What’s Working:
The novel is fast-paced and written with dynamic tension. I turned pages wanting to know what happens next. For a thriller/mystery novel, Dugan has done a great job with making you feel like you’ve got it figured out and then throwing you for a quick loop. Both the main characters, Cherry and Sloan, are tightly-woven through their shared trauma (albeit in a toxic way…we’re getting there), and the cover art for the novel is FANTASTIC!
I also think Dugan did a solid job with the analysis of trauma and how it affects memory. Sloan’s gaps in the night of the massacre are what really drives her characterization — her need to know exactly what happened — and this gives her arc a mostly believable quality (again…we’re getting there). Her created therapist Beth (or hypnotist because it’s stated over and over she’s not a real doctor) uses hypnotism as a way to recover memories and process traumatic events. I know that’s an effective process for a lot of people.
What’s not working (for me):
Cherry and Sloan’s relationship! I’m not sure I can recall another novel with such a toxic, yet sappy and overdone, love interest. By chapter five I wanted to slap them both. Cherry is beyond controlling and dismissive of Sloan — fixes everything with a make out session (gag!). And Sloan spends most of the relationship wanting to be like Cherry…make everything safe like Cherry…fix the world like Cherry…basically crawl inside Cherry and live there. They were ridiculously co-dependent in the most unhealthy way. I get that they’ve graduated high school, but their relationship is harmful in every use of the word.
Cherry is a little sh*t with a mother that I think is supposed to come off as “hippie-dippie” in a casual, cheeky kind of way; however, she really reads as a failed parent. I understand that removing the “parent” in a YA novel is status quo, but the mother was just too much. Additionally, Cherry and her mother are THEIVES scamming people for money to which the author has Sloan deem “resilient.” I could not get past that. As an educator of young adults, authors I beg you to not undermine basic right from wrong. I know teens make questionable choices, but can we not have them doing fake Go-fund Me accounts to take advantage of others.
Sloan’s mother isn’t any better, but I do think she tries. She’s a dishrag that allows Cherry to completely occupy her daughter Sloan’s life despite the insistence on family time; and as we’ve already stated this is beyond toxic. The few times she attempts to “put her foot down,” it lasts for as long as Cherry is out of the picture.
In terms of plot, the twist was difficult to accept. It comes a bit out of left field and creates such a diversion in character that I literally had to re-read it to attempt to understand what I just read. And I’m still not sure. There was a lot of potential here, but the plot hovered a lot more on trauma recovery than thriller, which was a bit of a letdown for how it’s marketed.
The novel is fast-paced and written with dynamic tension. I turned pages wanting to know what happens next. For a thriller/mystery novel, Dugan has done a great job with making you feel like you’ve got it figured out and then throwing you for a quick loop. Both the main characters, Cherry and Sloan, are tightly-woven through their shared trauma (albeit in a toxic way…we’re getting there), and the cover art for the novel is FANTASTIC!
I also think Dugan did a solid job with the analysis of trauma and how it affects memory. Sloan’s gaps in the night of the massacre are what really drives her characterization — her need to know exactly what happened — and this gives her arc a mostly believable quality (again…we’re getting there). Her created therapist Beth (or hypnotist because it’s stated over and over she’s not a real doctor) uses hypnotism as a way to recover memories and process traumatic events. I know that’s an effective process for a lot of people.
What’s not working (for me):
Cherry and Sloan’s relationship! I’m not sure I can recall another novel with such a toxic, yet sappy and overdone, love interest. By chapter five I wanted to slap them both. Cherry is beyond controlling and dismissive of Sloan — fixes everything with a make out session (gag!). And Sloan spends most of the relationship wanting to be like Cherry…make everything safe like Cherry…fix the world like Cherry…basically crawl inside Cherry and live there. They were ridiculously co-dependent in the most unhealthy way. I get that they’ve graduated high school, but their relationship is harmful in every use of the word.
Cherry is a little sh*t with a mother that I think is supposed to come off as “hippie-dippie” in a casual, cheeky kind of way; however, she really reads as a failed parent. I understand that removing the “parent” in a YA novel is status quo, but the mother was just too much. Additionally, Cherry and her mother are THEIVES scamming people for money to which the author has Sloan deem “resilient.” I could not get past that. As an educator of young adults, authors I beg you to not undermine basic right from wrong. I know teens make questionable choices, but can we not have them doing fake Go-fund Me accounts to take advantage of others.
Sloan’s mother isn’t any better, but I do think she tries. She’s a dishrag that allows Cherry to completely occupy her daughter Sloan’s life despite the insistence on family time; and as we’ve already stated this is beyond toxic. The few times she attempts to “put her foot down,” it lasts for as long as Cherry is out of the picture.
In terms of plot, the twist was difficult to accept. It comes a bit out of left field and creates such a diversion in character that I literally had to re-read it to attempt to understand what I just read. And I’m still not sure. There was a lot of potential here, but the plot hovered a lot more on trauma recovery than thriller, which was a bit of a letdown for how it’s marketed.