This book had gotten a lot of buzz and I wanted to like it more than I did. I prefer heart pounding thrillers and this was more literary.

Reading Between the Wines book review #24/135 for 2022:
Rating: 3 🍷 🍷 🍷
Book 🎧: Real Easy
Author: Marie Rutkoski
Genre: Mystery & Thrillers
Available now!

Sipping thoughts: I loved the setting and premise of this story. It has been done but not to this magnitude in my experiences. Real Easy travels through the world of strippers and how dangerous their jobs can be. I loved the mystery but also the relationships you get to see. The end of the book has an author interview that gives you even more insight into that world and also why Rutkoski decided to write this story.

Cheers and thank you to @HenryHoltAndCompany and @NetGalley for an advanced copy of @RealEasy.

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Almost tempted to give this a 5 star review....it is really good. It's kind of a character driven, police procedural type of murder mystery, taking place around a strip club in IL, in 1999. It's told from the views of various characters/persons involved, & it feels kind of 'dark' in tone, maybe similar to the 'dark atmosphere' that one might imagine of a strip club or a police station... I also felt that it probably gave a good description of the inner workings of a strip club, & also the police detective's inner circle/station house......& the everyday life that goes on in those places. The author presents some very serious issues, & deals with them real well. Even though it was actually pretty unnerving & kind of scary to read, it was hard to put down & I ended up reading late into the night. It's a story that will stick with you long after you're done reading it! Fair warning....it does take place in & around a strip club.....& there is graphic discussion of sex.
I received an e-ARC of the book from publisher Henry Holt & Co. via NetGalley, after offering to read it & post my own fair/honest review.

I’ve been a huge fan of Marie Rutkoski for almost a decade and I’m so fortunate to have witnessed her broaden her creative horizons and write Real Easy.

While crime/thriller/mystery isn’t in my wheelhouse, I loved the tension Marie was able to weave from the start, which kept me hooked into the story. I’m interested in reading more like this from Marie in the future.

I definitely like this author. This seems to be her first foray into adult literature. Even if it isn't, this is definitely a long way from YA fantasy. It's a thriller centered around a strip club. It was very different from her previous books. And it definitely holds its own in the thriller genre. I don't want to give you any spoilers. If you like a good edge of your seat thriller, this gets my recommendation.

I am used to reading fantasy by this author and I'm really glad that I enjoyed this book which dives into the mystery/thriller genre. I found myself to be questioning every character and running through scenarios in my head on whether they could have been the murderer or not.

I was invested in all the characters, they all had unique characteristics and were important to the plot, they all had a purpose. Normally in books that have multiple perspectives, there tend to be some perspectives that I don't care about. That was not the case in this book, as I said with questioning every character, it was necessary to have the point of view from multiple characters and to get into their heads and understand them better as people but also suspects.

The setting was excellent as well, I could imagine myself in the club as a guest. Considering characters are normally at home or at the club, there was a lot of plot development and character growth in the small number of locations.

I really enjoyed this book and would happily recommend it to friends. I've always loved Marie's writing style and I continue to do so.

Wow this book was so interesting..

This book follows multiple povs of dancers at the club, The Lovely Lady, the murder, detectives, and other minor characters who somehow have something important to contribute to the whole web of this mystery..

There has been women disappearing, more specifically ones who work at the club and when two of the most well-known and profitable go missing it becomes clear that the girls who work there are targets, and they must stop whoever is behind their murders

At times I felt the book was slow and included a few too many details but overall I throughly enjoyed reading each persons pov and hearing about their experiences and ideas.

I will say I was absolutely shocked at who it ended up being as I did no suspect then at all there were many people I was suspicious of for awhile before them and they were never on my radar which I feel is very clever on the authors part, the amount of detail is almost helpful in supporting leading the reader astray and distracting them from what is right in front of them..

Thank you to NetGalley, Henry Holt & Company, and Marie Rutkoski for giving me the opportunity to read this intriguing novel!

There is a very large cast of characters telling the story in this book. Because there are so many points of view it did take me a while to find my groove, but once I did I couldn't wait to figure out who the killer was. I found this murder mystery to be fascinating, horrific, and sad all at the same time, with the story sticking with me in a haunting way long after I finished the book.

I appreciated getting to know the strippers through the lens of their daily lives. The author does a fantastic job with the details in this story, putting the reader into every corner of the Lovely Lady strip club. Often when I would read I could smell the alcohol and feel the bass from the songs.

Thank you to NetGalley and Henry Holt & Company for the eARC in exchange for my honest review.

I really appreciated the spotlight on an otherwise unpopular theme in this book and showing that exotic dancers are real people too. It was also interesting to read about Samantha's genetic defect, as I have never heard of that type of defect or seen it in a book before. The thriller kept me guessing as to who was the killer and rooting for the heroines in this book.

Unfortunately I had to DNF. I wasn’t obsessed with the writing although the story was interesting I was just too bored to see where it went.

Character driven crime fiction is one of my faves. My husband credits my love of the genre with ruining his Netflix recommendations. Real Easy is a dark and twisted serial killer thriller that’s unputdownable, and I know so many of you who are going to love this one as well.

Published by Henry Holt and Co. on January 18, 2022

Way too many thrillers have taken strip clubs as their themes. Usually, they are written from a male perspective. Sometimes, the writing is voyeuristic. Sometimes, the strip clubs exist for atmosphere, as Bada Bing! did in The Sopranos. Often, the stories take as a given that the strippers are performing for crude men as the natural outcome of a harsh life that presents few options. They remind me of Howard Stern interviewing sex workers (“So did your father molest you?”). The stripper-with-a-rough-life-but-a-heart-of-gold is often the extent of character development in strip club thrillers, particularly when (as is usually true) the strippers are collateral or secondary characters. Real Easy departs from the norm by making dancers the central characters and by exploring their lives in realistic detail, avoiding cliches and stereotypes of victimization.

The strip club is apparently in a suburb of Chicago. The first central character is Samantha Lind (stage name Ruby), whose boyfriend Nick reminds her that she is “part boy” when he wants to be mean. She has a boyish body thanks to a misplaced chromosome, but her new breasts make her feel more like a woman. Samantha is the club’s top earner but she’s always willing to give advice to the other dancers when she sees them making stupid mistakes (like drinking with a customer at the bar when she could be selling him dances in the champagne room).

Samantha lives with Nick. She disappears after giving Kimberly (stage name Lady Jade) a ride home, although Kimberly’s body is soon discovered. The killer ran their car off the road, leaving Kimberly’s body in a field and apparently abducting Samantha.

Detective Holly Meylin and her partner Victor investigate Nick and the club regulars who recently had contact with Samantha or Kimberly. Embarrassingly, one of the regulars, Tony Rabideaux, is a cop. Tony seems to have an alibi, as does Dale, the club owner. The dancers regard Dale as strict but reasonably fair. He keeps his hands to himself and is protective of his strippers, provided they earn their keep.

The other central character is a racially mixed dancer named Georgia (stage name Gigi). Georgia wants the club owner to believe that she’s taking care of her sick mother, which was true until her mother died. Now she has a built-in excuse for tardiness or missing shifts. Georgia knows she needs to find a new gig because “you have to be something more than beautiful to make a life for yourself that won’t end in despair.” Echoing that thought, another dancer observes that “women are allowed to feel powerful for ten years, and then they turn thirty and men barely look at them again.”

Like all workplaces, alliances are formed, backs are bitten. Employees help or undermine each other according to their natures. While the dancers have varying degrees of damage in their lives, Marie Rutkoski makes clear that damage does not dictate a profession. Holly, whose husband accidentally left their child in an overheated car and caused his death, has more damage than any of the novel’s strippers.

Real Easy works on multiple levels. Rutkoski’s prose is vivid and graceful. The setting and atmosphere are remarkable. The characters are crafted with a blend of realism and compassion. The plot is almost secondary, given the novel’s other merits, but the whodunit is far from obvious. The solution doesn’t come from out of the blue — a reader who pays attention might guess the killer’s identity before the reveal — but the story is plausible. Tension builds effectively as the plot nears its climax. Real Easy is an excellent novel and the best I’ve read in the strip club subgenre of crime fiction.

RECOMMENDED

I found this writing to be very hard to relate to. I feel like there was too many characters and way too many points of use to keep track of anyone and frankly it made me not really care to get that invested with the characters. I did not find it descriptions to be very well done and I didn’t think that the characters were very developed. I did like the plot idea and the cover was beautiful I would probably read something else from the author but this one just was not for me.

Real Easy is very unique. Marie Rutkoski has created a closed society at the Lady. People come to work there as they transform themselves into others' fantasies with a stage, with a pole, lights, music, alcohol, and desires. Yet, evil lives within those many walls of the Lady. Somebody commits a horrendous murder! Enter the local law...Rutkoski does fantastic artistry in her character creations. She gives us all the many characters with their stage names along with their real names and lives with associated trials. Once not one but two characters disappear, one body is found at the brutal murder scene, but where's the other? Alive? Captive?
Great character development, twisted storyline, heckava mystery!
I highly recommend this outstanding, thrilling tale!

This is a story about what happens when you turn the lights on.

This book is hard for me to rate, because I didn’t enjoy this- but I think it accomplished it’s purpose. It was unnerving, suspenseful & original- all the things I want a thriller to be. On the other hand, the writing felt detached & the characters never felt alive to me. So? I think if you like thrillers and don’t need to feel connected to the characters you’ll likely enjoy this.

Thank you so much netgalley & Henry holt books for the eArc!

I think what has to be the coolest thing is that this book is based on the author's true experiences working as a dancer herself. This is a dark novel, but with that little detail in the back of my mind, this book is unreal. It's told from alternating perspectives which was okay (as you know by now, it's not my favorite thing in the world). The ending was jaw-dropping for me, which makes this book a win for me.

Real Easy is billed as a mystery but I found it to be so much more. I had trouble putting it down and felt connected to each of the characters. Marie Rutowski does such a good job of humanizing these characters in a profession that is often dehumanized by society and I was invested in all of their stories.

It's no secret that I am absolutely head-over-heels for Marie Rutkoski's prose. The way she constructs a sentence, writes a scene, explores her characters just DOES IT for me. But I struggle with her endings. I was unhappy with the way both The Winner's Trilogy and the Forgotten Gods duology ended, and I wasn't 100% satisfied with Real Easy's ending either.

I watched an interview with the author and was surprised at how much of this plot pulled from her real life experiences. It is so clever to take an event from your life and say "okay but what if it went badly??" and made for really good reading. The fact that this is a character-driven thriller was also so interesting for me and I immediately rooted for Samantha.

I've seen a few reviews mentioning that they were put off by the abundance of POVs here, but I think it was actually a great way to tell this story. We got a peek into so many different lives and how they are affected by what happened in this novel and saw just enough to get a different perspective on the plot each time.

All in all, a great first foray into adult books for this author! I'm always excited to see what's to come from this author.

I had a really hard time with the beginning of this book, but I'm so glad i pushed through! I ended up having to write out the characters names, as the dancers were both referred to by their dancer name and their real name. I had the same problem with the detectives who were both called by their first name or their last name. Once i figured out the characters, i really enjoyed the book.

Also--As someone who has zero experience at a strip club, i greatly enjoyed the Author interview at the end of the audiobook, as well. Don't miss it!

Real Easy was not exactly an easy read. The story contains dozens of different POVs, each hoping to provide a unique perspective on the mystery the story revolves around. A lot of these chapters feel unnecessary and they don’t really contribute anything to the story. An example of this is one chapter devoted to the POV of the random person who finds the dead body. This person is only around for the one chapter, then is never mentioned or part of the story again. Because of how frequently the perspective jumps around, I didn’t really care about any of the characters. Unfortunately this book is a pass for me.