Mystery Monday: Class Reunions Are Murder by Libby Klein

Class Reunions Are Murder (A Poppy McAllister Mystery #1) by Libby Klein
Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation on January 30th 2018
Pages: 304

Source: Purchased Physical Copy
Goodreads

For fortysomething Poppy McAllister, taking a stroll down memory lane in Cape May, New Jersey, isn’t just awkward—it’s deadly.

Newly widowed and stuck in a middle-aged funk, Poppy has been running on cookies, infomercials, and one-sided chats with her cat for months. There’s no way on earth she’s attending her twenty-five-year class reunion—especially after receiving a very bizarre letter from Barbie, the popular cheerleader who taunted her all through high school. At least, not until Poppy’s best friend practically drags her to the event . . .

Using the dreaded homecoming as an excuse to visit her eccentric Aunt Ginny, Poppy vows to leave Cape May with pride and Spanx intact. Too bad Barbie is still the queen of mean at the reunion. And worse, that her dead body is lying right in front of Poppy’s old locker. Singled out as the killer, it’s up to Poppy to confront her past and clear her name. But between protecting her aunt from disaster and tackling a gluten-free diet, can Poppy crack the case before she’s voted “Most Likely to Die” by the murderer?
Includes Seven Recipes from Poppy’s Kitchen!

Quick Thoughts:

This is the first cozy mystery I’ve ever read, and it started me on a cozy mystery binge.
I didn’t expect to cry in this book, but I teared up near the beginning. Poppy is in heavy mourning for recently passed husband when we meet her and her backstory is emotionally intense.
I loved the whole frame of Poppy returning home. The bully cheerleader is not the bully cop and Poppy finds most of the high school dynamics have shifted only slightly as her peers became adults.
I couldn’t always keep track of Poppy’s high school friends, but I loved her crazy Aunt Ginny and both love interests! For me, the love triangle was a super fun way to make me feel comfortable in a new genre.
I loved watching Poppy at forty try to define her life. She’d been stuck since college, and I think her journey is something most of us can relate to at any age. She starts a business and becoming more assertive about what she wants.
This book was pitched to me as body positive-fun quirky baker struggling with her weight, getting out of a murder rap, and pursuing romance after the death of her husband. In practice… nah. Poppy spends the whole book dieting, which would have been funny and relatable if she also hadn’t spent the entire book comparing herself with skinny friends and commenting how nobody would like her because she was fat. I realize that this is a common experience for those of us who are overweight, but it happened non-stop and I found it completely grating. On top of that, it is clear that Poppy is acceptable fat because she definitely makes jokes about someone bigger than her.
Mystery isn’t exactly a diverse genre to begin with, but FYI, the only black person in this book is a prostitute who Poppy meets in jail.