearing parents, and his brother, Walter, who has some challenges of his own. When Eleanor finally meets him to inform him of Sasha's death, it hardly registers, at first. But, as the story progresses, Jon begins to see how he let Sasha down. And he is intrigued by that friend of Sasha's (is it Eleanor?) who he keeps running into.

Romance:

As all good rom-com's go, there is an unusual meet-cute, hidden intentions, and then heartfelt connection. Eleanor first meets Jon on one of the worst days of his life. The commercial he has just created, gets stuck on a loop on CBS, making it one of the most instantly annoying commercials in history! Jon is so caught up in his now imploding career, he barely hears Eleanor's news about Sasha. His seeming indifference is infuriating to Eleanor, who doubles down on her commitment to ruin Jon on Sasha's behalf.

But, eventually, Eleanor sees Jon for the stressed out person that he is, who cares deeply for his parents and brother. And Jon begins to notice how genuine Eleanor is with everyone. They are actually a perfect match. But can Eleanor fall in love with the man she has vowed to avenge on behalf of her friend?

Advertising:

I really loved this aspect of the book. The people at Jon's advertising company are as cutthroat as they come. One of his colleagues is a brilliant art director, with a heavy addiction to drugs, alcohol, and affairs with his co-workers. With all the chemicals in his body, it's a wonder he's still alive. His other co-workers all seem to be scheming to get ahead. And if that mean sabotaging another's work, then so be it. But who messed with Jon's commercial? Jon leaves no stone unturned to find out. And if he has to break into other peoples computers? Well, they shouldn't have left them turned on.

Things come to a head as Jon and his rival both have to shoot commercials in the desert with wives, girlfriends, a herd of buffalo, and the world's most obnoxious director in tow. These scenes were really funny and would make for a terrific movie.

Thank you for letting me read this one in exchange for an honest review.

When I first saw this book I said to myself that I liked the cover and when reading about it I thought that this one could be a hit for me.
Unfortunately the book wasn't really for me which is sad since I really had high hopes for this one.
Tbh I DNF it at around 30% because I couldn't deal with it anymore and I felt like if I continue reading it it would be forced.

I try to go into every book with a positive attitude because I really hate writing negative reviews. It sounded so interesting that I couldn't wait to get into it. This book was all over the place. It jumps around from one person to the next and it's hard to keep track of what's going on. First it's told from one person's point of view and then jumps over to someone else and it's very confusing. The writing style was so hard to follow that I gave up at 7%, an absolute first for me. I cannot recommend this book.

"If anything happens to me, I want you to get him", said Eleanore to Sasha not long before she died. So get him she tries.
I have seen many bad reviews about this book, and this one is no better. It was not for me. My bad for judging a book by it's cover. Maybe if I went in not expecting Finlay Donovan vibes, I could've appreciated more. I also read it as an ARC on Kindle, and the formatting was weird in many places, so it hindered my reading experience, but I'm pretty sure the final version's formatting will be better.
I received an advance review copy for free and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Given the cover and the blurb I thought for sure I was going to love Call Me When You’re Dead, but the truth is I had trouble getting into this one. I kept putting it down and would have to force myself to pick it back up again. The basic concept of the story is solid enough, but the execution just didn’t work for me and I never really connected with any of the characters. Thanks to She Writes Press and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review an eARC of Call Me When You’re Dead.

https://www.amazon.com/review/R39ZVW2TICOYCB/ref=pe_1098610_137716200_cm_rv_eml_rv0_rv

This book was, unfortunately, all over the place. I was very excited to try it out but it unfortunately didn't quite work for me. Looking for Finlay Donovan vibes and didn't get those at all.

I really wanted to love this book. I thought the plot sounded right up my street so was delighted to receive the arc. Unfortunately DNF at around 25%.

I don't have much of a review to write about this book because it completely lost me several times. I had to look ahead a few times to see if the book got better and I just had to get there, but it did not. This book was not for me. This book hooked me from the description, but I could not get into it at all and had to force myself to make it through. I could not focus on it enough to remember what was even the plotline. This book is personally not for me but it's not bad.




I was allowed to read this book early for an honest review

I liked the cover of this book and the title, however, I didn’t particularly enjoy the book itself. I really wanted to love it, it looks like it would be an entertaining read. It was a little on the slow side and I couldn’t really get into it. Honestly, I skim read a bit of it, as I really wanted to keep going with it and see it through. It just wasn’t a book for me.

I’d like to say thank you to NetGalley for allowing to read this book and give an honest review.

This was completely disjointed and messy. Why is this woman regularly taking a bus from Ithaca to nyc and back in one day? It’s a five hour bus ride. That’s ten wasted hours. Surely she’s busy as a medical librarian that only seems to focus on two things. Speaking of that why does she have to tell everyone her job and where she’s from, no one asked. I just couldn’t stomach this one. Needs better editing and a more fluid story. It was physically irritating how this main character went on and on about her friend’s looks.

(DNF at 20%) The cover and description of this book seemed so interesting that I couldn't wait to pick it up, but wow was I disappointed. The last thing Eleanor's friend told her is, "If anything bad happens to me, I want you to get him." So when her friend suddenly dies, Eleanor does what she promised and tries to find the boyfriend her friend told her about. At least, that is what the description said. I couldn't understand what was going on. It was not a coherent read. The paragraphs jumped from topic to topic and couldn't understand what the author was trying to say, or the plot points the author was trying to convey. The characters were well described but not introduced with any apparent purpose. They were also not loveable characters and I couldn't connect with any of them. I think the third person perspective did not help the author because it let her jump from idea to idea, and character to character without forcing her to have some consistency in the story that would have allowed the plot to be coherent. For example, within the first few chapter, Eleanor's friend had given her the ominous message, gone radio silent, died, had a funeral, and Eleanor had begun to track down the boyfriend. It jumped so quickly from point to point that I struggled to identify what the mystery even was for most of the book. Unfortuantely, I dislike the book so much that I ended up giving up 20% through.

Thank you to Netgalley, She Writes Press, and A.R. Taylor for an ARC in exchange for my honest review. I wanted to love it but unfortunately was disappointed.

Call Me When You’re Dead by A.R. Taylor

Cute cover, right? Reminds you of the Finlay Donovan books, right?? Snappy title whose blurb makes you think it’s going to be a similarly snarky dark comedic read to hold you over until Finlay #3 comes out??? Fun cosplay cover???? That’s where the similarities end. I was totally catfished by the publisher.

I hate doing this but my promise has always been to leave honest reviews, and this goes down as probably the dumbest and worst written book I’ve read in years.

Stupid plot. Undeveloped characters. Choppy writing. Flatlined action the whole way through. Broken dialogue. Zero arc. No humor. Nothing to do with the title. Absolute waste of time. Zero redeeming qualities in this book. I don’t know this author and would have thought it her first novel but she’s written other books. Seriously, soooooo bad.

But kudos to her for getting her team to basically steal from the Finlay popularity, copy the book jacket, and leave suckers like me thinking they will get a witty and funny fast paced read. It hits the shelves 9/6 and you should hit the ground running in the opposite direction if you see it. Shame on She Writes Press Publications for even printing this book and for the blatant artistic plagiarism.

Don’t fall for the knock off. It’s not even close to a cheap imitation. If you haven’t read Elle Cosimano’s books though make sure to give the real ones a go. They are such fun.

Thanks NetGalley for this arc.

I found this hard to read..I more or less was skimming the words to find the story and didn’t really care for the meandering.

added Call Me When You're Dead to my shelves on a whim mainly because I was getting huge Finlay Donovan vibes and I love that series. The blurb sounded like a lot of fun, and I've been looking forward to read it... Sadly, I ended up agreeing with the low ratings for this book, and I had to resort to making the difficult decision to DNF it. I'll try to explain briefly why this story didn't work for me.

Like I said, the blurb sounded like a lot of fun and I was looking forward to this dark comedy, but the actual story fell rather flat for me. There was no real plot to speak of (or at least in the part I read), and it was more the random ramblings of the characters rather than something really cohesive. True, we get the mysterious request of Sasha for Eleanor to 'get him' if something happens to her, but it's all rather vague and the focus seems on something else. To make things worse, the attempt at humor was a total fail for me, and there wasn't even the tiniest chuckle once while I tried to read this story. It mostly felt like slow torture instead...

Another thing that bothered me considerably was the awkward third person POV; I can enjoy stories with this POV if they are done right, but something just felt off here and it only alienated me from the characters even more. This is the worst possible result, because the characters are bland and rather horrible in the first place, and I didn't particularly want to spend any time with them. I also clashed considerably with the writing style itself... There was just something about the structure and word choice that felt rather awkward and forced.

As you might have guessed, sadly Call Me When You're Dead and me most definitely didn't get along, and I really saw no other way out than DNFing this. True, things might have improved later on, but judging the reviews I don't think I missed out on too much.