I was so excited to get an advance copy of Saint X. I had a love hate relationship with this debut author Alexis Schaitkin. First, I would not market this book as a thriller. It really is a character study and a mystery. I enjoyed the first section. We meet Alison who is killed on Saint X by somebody while the family is vacationing there. I felt I was on the island with her and her family. The descriptions of the island and the characters were amazing. After Alison’s parents return home with their other daughter, Claire, who is eight, the book then jumps around with little sections about people who are on the island and we move forward about twenty years to Claire, now Emily, who lives in New York and she is trying to make sense of what happened to Alison. She explores Alison’s past through Alison’s audio recorded diary. She runs into Gogo, now Clive, who is a taxi driver, in a chance encounter. Just a little too phony. I think the author really has a rough draft and needed a good editor to tighten up the story and take out many pages. I would give this author a second chance with another book to see how her writing matures. So for me, I loved parts of the book and became bored in other parts. Thank you Bookish First and Celadon Books for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.