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Book Review: Jaws by Peter Benchley
Get ready for shark week with this 1970s classic!
Summary:
A great white shark starts terrorizing a coastal town just as the money-making summer season begins. The classic, blockbuster thriller of man-eating terror that inspired the Steven Spielberg movie and made millions of beachgoers afraid to go into the water. Experience the thrill of helpless horror again—or for the first time!
Review:
As a New England girl born and raised, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched Jaws the movie. Everything about it is just so *chef’s kiss* perfectly small New England beach town. (The movie is set on Long Island, New York, but was filmed on Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, and, let me tell you, everything about it reads New England to me.) Plus, my cat absolutely adores watching Jaws. She’s obsessed with that shark. With summer rolling around once again, I decided it was high time I read the book. The book is almost always better than the movie, right? Well, in this case, that almost really comes into play. (Spoilers ahead for both the movie and the book. If you haven’t seen this classic yet, please go watch it then come back to the book review.)
The book starts off strong with a close omniscient perspective of the shark getting ready to eat the drunk lady swimming in the ocean. The book could easily sway into anthropomorphizing territory, imagining the viciousness of the shark. But it consistently describes a creature whose instinct is to feed. What, exactly, made it come in to Amity and stick around is a mystery that is never solved. This first scene is one of the strongest in the book. But I have to admit I was hearing the absolutely classic movie soundtrack in my head while I was reading it, and we all know how essential that is at building suspense. So I’m not sure it’s safe to say I felt engaged purely because of the book.
But it didn’t take too long for the book to showcase itself as…worse than the movie. When we meet Sheriff Brody, he mentions a problem they had the previous summer where a Black gardener sexually assaulted six white women, none of whom would press charges. The only point of this from a narrative perspective is to demonstrate how the police department will keep things under wraps in order to protect the summer season. But it’s a hatefully racist way to establish this, narratively. Even if I charitably imagine that this is supposed to be pointing out the racial divide in Amity that is later even clearer in the book, there are better ways to do that than to play into this horribly racist myth of the serial Black assaulter of white women.
There are two other plot points in the book that weren’t in the movie at all. First, there’s that Brody’s wife cheats on him with Hooper because she feels some weird Feminine Mystique style ennui about her life as a housewife at a lower social class than she was before she got married. (We only see the sex in flashbacks she has about it and how strange and scary Hooper was). There is a large scene where she has lunch with Hooper first and talks about her sexual fantasies. Kind of slows down the pace of the suspense from the shark attacks.
The other additional plot point is that the mayor of the town is mixed up with the mafia because he had to take out a loan from a loan shark (har har) to pay his wife’s cancer treatment medical bills. (What on earth do other countries with nationalized health care do to justify characters taking out unwise loans? This is such a common plot device…but I digress.) The mafia wants the beaches to be kept open. This is a big motivator for why the mayor keeps insisting on it. But I don’t think this motivator is necessary. The economic pressure and need of a tourist town to keep their main tourist attraction open is more than enough motivation. Anyone who has any familiarity with a town that depends on seasonal tourism gets that. Spielberg was right to cut this from the movie. This also brings about a scene I found much more disturbing than any shark attack, which is that the mafia kills Brody’s son’s cat in front of his son, and then Brody takes the dead cat and throws it in the mayor’s face.
The final act where Quint, the old-time fisherman, takes Brody and Hooper out on his boat to hunt the shark is overall pretty good. There’s some nice tension between the three of them, and Quint really has to eat his words about the shark not being intelligent. It does not end with the 70s style bang of the movie. But I kind of liked the simplicity of the ending, leaving Brody to swim to shore and deal with the aftermath on his own without any reader audience.
I’ve seen some lists of the differences between the book and the movie with mistakes and inaccuracies on them, so I do want to clear up a couple of things. Brody is afraid of the water in the book. This is well-established; I’m not sure how people missed that. Mrs. Kintner does slap Brody in the book when she confronts him about the shark killing her son.
The version of the book I read also had an introduction by the author where we find out that he was, basically, a “summer person” himself – from a wealthy family and a legacy graduate of Harvard (his father also went to Harvard). His father was a novelist, and because of that connection, Benchley got an agent before he even had a book written. By Benchley’s own recollection, he sold the idea for Jaws and then they told him he needed to write the book, and the screenplay was sold before the book was even written. He took a first shot at the script, and Spielberg told him to throw out a lot of the stuff that I mentioned in my review as things I didn’t like. Moral of the story being privileged dude sold an admittedly solid idea based on the idea alone to someone else who directed it into it being a classic.
Overall, it was interesting to read the book behind the movie, but I also now have the perfect answer for the next time someone asks me, “When is the movie ever better than the book?”
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3 out of 5 stars
Length: 320 pages – average but on the longer side
Source: Library
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Book Review: Zero Days by Ruth Ware
A new widow puts her professional penetration testing skills to work to discover who really killed her husband when she realizes she’s being framed for the crime.
Summary:
Hired by companies to break into buildings and hack security systems, Jack and her husband, Gabe, are the best penetration specialists in the business. But after a routine assignment goes horribly wrong, Jack arrives home to find her husband dead. To add to her horror, the police are closing in on their suspect—her.
Suddenly on the run and quickly running out of options, Jack must decide who she can trust as she circles closer to the real killer in this unputdownable and heart-pounding mystery.
Review:
Ruth Ware, often called the modern day Agatha Christie, drops a new thriller just in time for summer. This one features the fascinating world of penetration testers. What is a penetration tester, you ask? Someone companies hire to test their security. You may have heard of an “ethical hacker.” This is the same thing. Although, in the case of the book, the testing of security systems includes their physical systems. The title even alludes to a cybersecurity thing.
Jack, a talented reformed pickpocket, does the physical security testing, and Gabe, her husband, does the ethical hacking. The book opens with them working on a job, which provides delightful action sequences before the inciting incident of his murder. When she comes home and finds him dead, she gets sucked into a wave of grief that makes her oblivious to the warning signs she’s being framed. These are clear to the reader, and to her sister as well, which was a nice touch. Soon, Jack is on the run, with the dual goal of clearing her name and identifying her husband’s killer to bring him/them to justice.
The pacing of this thriller is solid. I was engrossed and wanted to find out what happened. Making Jack a penetration tester gives valid reasons for her skills at evading the police while also investigating the murder. She’s also easy to like and root for. The scenes of her evading the pervasive panopticon in London reminded me of a favorite book of mine, The Traveler (review). Those were among my favorite.
Two plot choices annoyed me. They’re spoilers, so consider yourself warned.
Gabe’s best friend kissing Jack felt out of character for both of them. I think it was supposed to be a clue to the reader not to trust him, but I already didn’t trust him. It was obvious from Jack saying that her sister didn’t use emojis like that on the phone that he set up for the two of them that this meant it was him on the phone. It was unnecessary and made it difficult for me to get over and like Jack again. I know sometimes grieving widows reach out in this way, and it’s not my place to judge, but it felt like a plot device more than a character choice. The other thing I disliked was that Jack is surprise pregnant at the end. Jack was suicidally depressed before she found out she was pregnant as she felt totally alone without her husband. (Even though her sister was very much involved the whole time, even getting arrested to help her.) In any case, the pregnancy being what it takes to snap Jack out of depression because now she has someone to live for really rubbed me the wrong way. Why couldn’t Jack have figured out that she should live and live well because that’s what we’re meant to do to the best of our abilities? Also, children don’t replace the spouse who passed away. That person is still gone. I get it that people feel like a legacy lives on in children, but to just snap out of suicidally depressed grief over a pregnancy doesn’t mean she properly processed her grief in any way, shape, or form. She’s now just living for the child in the way that she, apparently, was just living for Gabe before.
Overall, this is a fun, quick thriller perfect for a summer read.
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4 out of 5 stars
Length: 368 pages – average but on the longer side
Source: NetGalley
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Book Review: Killing Me by Michelle Gagnon
A laugh out loud thriller about women out-smarting a serial killer.
Summary:
Amber Jamison cannot believe she’s about to become the latest victim of a serial killer-she’s savvy and street smart, so when she gets pushed into, of all things, a white windowless van, she’s more angry than afraid. Things get even weirder when she’s miraculously saved by a mysterious woman…who promptly disappears. Who was she? And why is she hunting serial killers?
Review:
When I saw this on NetGalley, I was intrigued by the Final Girls-esque vibe – the women who would be the killer’s victims turning on him. I was skeptical I would find it humorous because, honestly, my funny bone is a little particular. But I actually found myself chortling on page one.
If you’re the type of person with an internal dialogue of self-deprecating humor about bizarre situations you find yourself in, then you’ll probably enjoy the sense of humor in this book. Regardless, you’ll be able to tell quickly if it’s for you or not, because the humor comes so quickly in the book, and that style is what’s present throughout the rest.
This is primarily told in the first person from Amber’s perspective, and she’s dry, acerbic, self-deprecating, but also whip-smart. (There are a few third person chapters that let us see things Amber doesn’t know about.) Amber is simultaneously problematic (she’s a con artist) and easy to root for. She’s richly three-dimensional. The main secondary characters are also rich and well-imagined. It would have been so easy to see a caricature of a sex worker, seedy motel owner, an Evangelical roommate, etc… yet they all are allowed to be more than what they might seem to be at first.
The Las Vegas setting rang very true to me. It depicted both the tourist bits and the seedier local areas quite well. I especially loved the run-down yet beloved film noir stylized motel as compared to the one recently made over to appeal to Gen Z and Millennials. That had me chortling.
I also really appreciated that this is a book whose main character is a lesbian but the plot has absolutely nothing to do with her being a lesbian. You could have almost the exact same book with a heterosexual main character. It’s just Amber so happens to like women. I like having this type of representation. It doesn’t always have to be about the difficulties of coming out or a romance to feature queer people.
The mystery itself was decent. The plot was certainly unique compared to other thrillers I’ve read, and I did not guess the ending. There was one twist that annoyed me only because it was solely a twist because Amber held something back from the reader. But I was willing to forgive it because she sort of breaks the fourth wall and acknowledges that she did it…which was funny.
I hope there’s a sequel, because I think there’s a lot left to explore with Amber, and she has a very interesting set-up at the end of the book.
Overall, I really recommend this to thriller lovers looking for something different. The humor and the plot really deliver.
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4 out of 5 stars
Length: 336 pages – average but on the longer side
Source: NetGalley
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Book Review: Daisy Darker by Alice Feeney
When Daisy and her family go to her grandmother’s island home for her 80th birthday, they’re surprised when the family members start dropping dead, one an hour. Who has it in for the Darker family?
Summary:
After years of avoiding each other, Daisy Darker’s entire family is assembling for Nana’s 80th birthday party in Nana’s crumbling gothic house on a tiny tidal island. Finally back together one last time, when the tide comes in, they will be cut off from the rest of the world for eight hours.
The family arrives, each of them harboring secrets. Then at the stroke of midnight, as a storm rages, Nana is found dead. And an hour later, the next family member follows…
Trapped on an island where someone is killing them one by one, the Darkers must reckon with their present mystery as well as their past secrets, before the tide comes in and all is revealed.
Review:
*This review is going to contain many spoilers for the twists in Daisy Darker. If you do not wish to be spoiled, please click away!*
This book is a send-up to the Agatha Christie classic And Then There Were None without the ties to the hideously racist children’s counting rhyme and minstrel song (note that link reveals the original racist language used in Agatha Christie’s). The similarities are clear: people are invited to an island where they then start dying off one by one. But if you are familiar with that book then one of the big plot twists in this one will not be a plot twist to you – the majority of the people invited to this island are responsible either for murder or for covering it up. Rather than using a pre-existing nursery rhyme, this book uses a brand-new poem written in the style of a nursery rhyme to predict the deaths of the characters. Another similarity includes the use of a red herring to deflect suspicion from the real person (or in this case, people) orchestrating the deaths. A big difference here, though, is that this a family drama. It’s not seemingly disconnected strangers. They are a family with…problems.
This is what I thought the twist was going to be: it was Conor’s dad who had faked his own death previously to get away from the Darker family. So I really wasn’t expecting the simultaneous reveal of Trixie holding the smoking gun while telling Aunt Daisy that she’s a ghost. I felt like I’d been Sixth Sensed all over again. Then the backstory of how Daisy was killed is revealed, and I realized…this book is And Then There Were None crossed with The Sixth Sense crossed with I Know What You Did Last Summer.
I’ve been wrestling with why I felt, as I said in my immediate quick GoodReads review, bamboozled by this book. I went back and checked a few key scenes to make sure it was possible for Daisy to have been a ghostly presence. For example: the reading of the will. But she inherited something! I thought. No, Nana just mentioned donating to some of Daisy’s favorite charities. So, in all the scenes I thought of, it was possible for Daisy to be a ghost. This was well done narratively. So why did I feel so bamboozled? I think for me it came down to this: this is told in the first-person from Daisy’s perspective, and it all hangs on her not remembering she’s a ghost. (This is a lot like The Sixth Sense). We’re supposed to believe she doesn’t remember she’s a ghost because the level of trauma from how she died is too hard to bare so she blocks it out, and she’s always been isolated so it’s not strange to her that people don’t talk to her or notice her. Ok, fine, but where does she live? She thinks she’s an adult who pops over to take care of Trixie routinely when she’s not volunteering in an elder care facility. Where is she when she’s not with Trixie? Does she just drop off the face of the planet? Wouldn’t she realize she never goes home? That she has nowhere to call home whatsoever?
The other thing is that the character of Conor I feel acts incredibly out of character for who he’s been presented to be the night of the I Know What You Did Last Summer incident. He has been shown to be a kind boy who is madly in love with Rose. But he sleeps with Lily then convinces everyone to throw Daisy into the ocean to save his future. Whereas Rose going along with what everyone else suggested without protesting too much and Lily being fine with it made sense to me because they both bullied their little sister, Conor being the instigator did not. For me, I needed more evidence of the fact he would be capable of such a thing from the very many home movies the crew watched over the course of the night. He was in them, but there was no sign of this selfish, mean, self-preservation streak whatsoever. In fact, the only time he sort of lied was when he didn’t want to admit to Nancy that he got beat up at school because he got into a fistfight trying to defend Lily’s honor. (This also further demonstrates how strange it is that he slept with Lily that same night.)
My other issue is that I get the vibe we’re supposed to like Nana, but I don’t. In fact, I think she has far more culpability than the narrative wants us to feel. She’s the matriarch of this atrocious family. She absolutely favored one of the Darker girls over the others. I think we’re supposed to think that’s fair and justified since Nancy favored Rose and Lily over Daisy but that’s not how it works. Two wrongs don’t make a right. Favoring one child over others creates a hateful environment for them all. The bullying of Daisy from Rose and Lily, and Daisy’s secret attacks back at them could have been worked on if any one adult stepped in and tried to do so. Nana knew what was going on and didn’t do anything about it. She just allowed Daisy to get her revenge. I do get it that part of the point of the book is this is a terrible family but I also think we’re supposed to see Nana in a positive light. But the terribleness must have started somewhere. Similarly, even though I felt sympathy for Daisy in flashbacks, in the moment (when I thought she was a grown-up and not a ghost), she seemed overwrought, dramatic, and annoyed me. I’m also confused about what she thinks she did wrong to Conor that warrants her needing to apologize.
Overall, I found this book to be a good thriller. I think it could have moved into great thriller territory with characters acting more within character (or better explained out of character behavior) and a ghost who knows she’s a ghost. In all honesty, I could have really gotten behind a story where Daisy shows up on Halloween night when the space between worlds is thin and watches as her family starts to drop dead while discovering her niece can speak to her. I don’t think the extra twist of finding out she’s a ghost was actually necessary.
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3 out of 5 stars
Length: 352 pages – average but on the longer side
Source: Library
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Book Review: The Golden Couple by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen
Avery may have lost her professional therapist license, but her career is much better as a consultant who isn’t held to any of the pesky rules like “don’t tell a client what to do” and “don’t spy on clients.” At least until a couple going through what seems to be a classic case of infidelity walks through her door…
Summary:
Wealthy Washington suburbanites Marissa and Matthew Bishop seem to have it all—until Marissa is unfaithful. She wants to repair things for the sake of their eight-year-old son and because she loves her husband. Enter Avery Chambers.
Avery is a therapist who lost her professional license. Still, it doesn’t stop her from counseling those in crisis, though they have to adhere to her 10 sessions full of unorthodox methods. And the Bishops are desperate.
When they glide through Avery’s door and Marissa reveals her infidelity, all three are set on a collision course. Because the biggest secrets in the room are still hidden, and it’s no longer simply a marriage that’s in danger.
Review:
I was on the waitlist for the digital copy of this forever at the library but then I stumbled upon it on the physical “Lucky Day” shelf. At my library, a few limited copies of popular books become “Lucky Day” books, They can’t be put on hold, and they only check out for two weeks. The theory is you “get lucky” by coming across them on the “Lucky Day” shelf. This just tells you how popular a Hendricks/Pekkanen thriller is.
I didn’t read the summary before reading the book. I’m such a fan, I knew I wanted to read it regardless of what it was about. Personally, I’m usually not about a book that shows much empathy at all for infidelity. Although it certainly is an expected trope in thrillers, I personally am less ok with it when presented as something to overcome together in a marriage.. While I’m still not on Marissa’s side – I feel like this is a case of two terrible people with a sweet kid – I loved Avery. She held the book together for me.
The story is told in chapters alternating between Avery and Marissa. Interestingly, Avery is first person point of view, and Marissa is third person. This helped because Marissa isn’t super likeable so the distance was good. It also helped keep some secrets hidden. There’s also a fun subplot involving someone coming after Avery for doing an honorable thing. So while some readers might feel she overstepped with her clients in the situation that led to her losing her license, she’s redeemed by this other subplot.
There are just enough twists. I had my suspicions about just what the something extra going on with the married couple was, but I didn’t figure out the final twist until just before it happened. So there were enough clues but also sufficient red herrings to make it enjoyable.
While this wasn’t my favorite Hendricks/Pekkanen read (that honor goes to The Wife Between Us, review, which I found to be incredibly imaginative), it was still a fun thriller that I was motivated to get to the end of. Other readers more able to relate to Marissa might find it more immersive than I did.
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4 out of 5 stars
Length: 329 pages – average but on the longer side
Source: Library
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Book Review: The It Girl by Ruth Ware
Summary:
April Clarke-Cliveden was the first person Hannah Jones met at Oxford.
Vivacious, bright, occasionally vicious, and the ultimate It girl, she quickly pulled Hannah into her dazzling orbit. Together, they developed a group of devoted and inseparable friends—Will, Hugh, Ryan, and Emily—during their first term. By the end of the second, April was dead.
Now, a decade later, Hannah and Will are expecting their first child, and the man convicted of killing April, former Oxford porter John Neville, has died in prison. Relieved to have finally put the past behind her, Hannah’s world is rocked when a young journalist comes knocking and presents new evidence that Neville may have been innocent. As Hannah reconnects with old friends and delves deeper into the mystery of April’s death, she realizes that the friends she thought she knew all have something to hide…
Review:
I’ve read about half of Ruth Ware’s books and enjoyed them all, so I was excited and surprised when the publisher approved me for a review copy of her newest book on NetGalley. Most of her other books I’ve read part of the thrill is the characters’ tie to a place – like a ski chalet or weekend hen do rental. This one, though, the thrills come from everyone’s tie to an event that happened a decade ago – the death of April Clarke-Cliveden.
To me, the most important part of a thriller is that at least one of the twists (preferably the last one) both surprises me but also strikes me as fair. In other words, that it’s not only a twist because the writer withheld something from the reader that other characters we closely follow know. The twist must also not have been immediately possible for the main character to figure out. This book definitely ticks that criterion. Although, I thought I’d guessed the twist about 18% of the way into the book, I was definitely wrong. I hadn’t guessed the twist even moments before it happened. And I didn’t feel cheated because the twist did make sense. So if a surprising twist that makes sense if what you’re after, this read is for you.
Now, I will say, I nearly wore my eyes out rolling them at the main character Hannah. She just struck me as quite emotionally/psychologically weak and easily influenced. I don’t need to love a main character to enjoy a read, though, so I wasn’t bothered. Something about Hannah that some readers may enjoy, partially because it’s unusual in a thriller, is that she’s about six months pregnant for the meat of the story. I’ve never been pregnant myself, so I can’t say how necessarily realistic the portrayal is, but it did make for some different and interesting scenes.
The only thing that does bother me, which is why this is four stars, is I just do not understand why Hannah ever considered April her “best friend” or why she’s still so enamored with her years later. From the first moment we meet her when Hannah does on move-in day at Oxford, I was like…man this girl is the WORST. Did I know people like her in college? Sure. Did I befriend them? No. Am I aware of someone who had a roommate like her? Yes. Did she befriend her? No, they just hung out in separate groups and lived their separate lives. But I will say, Hannah is characterized as weak and easily swayed, so, in a way, it makes sense she’s friends with her. But I never felt sympathy for Hannah about any of it.
Overall, this was a fun thriller. For me it took a little bit to pick up speed, but once it did, I was definitely motivated to find out the final twist.
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4 out of 5 stars
Length: 432 pages – average but on the longer side
Source: NetGalley
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Book Review: The House Across the Lake by Riley Sager
Summary:
Casey Fletcher, a recently widowed actress trying to escape a streak of bad press, has retreated to the peace and quiet of her family’s lake house in Vermont. Armed with a pair of binoculars and several bottles of liquor, she passes the time watching Tom and Katherine Royce, the glamorous couple who live in the house across the lake. They make for good viewing—a tech innovator, Tom is rich; and a former model, Katherine is gorgeous.
One day on the lake, Casey saves Katherine from drowning, and the two strike up a budding friendship. But the more they get to know each other—and the longer Casey watches—it becomes clear that Katherine and Tom’s marriage is not as perfect and placid as it appears. When Katherine suddenly vanishes, Casey becomes consumed with finding out what happened to her. In the process, she uncovers eerie, darker truths that turn a tale of voyeurism and suspicion into a story of guilt, obsession and how looks can be very deceiving.
Review:
I have read every single Riley Sager book almost as soon as I could get my hands on them. I find them all enjoyable, although I enjoy some more than others. I particularly appreciate their twists on common horror movie tropes. So I was excited to have a new one available for my summer thriller season.
Unlike the other books, I’m not sure what horror movie trope this is playing with. (Is it playing with one at all?) Nothing stuck out to me, but it’s also not like I’ve watched every single horror movie on the planet. At the beginning of the book, that dialed down my enjoyment a bit, because in general I find Sager’s fictional commentary on these tropes to be snappy and witty. I missed it. What made up for it a bit to me was the setting at a lake in Vermont. I grew up in Vermont, and I really enjoyed the whole a bunch of too wealthy for their own good New Yorkers come to their vacation homes and cause trouble plot while the local Eli sighs heavily and tries to make sure no one drowns in the lake. Again.
That said, the beginning dragged a little bit for me. Setting up Casey’s backstory felt like it could’ve been a bit tighter, partially because it’s not the first alcoholic lonely woman main character in a thriller I’ve read, so I didn’t need it super spelled out. Maybe someone else would. I’m glad I persevered though because WOW did I not see those twists coming. That’s right. I said twists.
I found the ending satisfying. I appreciated how alcoholism was handled, although I will say, I didn’t find its handling particularly mind-blowing or moving. I’d say it was accurate but not earth-moving to me.
I would definitely recommend reading this because I found the twists unique and genuinely surprising and yet I was kicking myself for not figuring it out sooner. I feel like there were enough clues there that I could have figured it out. I just didn’t. And if you know what horror trope this is playing with, let me know in the comments!
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4 out of 5 stars
Length: 368 pages – average but on the longer side
Source: library
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Book Review: I’ll Be You by Janelle Brown
Summary:
Two identical twin sisters and former child actors have grown apart—until one disappears, and the other is forced to confront the secrets they’ve kept from each other.
Review:
I previously read Janelle Brown’s Pretty Things and really enjoyed its delightful thriller take on Instagram influencers. I was excited to see another of her books on NetGalley and even more excited to see it using a child star identical twins plot. I smashed that request button, let me tell you, and this did not disappoint. In fact, between the two sisters, it covered two of my other favorite plots – a person with addiction in recovery and a person falling for a cult.
Imagine if the Olsen twins were identical (they’re not) and had a falling out right after they stopped acting. That’s the basic set-up of this book. Sam continues to try to act and also continues to fall into a hole of addiction. Elli pursues a regular life, going to college, setting up a florist business, and marrying. We find this all out in flashbacks, as the book starts with a bang with Sam, who we quickly find out is just past a year in recovery, getting a phone call from her parents to come help take care of her niece. Elli brought her newly adopted toddler daughter to them to go on a quick spa retreat in Ojai, but is gone longer than expected. Sam is shocked by all of this because she and Elli haven’t spoken in over a year for ominous reasons we don’t know yet.
I loved this book. I was immediately enamored with Sam. What a tough situation to get plopped in your lap just over a year into recovery. She suspects something is amiss with Ellie, but Ellie has always been the stable one and Sam the untrustworthy addict, so her parents don’t take her concerns seriously. But we, the readers, quickly see that Sam is likely right. There’s something fishy going on. Why would Ellie and her husband suddenly separate right when they adopt after years of infertility? How likely is it that a woman who struggled with infertility for years would suddenly disappear to a retreat for more than a week, barely speaking to those caring for her long hoped-for daughter? Why won’t Sam and Elli’s mom and dad admit something is off? There’s a lot of delicious suspense immediately.
Most of the beginning of the book is from Sam’s perspective, but partway through we swap to Elli’s. I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about this, because I was so invested in Sam, but it worked. Eventually, we swap back to Sam’s toward the end. Sam’s characterization is just so strong and relatable to me, whereas Elli’s is a more difficult character for me to relate to. But the reason it worked is Sam needs to come to understand Elli and so, getting inside Elli’s head and perspective helped me see that, so that I started to root for Sam’s attempts to rebond with Elli in a way I hadn’t before.
The only reason this is getting four stars and not five from me is because of one scene where a secondary lesbian character is biphobic. It was hurtful to me to read that scene, and I just didn’t think it was necessary to the plot of the book. I’m ok with characters being imperfect when it serves needs of character and plot development, but the exact same plot device could have worked without the biphobia. (Essentially, this character exacts revenge on her ex-wife. While the revenge is spurred on by multiple things the ex-wife did, the tipping point is that she got together with a man after the divorce, and the character is extra upset because it’s a man and she’d “hid” being bisexual from her. Ick. We could have just….had something else be the tipping point. There are plenty of options. An example of biphobia I would have been ok with seeing would have been if Sam and Elli’s big fight was about one of them being bisexual and the other not being able to handle it. That’s important character development. This wasn’t.)
Overall, this was a fun, different read with a main character I really enjoyed and a different take on some common thriller plot devices. I recommend it, and I think I myself might go back and read more of Janelle Brown’s back catalog.
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4 out of 5 stars
Length: 368 pages – average but on the longer side
Source: NetGalley
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Book Review: The Younger Wife by Sally Hepworth
Summary:
Tully and Rachel Aston look upon their father’s fiancée, Heather, as nothing but an interloper. Heather is younger than both of them. Clearly, she’s after their heart surgeon father’s money. They understand why he might want to date, given that their mother is in a care home due to rapidly advancing early onset Alzheimer’s, but it feels disrespectful that he’s going to divorce her to marry another. Meanwhile, they’re each struggling with a secret. Plus, Heather has secrets of her own. Will getting to the truth unleash the most dangerous impulses in all of them?
Review:
I have a soft spot for Australian psychological thrillers. This is the fourth Sally Hepworth one I’ve read. It ranks near but not quite at the top among her works for me. (My favorite being The Mother-in-Law). It’s pretty obvious early on that Heather is not the big bad, so then the main mystery remains – who is? And of course, what is Rachel’s secret? And when will everyone find out Tully’s secret?
We find out almost immediately that Tully struggles with kleptomania and that Rachel used to date but suddenly abruptly stopped. So the main issues surrounding the two sisters is when will others find out about Tully’s uncontrollable shoplifting and what exactly made Rachel stop dating. I thought the former was handled better than the latter. Tully seeks out therapy and her problems don’t disappear overnight. Rachel meets a nice guy and with him is able to overcome her trauma. That frustrated me a bit. Especially since Rachel is set up as being so strong. One can be strong and also find help in therapy. Or even in a support group structure. It shouldn’t all be on the significant other to help someone heal. So it was a little bit hit and miss for me with the two sisters.
I thought the main mystery of what was actually going on in the weird triangle of the dad, Heather, and the mom was quite well done. I especially appreciated the handling of Alzheimer’s. I do think this book falls prey to the old idea of alcoholism – that one can only have an alcohol problem if one is at rock bottom. Beating a spouse or getting delirium tremens (the shakes) when going too long without it. There are definitely characters in this book who display problems with alcohol, but the narration brushes off the idea that they might have a problem.
The structure starts with a bang – at the wedding, someone is injured, and we don’t know who. The wedding is put on hold, the police are called. We then flash back to Heather meeting the daughters and build back up to the wedding. This is a multiple point of view book. Rachel, Tully, Heather, even the mother get a turn narrating.
This book confronts the problem looming for a lot of new contemporary fiction – do we or do we not acknowledge the pandemic? This strikes a gentle balance of what to do. The characters talk about not shaking hands anymore, one character had a big career setback due to lockdowns, and another character’s marriage is a bit impacted by the work-from-home situation. No major details are mentioned (for example, masks are never discussed, no deaths from the pandemic are mentioned). I envisioned it as happening in 2021 or early 2022. Post lockdowns but not far flung future. I thought it worked fairly well.
Without any spoilers, let’s discuss the kind of gray ending. While it seems to be open to interpretation, for me it demonstrated how even when an abuser is gone, the impacts of the abuse continue. It shows how the voice of the abuser can live on in the mind(s) of the abused. Gaslighting from beyond the grave, but not in a supernatural sense.
Overall, this was a fun read with a different enough plot to keep me engaged. It was a little bit of a mixed bag, which is what kept me from loving it. I put content warnings in for this book over on Storygraph if you’re interested in those. I did wish I’d had them myself.
4 out of 5 stars
Length: 352 pages – average but on the longer side
Source: NetGalley
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Book Review: The Other Family by Wendy Corsi Staub
Summary:
It’s the perfect home for the perfect family: pretty Nora Howell, her handsome husband, their two teenage daughters, and lovable dog. As California transplants making a fresh start in Brooklyn, they expected to live in a shoebox, but the brownstone has a huge kitchen, lots of light, and a backyard. The catch: its previous residents were victims of a grisly triple homicide that remains unsolved. But all that is in the past and has nothing to do with them, right? Oldest daughter Stacey doesn’t think so. She thinks she’s seen a man watching her with binoculars from a neighboring roof. But will anyone believe her when she has an obsession with true crime, and she’s overheard her mother worrying about her mental state?
Review:
This is a slow burn with most of the action happening at the end. It is told through multiple viewpoints – daughter Stacey, mom Nora, and the man watching the house Jacob. You would think this many viewpoints would remove all surprises, but it does not.
There are a few main conflicts in the book. If you like how these conflicts sound, then you will likely enjoy the read even though it’s a slower burn.
First, there’s Stacey and her mom, Nora. Nora doesn’t like Stacey’s appearance and worries about her psychological state. From Stacey’s viewpoint, she’s just a geekier girl who happens to be into true crime.
Second, there’s Nora and her husband. Their marriage was on thin ice in LA, and they’re hoping the change of scenery to NYC will help. But will it? And who is this Teddy person that Nora keeps secretly calling?
Third, there’s Stacey and her new boyfriend Lennon. He falls head over heels really quickly, but it’s unclear to Stacey if the things he asks for are loving or controlling.
Finally there’s the neighbors down the street who are also Lennon’s moms. His moms seem a bit too pushily friendly to Nora. Is it really just friendship they’re after?
For most of the book, in spite of the watcher, it really reads more like a contemporary women’s fiction. It’s not until the last 10% or so that the thrills come out. They definitely surprised me, but I would have preferred more intensity throughout the book.
If a contemporary women’s fiction covering the types of conflicts described above that ends with a thriller style ending sounds engaging to you, give this one a chance.
3 out of 5 stars
Length: 384 pages – average but on the longer side
Source: NetGalley
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This work by Amanda Nevius is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Opinions of a Wolf 