The Collected Regrets of Clover

I read this a couple of years ago and remember loving it, but after rereading it for book club, I was much less impressed. It’s a good example of how much my book ratings can depend on things like my life stage and my mood at the time of reading.

I still appreciated the book’s perspective on death, but I did not remember the story feeling quite so Hallmark-y, or the characters feeling so silly. The writing also felt repetitive and over-explanatory. The author rarely missed an opportunity to tell us explicitly how lonely Clover was rather than just letting us figure it out through context.

Clover’s character did not make sense to me. She has had these seemingly incredible life experiences, traveling internationally on her own and learning from people at the end of their lives, yet in other situations she acts like she has barely ever interacted with another human being. I also found it hard to believe that nearly everyone she had ever met viewed her job as weird rather than interesting. Her stalking was creepy, Sebastian did not feel like a believable character, and the insta-love near the end was lame.

I would probably normally give a book with this kind of review less than three stars, but I really do remember loving it the first time.

Book author: Mikki Brammer