By Book or By Crook by Eva Gates

Bodie Island, North Carolina

This book came very close to being my first DNF book of 2024, but I read this book as part of a book club at my library. I didn’t want to come underprepared, so I begrudgingly finished the book. The title of the book club at my library is “Cozy Mysteries,” and I can see why this book was selected. The novel is about Lucy, a 30 year old librarian that recently moved to the Outer Banks of North Carolina from Boston. She lives in a lighthouse that also serves as the town’s library. The setting is cozy, and, although it is a mystery novel about a murder, it is not gory or terribly disturbing (in terms of descriptions of the murder).

So the premise of this book isn’t bad (although looking on Goodreads, most people who disliked this book because of the notion of a library within a lighthouse being a bad one), but there was no substance to this book at all. All of the 72 characters were undeveloped and unlikeable, especially the narrator, Lucy. She goes around attacking and accusing people of things with no evidence whatsoever. I guessed the murderer after the first scene they were introduced in (although it was truly a guess). 

I would forgive the lack of character development and plot (I went into this book expecting it to be like a Hallmark movie for my reading brain), if it weren’t for the over-the-top misogyny and body shaming. In one scene, Lucy describes meeting a (gasp) 300 lbs. woman. She proceeds to conclude that woman could NEVER be the murderer because the murder took place up a flight of stairs, and there was no way a woman of her size (300 lbs!) could climb a flight of stairs. Honestly Eva Gates/Vicky Delany, fuck you. I put in my short form review that I hope you were able to get the therapy you so clearly need, but I rebuke that. I hope you’re miserable forever. I hope you’re like those stereotypical actors who hate themselves because they’re the stars of sitcoms and even though they’re successful and famous all they want is to be in a “serious” or critically-acclaimed project. Because you're novels may be marginally successful, but they are all fluff. Fun fact: there were four hundred and fifty five 300+ lbs. players in the NFL last year. And yes, mom, they are men, but they’re also athletes competing professionally. The counterpart bar for a woman is being able to climb a single flight of stairs. 

I’m surprised that nobody on Goodreads (nor at my book club) were upset about the blatant and constant body shaming in this novel. I’m going to venture a guess that it is because it’s a book written by a Boomer white lady written for other Boomer white ladies. But women readers deserve better than her bullshit. There were two other books recently that other people found offensive in the body shaming department, but they didn’t make me nearly as angry as this book clearly did. Those were A Man Called Ove (I found his comment endearing because clearly Ove was overall a dickhead) and Me Before You. The comments in Me Before You definitely bothered me, but at least they came from another character (her mom) rather than being the opinions of the main character that you’re supposed to relate to/root for. 

Do better authors. We readers deserve better than this bullshit. 

Review by the Numbers

Overall: 1/5

Writing: 2/5

Message: 1/5

Plot: 1/5

Character Development: 1/5

Challenges Satisfied

- North Carolina (Reading My Way Around the World Challenge)

- A Book From a Genre You Typically Avoid (2024 PopSugar Reading Challenge)

- A Book that is the First in a Series (Shelf Reflection’s Disney Animated Movies Reading Challenge)