BAD MONKEY (Carl Hiaasen) - August 28/24

 Took me a while to get through this because of our NYC trip, but I basically enjoyed it. The characters are all quite compelling and so's the mystery, but I did find the book to be egregiously padded out. The final third feels like it could've been compressed into a single chapter, ultimately. **1/2 out of ****

THE LAST TOWN (Blake Crouch) - August 9/24

 And the trilogy ends with a bang. Some of the action in the first half was a little too descriptive for my liking, but otherwise this was just as crackerjack and engrossing as the first two books. That ending! Argh! ***1/2 out of ****

IT ENDS WITH US (Colleen Hoover) - August 4/24

 At first I was pretty much like why am I reading this because it felt so kind of amateurish and geared towards ladies. But I really found myself getting into the characters and the narrative, and I pretty much tore through the second half. ***1/2 out of ****