3.5 Stars
After reading great praise for Lisa Jewell's books, and while having never read one myself, I was very excited to get my hands on this one.
The story opens, like so many other thrillers, with a murder scene and what follows is everything leading up to that scene. Again, a tired premise for this genre but what's a reader to do? Next, we are introduced to a plethora of characters, and while I'm all for complicated plots with a lot of players, I found myself confused more often than not. It took me well over half of the book to be able to start a chapter without thinking ..."hhhmmmmm...which one is this again?". For me, the characters lacked their own unique voice which is necessary to pull off this type of storyline.
Now for the good stuff! I very much enjoyed the plot, I love how all of these characters in the neighborhood are linked together with invisible, twisty, tied-in-a-knot silly string. It's a slow build with just the exact amount of mystery to keep you turning the pages. I only had one "omg what is happening?" moment around the 85% mark and was never, at any time, sure of what was actually going on until it was revealed.
Oh but alas... the author chose to end things with a futile and hurried attempt at wrapping up the story with an epilogue that went and ruined it for me.
Overall it was a quick read with an intriguing plot, despite the slow crawling pace. Would I read another book by this author? Heck yeah I would.
I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
After reading great praise for Lisa Jewell's books, and while having never read one myself, I was very excited to get my hands on this one.
The story opens, like so many other thrillers, with a murder scene and what follows is everything leading up to that scene. Again, a tired premise for this genre but what's a reader to do? Next, we are introduced to a plethora of characters, and while I'm all for complicated plots with a lot of players, I found myself confused more often than not. It took me well over half of the book to be able to start a chapter without thinking ..."hhhmmmmm...which one is this again?". For me, the characters lacked their own unique voice which is necessary to pull off this type of storyline.
Now for the good stuff! I very much enjoyed the plot, I love how all of these characters in the neighborhood are linked together with invisible, twisty, tied-in-a-knot silly string. It's a slow build with just the exact amount of mystery to keep you turning the pages. I only had one "omg what is happening?" moment around the 85% mark and was never, at any time, sure of what was actually going on until it was revealed.
Oh but alas... the author chose to end things with a futile and hurried attempt at wrapping up the story with an epilogue that went and ruined it for me.
Overall it was a quick read with an intriguing plot, despite the slow crawling pace. Would I read another book by this author? Heck yeah I would.
I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.