loved Jessa Maxwell's first novel The Golden Spoon - it was just pure entertainment and like book candy - like Agatha Christie's And Then They Were None mixed with The Great British Bake Off (which I then proceeded to binge after reading). It was just so much fun!

So I went into this one excited to see what she had in store for us next. This is another entertaining book - taking place in the newspaper publishing world. A popular columnist - think like a Dear Abby - is murdered and her new replacement starts thinking things may be a bit fishy at the office.

This was fast paced and fun - I didn't enjoy it as much as I did The Golden Spoon - and definitely worth reading. I did guess the twist quite a bit in advance, and the writing was just pretty good, but overall, I had a great time reading it and absolutely will read whatever Jessa Maxwell writes next.

4.5 rounded up. Alex is upset after her favorite advice columnist, Francis Keen, is murdered. She can’t believe they would try to replace Francis as Dear Constance less than a year after her death. Alex impulsively applies and to her surprise, is hired for the job. Alex hesitantly accepts, and her concerns are exacerbated when she begins receiving anonymous threats from someone who seems to know about her past. She also finds a potential threat to Francis in her old office, leading her to investigate Francis’ murder further. With new people in Alex’s life after being hired, it’s hard to know who she can trust, and who is dangerous.

This had me on the edge of my seat! I read 50% of it in one sitting, and probably would’ve done that for the whole book if time had permitted. I connected to the story right away, as someone who had a dream job growing up of being an advice columnist (one of many dreams). I appreciated how the murder of Francis and the threats to Alex worked together to create an exciting investigative story. Some things were obvious to me, but some were not. I definitely appreciate when a book can throw me or make me consider multiple suspects. I really sat back and enjoyed this ride!

I'm so disappointed as I really wanted to love this one. I thought the write up sounded interesting and I loved the book cover. Unfortunately Alex's adventure was lack luster and there were parts to the story (Raymond and his previous partners wife) that really didn't seem to add anything at all. In road to the end just seemed to wind on and was very anti-climatic.

Although it was fast-paced (hooray!) this novel was extremely predictable.

There were moderate amounts of intended suspense, but they weren't really suspenseful because it was so obvious where things were going.

The book reminds me of Freida McFadden's books, which could work for you if you're a fan of hers.

This follows her usual formula: a lonely, adrift woman without strong ties to her family, must find her inner courage and be strong because a big scary man is threatening her.

I thought it had the potential to be great, but it fell flat for me and was just ok.

Thank you to #netgalley for this ARC of #ineedyoutoreadthis

I was very excited for this murder mystery x literary fiction style of book, but I think my expectations fell flat. I thought this would be fast paced and exciting, like Only Murders in the Building meets Iman Hariri-Kia's A Hundred Other Girls. This book did exactly as the summary stated. There were no twists, or surprises. It was simply exactly what it promised. I rated this right in the middle, because to me, it was mediocre.

I really liked Jessa Maxwell’s first novel, The Golden Spoon, so I was happy to get my hands on her follow-up, I Need You to Read This. I am glad to report this was another fantastic read!

A mystery-suspense-thriller with a cast of interesting. quirky characters, this novel was a quick and satisfying read, leaving me eager for Jessa Maxwell’s next book.

Years ago Alex Marks escaped to New York City for a fresh start. Now, aside from trips to her regular diner for coffee, she keeps to herself, gets her perfectly normal copywriting job done, and doesn’t date. Her carefully cultivated world is upended when her childhood hero, Francis Keen, is brutally murdered. Francis was the woman behind the famous advice column, Dear Constance, and her words helped Alex through some of her darkest times.

When Alex sees an advertisement searching for her replacement, she impulsively applies, never expecting to actually get the job. Against all odds, Alex is given the position and quickly proves herself skilled at solving other people’s problems. But soon, she begins to receive strange, potentially threatening letters at the office. Francis’s murderer was never identified, turning everyone around her into a threat. Including her boss, editor-in-chief Howard Dimitri, who has a habit of staying late at the office and drinking too much.

As Alex is drawn into the details surrounding her predecessor’s murder, her own dark secrets begin to rise to the surface and Alex suddenly finds herself trapped in a dangerous and potentially deadly game of cat and mouse that takes her all the way from the power centers of Manhattan to Francis Keen’s summer house, where her body was found and where the killer may just be waiting for her.

I Need You To Read This by Jessa Maxwell was a standard thriller.

Premise: After the advice columnist Francis Keen was murdered, Alex, who has been a fan for years, applies to be her replacement. While working at the Herald newspaper, she starts investigating what happened to Francis and who could be involved, while dealing with secrets and a past of her own.

I liked the newspaper setting with the “Dear Constance” letters weaved in. Besides that, the plot was just okay. The twists were fairly predictable, the characters felt like cliches, and storylines were common to other thrillers. I kept reading to know exactly what happened to Francis and by the end, I enjoyed the quick read, but there was nothing unique or extra shocking to make the book memorable.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I need you to read this was good, but predictable. I left it thinking that it could have been so much better if every author didn't think they needed to have big twists and reveals. The reveal was obvious throughout and I felt that the characters could have had much better interactions and been more compelling if we weren't all pretending we didn't know what was going on. We could have really gotten to know them instead of waiting for the reveal.

In the beginning of Jessa Maxwell’s I Need You to Read This we are introduced to Francis Keen, long time writer of the Dear Constance column in the New York Herald newspaper, only to witness her last moments, as she is stabbed to death in her beach home.

Some months later the story picks up with Alex Marks, a seemingly shy woman with few friends who moved, some time ago, to the Big Apple to start life over again. She works from home writing promotional copy for a pharmaceutical firm. One morning she learns from one of the regulars at the diner where she usually has breakfast that the Herald is recruiting to replace Francis Keen as writer of the Dear Constance column. At home that evening, over a lonely bottle of wine, she impulsively goes online and completes the application for the job, which requires her to write a response to a sample letter to Dear Constance.

Despite the long odds, Alex gets the job. She was an avid reader of Dear Constance, so she finds it comes easy to her to find the right responses to letters - ones that Francis would have written - and she is, it turns out, a pretty perceptive individual able to read people quite quickly.

But she is troubled that what happened at the beach house is still a mystery that’s not been solved. No one has been charged with Francis’ murder. As she begins her new career at the Herald she learns more about Francis, the details of her life, and the people who were closest to her. She finds herself compelled to try to uncover who murdered Francis.

As Alex begins to gather clues, she starts to receive cryptic and threatening letters as details of her own past begin to emerge, a past that she’s been running away from since moving to New York. There is danger for Alex coming not just from her sleuthing into Francis’ murder but from her own secrets.

Jessa Maxwell has written a tight thriller/mystery that moves quickly and carries you along. I read the book in two sittings and found it entertaining and well done. Still, there were a few quibbles I had with the book.

One was that the scenes at the Herald all seemed off somehow. Some of that was purposefully done to add drama (and some red herrings) and keep you on your toes as a reader, and I respect most of that. What I found less than convincing at the Herald was the character of Alex’s boss, the editor. He’s of a type - a throwback to an older generation of newspeople who I don’t think you find in newsrooms these days. He seemed to me to be too much of a stock character.

The other quibble had to do with Alex’s back story and why she was running away and hiding from her past. I just felt that the difficulties she got into in that back story didn’t really fit with the Alex of the Herald - an instant success as an advice columnist due to her ability to size up people and to display an innate perceptiveness into human behavior. I don’t want to give too much away so I’ll just say that I found that disconnect to really detract from the believability of the book.

But, that’s probably too heavy an analysis for what is meant to be a fun summer thriller - and despite those quibbles of mine I did enjoy the book.

I loved this! I was not expecting my a book set in a newspaper office to be so compelling and suspenseful, but Maxwell has done an excellent job here. This is a great suspense/mystery if you don’t want to go too dark, but still like surprising twists and turns.

From start to finish, I thoroughly enjoyed this mystery suspense thriller. I found the plot, the setting, and past letters to Dear Constance, an advice column in the newspaper interesting enough that I wanted to know how it all ended. While it was predictable, it didn't take away from my enjoyment of seeing how it all unraveled. I will note that the characters were all one dimensional, but I enjoyed the parts where it came together for our FMC that added some depth to the story.

I Need You To Read This is the second book by Jessa Maxwell and it's just as good! | loved The Golden Spoon, so when I saw she released this book I was so excited to read it!
I Need You to Read This is a quick, twisty thriller. I felt instantly connected to the main character, Alex. If you haven't read either of Jessa Maxwell's books yet, this is your sign to pick on up! I Need You To Read This was just released this month and you don't want to miss it!

this page turner is a must read! Alex has a past she wants to keep hidden. She gets a new job that the former holder was murdered. she becomes ensnared into trying to find who committed the murder. Lots of twists and turns, mayhem and unpredictable outcomes! I loved this book so much!

Not my favorite. I’m used to a thriller main character making stupid decisions but this girl was a new level of dumb-dumb. I knew where this book was going pretty early on and so it just felt like a slow march to an ending I wasn’t going to like. Interesting concept for a thriller, not well executed.

TW: Domestic Violence

I was interested in this book after Jessa Maxwell's cozy murder mystery: The Golden Spoon (picture if British Bake Off had murdered someone!). I definitely think this is a fun thriller that will keep you guessing until the end but that being said, the book's plot wasn't particularly strong. It felt like some of the characters were obvious red harrings from the beginning and I wish the side characters were slightly more fleshed out. But the story of a advice columnist being murdered and her replacement running from a dark past was very intriguing premise.

This was a solid mystery, with some decent twists and turns, but overall this one felt a little slow for me. I felt like I was able to guess everything pretty quickly (or at least who was not to be trusted) and I was frustrated that the main character took longer to catch on, so the plot dragged a bit. However, I did love the NYC newspaper setting, and the found family that supported Alex, and loved the message about starting fresh.

This one is a slow burn to start with, but it definitely cranks up to thriller status! Alex has been hired as a replacement for Frances, a beloved advice columnist who was murdered at her beach house. The entire book swirls around Who Murdered Frances? And What Happened that Caused Alex to Leave Her Hometown?

I really enjoyed this one a lot more than The Golden Spoon. The characters are 3-dimensional, and the author nicely keeps a plot twist hidden until close to the end. The two suspenseful issues are also not fully revealed before the climax.

I look forward to the next one from this author!

Four lovely stars!

When the writer of the popular advice column Dear Constance is murdered, Alex decides on a whim to apply for the job. She never expected to actually get the job. On her first day, she is immediately overwhelmed with letters and soon discovers office secrets. I suggest going in knowing nothing more than that.

I Need You to Read This by Jesse Maxwell had so much potential. Normally I love books that immediately start with a murder. But in this case, the opening chapter was the most interesting thing to happen in the book until 76% of the way through.

The story was extremely predictable. When I read a thriller, I want to be shocked. I want my jaw to literally drop. There was absolutely zero of that happening with this book. I figured out all except one twist. And it just wasn’t enough to redeem the book for me.

Overall I rate the book 3 stars. It sort of fell flat for me and we just ok. Thank you to NetGalley and Atria books for the gifted eARC.

Alex Marks was hoping to get a fresh start in New York. She has a troubled past that no one knows about. She mostly keeps to herself besides 2 friends she's made at a diner near her. She has a WFH copywriting job, but once she finds out that her childhood hero, Francis Keen has died, she applies for her job as an advice columnist.

She gets the job, but feels uneasy because Francis' killer has never been found. Her boss, Howard Dimitri, makes her uneasy.

She is finally starting to make decent money and starts dating a new guy, Tom.

But her past finally catches up to her. I previously read the authors other book, The Golden Spoon and knew I would enjoy this one. She really made you feel for Alex, and she was a reliable narrator.

3.5 Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I enjoyed this book, which was an engaging but not particularly memorable psychological thriller. Like others in the genre, it requires the suspension of disbelief.