Hello everyone!
I am back with another book review, today it is Hearts, Fingers, and Other Things to Cross by Katie Finn.
Once again, the story picks up right where the previous book left off, including a quick recap section for those who haven't marathoned (at least part of) the series. After a storm brings the boat back to shore, Gemma finds herself trapped in Bruce's home with her new future step-mother, her nemesis, two of her ex-boyfriends, the boy she's had a crush on for years and her father - in other words, quite the full house. As the storm reaches hurricane potential, Gemma and Hallie team up to right a few wrongs, and separate her father and his future bride.
I really liked the concept of this book, after two books of the girls running around scheming against each other, we have them trapped together and working together. It was a nice change of pace and really made this book feel different, almost a little more mature where they were planning something to benefit the both of them, not just one against the other. I will say, however, that even though I liked the different concept of this book, it felt a little less exciting. I was used to them running around, having time and resources to plot against one another, not little time and a different target. It was a little slow at times for me, and I almost feel like Finn was running out of plot by the end, especially because this book is so much shorter than the other two.
I liked where Finn went with the romance stuff, especially because everyone was in such close quarters, I was worried that things would turn into a love triangle situation, but, thankfully, Finn didn't drift into that territory too much. She also did a great job wrapping up all the loose ends from the cliffhangers of the previous books and explaining how some things happened.
I will say that at some points, I felt like these last two books were weirdly proportioned - I feel like this one was so short after book two being so long, but then I also feel like I didn't want this book to be 300+ pages. But they couldn't really have been merged into one or had more of book two in this one, so I'm not sure how things should have been done, this one just left me feeling like it was disproportionate.
The ending was well done, some things seemed a little too neat and tidy, but that may just be because I am used to such cliffhanger endings in the other two books that having this one have a clear resolution was strange. I also felt like the epilogue was kind of strange. It switches from Gemma to Hallie's POV and I just felt like it was unnecessary and a little jarring. We didn't really need to see what happened through her eyes, Gemma was there and could have easily told the last three pages.
Overall, a decent conclusion to the trilogy, but not my favourite of the series.