Book Review: Live, Laugh, Kidnap

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Live, Laugh, Kidnap by Gabby Noone is a young adult novel. While the concept seemed absolutely hilarious and even was recommended by a few of my favorite authors I felt the book was a little flat.

The only thing Genesis, Holly and Zoe seem to have in common is being stuck in Violet, Montana. Well, that and the fact that Hope Harvest Ministries is trying to ruin their lives.
 
Genesis lives on a commune that is now an echo of the New Age cult it once was. She’s witnessed power couple Pastor Jay and Ree Reaps transform their sleepy small town into a haven for online Influencers, who flock to Violet, Bible in one hand and Ree’s bestselling ACT LIKE A LADY, PRAY LIKE A BOSS in the other. Now, the Reaps have decided it’s God’s Will™ that they take over Gen’s ranch.
 
Holly is a begrudging tourist, forced to spend the summer with her estranged father as punishment for her unsavory behavior back in LA. To Holly, Hope Harvest is nothing but a gimmicky marketing ploy, but it’s threatening to put her father’s diner out of business and, for some reason, Holly cares.
 
All Zoe wants is to leave Violet, working thankless shifts at the diner to scrape together enough cash to start a new life with her girlfriend. But Zoe’s mother has lost everything to the church’s multilevel marketing schemes so the little money that Zoe manages to make goes right to debt collectors.
 
The only solution to their problems is to scam the scammers and protect what’s theirs. It shouldn’t take much – the Reaps’ golden son, an accidental kidnapping, some light blackmail – and the Reaps’ fortune will be in the girls’ much more deserving hands. As long as everything goes according to plan…

I was hoping this book would be a little more Righteous Gemstones than it was. While I have no issues with religion, I thought there would be less of it in the book and more funny scenes. Each character was distinct with their own personalities. Live, Laugh, Kidnap alternated between the three characters and I found myself dreading Genesis’ character and she started out the most interesting.

While I have read some wonderful Young Adult books in the past, I was over everyone by the end of the book and did not feel like any of the characters really grew throughout the book. The book was also slow. I almost stopped reading at thirty percent because that is normally my do not finish point but I continued reading waiting for the kidnap. The kidnap was not funny and was supposed to be the big plot of the book but it was lacking.

Overall, this was not my favorite book and it did not make me laugh out loud.