3.5 stars. I figured out most of the twists from the start, and I did some skimming to get past the overwrought descriptions that tried to be thoughtf3.5 stars. I figured out most of the twists from the start, and I did some skimming to get past the overwrought descriptions that tried to be thoughtfully literary, but overall it was a decent read with plenty of moments I didn't expect....more
I had really high hopes for this book going in, because who doesn't love a good adult fairy tale, right? But, ultimately, I found that the wrDNF @ 15%
I had really high hopes for this book going in, because who doesn't love a good adult fairy tale, right? But, ultimately, I found that the writing just didn't interest me. (view spoiler)[The big happening, upon which the entire novel is based, happens fairly early on in the novel, and it failed to wow me or even approach tickling my imagination. (hide spoiler)] There's nothing specific that I would critique about Diane Setterfield's writing; it just wasn't for me. I think it was a little too plain for me. This novel had the air of sitting at the knee of a 19th century British grandmother's knee as she she knits a scarf and tells the kiddies a story. While I'm sure many will love that style of writing and storytelling--that simple life, folksy feel--for me, it could barely keep my attention. For that reason, I will not rate this book.
Oh my God, it’s been a long time since I’ve suffered through a book that made me want to just BE DONE WITH IT ALREADY! But this book, Our House, by LoOh my God, it’s been a long time since I’ve suffered through a book that made me want to just BE DONE WITH IT ALREADY! But this book, Our House, by Louise Candlish, just seemed to just go on and ON. Seriously, there was NO reason for this book to be 400 pages. There were way too many asides throughout this novel, which slowed the pace greatly and contributed to the superfluous word count. Not to mention, those peanut gallery comments from the “viewers” of the crime podcast that Fiona Lawson is telling her story to (which allows for the author, Louise Candlish, to tell Fiona’s story under the guise of recounting her story to these podcast listeners) really burnt my biscuit! They were so annoying, ridiculous and distracting that I trained myself to skip them entirely whenever I encountered them.
Though it is a genre I tend to enjoy for the most part (see my reviews of Ruth Ware and Fiona Barton) this novel was everything that I hate in British cozy thrillers: centered around a meek woman who’s “gullible” and made a victim as she tries to take back the power in the end. It also was not very well-written, quite honestly. Candlish has obviously never heard of Hemingway’s “Iceberg Theory,” because, for this being a thriller, she certainly didn’t trust her reader to come to any conclusions on their own, which really took all of the bite and fun out of reading this book for me.
I recently joined a Twitter discussion where a very outspoken literary agent was asserting that reviewers should NEVER tag an author with a bad review because it’s “rude” and because these authors have already had countless people critiquing them and “professional editors” editing them. (This, by the way, was rather self-righteously stated as though literary agents and editors know best and as though their stamp of approval a good book makes. As a writer, former lit agent and former publishing intern, and current book reviewer I can confidently assert in response that this is not necessarily the case.)
Here, you’ll find a fantastic example of a book that needs further editing! Literally, my mind started wandering by page 60 as I started calculating how many paragraphs of text I’d just written that really could have been removed from my life altogether.
All in all, the premise of Louise Candlish’s Our House is phenomenal, the execution is mediocre if not terrible in parts, and the aside bits nearly drove me mad. If you’re looking for a streamlined, heart-pounding thrill of a ride, don’t waste your time with this one. I really don't have much else to say about this book because I've already turned my mind to finding my next book, which will have to be GREAT to wash away the annoyance I've built up from pushing through this one.
I have a friend who read my reviews and once told me it’d be SO hilarious if I just wrote the word “TRASH” as a book review for the next truly terrible book I encounter and then just dropped the mike. I won’t do that here, but there were parts where I was honestly tempted. 2 stars for premise and premise alone -- and maybe even because I fancy the cover; it's brilliant! ;) . **
**I received an advance-read physical copy of this book from the publisher, Berkley, in exchange for an honest review.**
Whew, what a ride! Stuart Turton’s debut novel is the kind of debut we all yearn for: explosive, energetic, engaging and truly something fre4.5 stars!
Whew, what a ride! Stuart Turton’s debut novel is the kind of debut we all yearn for: explosive, energetic, engaging and truly something fresh and new on the scene. The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle is a brilliant, high-concept murder mystery that had the cogs in my mind turning from the very start (imagine waking up in the forest with no memory of who you are and immediately seeing a young woman murdered!). This, in fact, was the first mystery narrative in a very long time that has made me feel like I was part of the story—immersed in the environment—and the first that pulled me in to such a degree that I felt compelled to actively try to unravel the whodunnit mystery right along with the characters.
Whodunnit and why!
Turton’s atmospheric world is so moody and immersive you’ll feel you should be smoking a pipe with a monocle as you devour it. It was so deliciously wrapped in a sort of British noir, complete with the “party at a country estate” of so many classic murder mysteries. Described by its publisher as “Gosford Park meets Inception by way of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express,” this book lived up to the hype and description in a big way!
Aiden Bishop is destined to relive the same day over and over again, in eight different bodies, until he can solve the murder of Evelyn Hardcastle. If he does not succeed at the end of that time, the loop restarts and he loses all of his memories of the previous loop, forcing him to start over from scratch with even the basics – who am I? What am I doing here? He realizes that he is both the hunted and the hunter, an innocent and a deceiver, in this highbrow whodunnit.
Until now, I’d only witnessed my fellow guests in their handfuls, their spite spread thin across the house. To be ensnared among them all, as I am now, is something else entirely, and the further I descend into the uproar, the thicker their malice seems to become. Most of the men look to have spent the afternoon soaking in their cups and are staggering instead of dancing, snarling and starting, their conduct savage. Young women throw their heads back and laugh, their makeup running and hair coming loose as they’re passed from body to body, goading a small group of wives who’ve grouped together for safety, wary of these panting, wild-eyed creatures. Nothing like a mask to reveal somebody’s true nature…All of this is wrong. The celebration is too desperate. This is the last party before Gomorrah fell…
The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle was both intelligent and intellectual, well-paced and deserving of all 500 pages it took up. In a lot of ways, The Seven Deaths was unlike any novel I’ve read before. Skillfully woven together, it was the ultimate literary puzzle. The plot was complex in a baroque but fascinating sort of way, and all the threads Turton spun came together in the end—no stone left unturned, no end left loose. With so many plots converging at once, that was quite the high feat to pull off, but you’ll find it done here superbly in this debut novel. Stuart Turton offers veritable craft in the intricacy of his plotting, a kind of craft that I rarely see anymore. The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle is a mind-bender complete with time leaps and multiple murders seen from multiple angles all on this same day that keeps repeating itself over and over again.
The prose was lyrical—honestly, leaning toward flowery—but it is the intricacy of the plot and the atmosphere surrounding these characters that Turton allows to really shine here. Yes, there were moments when this novel graced the line between intricacy and confusion, but it all unraveled splendidly in the end. It was a puzzle of a read; there were moments when the pieces wouldn’t fit and you’d have to scrap it all and start over. For some, that may present as a frustrating experience, but this novel is a real treat to those who love mindbenders, murder mysteries, puzzles and logic games. If that’s you, I highly recommend this novel! Also, if the “Gosford Park/Inception/Agatha Christie" description got your heart racing, then this is the read for you! The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle grabbed me and held me from the very start, probably the most veritable page turner I’ve encountered so far this year, and that’s no easy feat. For such high praise and phenomenal plotting, I give Turton’s debut novel a very strong 4.5 stars. ****
*I received an advance-read copy of the book from the publisher, Sourcebooks Landmark, via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
There’s something about first love, isn’t there? she said. It’s untouchable to those who played no part in it. But it’s the measure of all that followThere’s something about first love, isn’t there? she said. It’s untouchable to those who played no part in it. But it’s the measure of all that follows…
Tin Man is a nostalgic and melancholy read filled with bitter memories and finding oneself at middle age—at any age. More so than plot, this novel offers a meandering of tender memories that all coalesce like rivers in a delta, pooling into one larger story.
Quite honestly, Tin Man offers more by way of poetic descriptions of landscape and emotion than it does of actual plot at times, but that’s the beauty in this story I suppose. The simplicity of narrative—of intent—couples with the deepest and most complex emotions one can feel: love, regret, loneliness, disappointment, heartbreak (so beautifully described as the sound of an exhausted swallow falling gently to earth).
Tin Man is the story of Ellis and Michael. The tale of two twelve-year-old boys who meet at an intersection in their lives where they are both motherless and running from fathers who don’t understand them, who want them to punch away their anger and to harden against the natural softness in their souls. It is the story of the years of their lives they spent together—and those they achingly spent apart. It is a story of compassion and fear, of young lives withered away and stolen by the AIDS epidemic. A story that crosses from England to France and back again.
So when my father went off to his football matches, I went to Mrs. Deakin’s to read, or to make cakes with her for the church fayre. But I wanted to shout, I like football too! and I want to be with you. I want to be around men and their laughter and their ways! But in four years, I was never invited. And I retreated further into the background until I could barely be seen against the wallpaper and curtains, until I eventually disappeared, erased by the notion of what a boy with a handbag should be like.
Sarah Winman managed to squeeze a lot into such a short novel, small and delicate in your hands in its pocket-sized hardback version. I had a strange relationship with Winman’s writing style. It was quiet, like a whisper, and I always felt more moved by the story than I did by her writing. That sounds strange, since one would think these two were one in the same; in many ways they are. But I always felt that it was the story pulling me back in again and again more so than the language she used to tell it. And that’s okay. Because there were moments of absolute brilliance, moments when the narrative glinted and shone like a small mirror turned toward the sun--
And Ellis remembered thinking he would never meet anyone like him again, and in that acknowledgment, he knew, was love. He could see his mother concentrating on Michael’s words, how enraptured she was…she bent down and kissed him on the head and said, Thank you. Because everything she held on to and everything she believed in came together in that unexpected moment. The simple belief that men and boys were capable of beautiful things.
--and those moments were special.
It was still a world of shyness and fear, and those shared moments were everything: my loneliness masquerading as sexual desire. But it was my humanness that led me to seek, that’s all. Led us all to seek. A simple need to belong somewhere.
Tin Man broke my heart in so many little ways, and it was never quite put back together again. That I appreciated, actually. I was never drawn to Ellis the way I was drawn to Michael, and I will always remember Michael’s compassion, his heart, his life. 4 very strong stars. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
**Thank you to the publicity team at G.P. Putnam's Sons who reached out to me and sent 2 lovely copies of this beautiful book!**
“…years on, people round here still use your names as a kind of salacious cautionary tale…”
It’s rare that I stumble upon a read as gripping and as raw“…years on, people round here still use your names as a kind of salacious cautionary tale…”
It’s rare that I stumble upon a read as gripping and as raw as this one was. And, it was not an outright or vulgar kind of raw—no, that wouldn’t really be the English way, now would it?—but Ruth Ware’s The Lying Game was something arguably so much better, because it didn’t lean on outright shock, melodrama and over-the-top confrontations. No, here the rawness is in the imagery, a true reader’s delight, because it pulled at the senses and plucked at our moral strings in unpredictable ways, in ways that were altogether unexpected when I picked up this novel.
Here, the reader will peep behind the closed doors of a partially secluded English home at the edge of a reach, a place where the water laps at the very door of the home in high tide just as danger and uncertainty laps at their feet from the moment they receive Kate’s SOS text: I need you. Once a place of refuge and harbor, the Reach has turned into a silent stomping ground for their greatest fears and will forever be a magnet of both dread and longing for each of the women in this sisterhood. Kate, Thea, Fatima and Isa share a secret that bonds them together tighter than blood ever could. And it starts and ends with the Reach.
The gentle suspense here was wonderful, but even it was heightened and magnified like a fly under a magnifying glass by the camaraderie that held these four unlikely friends together nearly 20 years after that fateful night—you could feel their anxieties, mistrust and the burn of their lies scorching your very skin as you read on. Ware swirled so much unexpected goodness into these pages that I was amazed at her deftness and insight. This glimpse into their world was so much more than just that—it was the peeling back of the layers of humanity within ourselves and at the lengths that we will go to protect one of our own.
The very act of peeling seemed to be almost a metaphorical foundation: the peeling away of clothes wet from the waters of the Reach, of skin around ragged fingernails chewed nearly to the quick, of secrets from the truth they’d all stood on as their foundation for years. And, too, within these pages you’ll find other hidden nuggets, like a subtle commentary on the cultural insensitivity Muslims face every day (“What do you think it means? If you think it means that she’s using that head scarf as a bandage, then yes, that’s what I mean. It’s great that Allah’s forgiven you…but I doubt the police will take that as a plea bargain.”) the bond of family—blood and otherwise—and a true sense of setting and surroundings: It gives the whole place a melancholy air, like those sultry southern American towns, where the Spanish moss hangs thick from the trees, swaying in the wind. The town of Salten was embedded in true English culture, making the characters all leap to life on the pages, the values of this tight-knit society playing an important role in the unfolding of events. The Lying Game managed to be about so much more than lying—though those moments of actual “game play” were delightful, fun, frisky and filled with all of the carefreeness of youth that we all remember, that we all yearn to hold on to even now. It was also about the grip of a parent’s love and protection of their children, small town scandal and the whisper of child sexual abuse.
How dare you judge me? I do what I have to do to sleep at night. So do you, apparently. How about you respect my coping mechanisms and I’ll respect yours?
Ruth Ware gave her readers a phenomenal roller coaster of twists and turns. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and would be happy to read more from this author any day! The setting was palpable, the sisterhood and kinship of these women SO relatable. These women felt real; their faults and growth felt real and it made me want to follow them throughout these 300+ pages. The camaraderie was palpable, lifelike, believable and touching. There was no bow-tie happy ending here and I respected that, yearned for that, in fact. Ware had the guts to not put a ribbon on it for us, and her readers can only revere her for that. I loved every moment of reading this novel and I'm definitely a Ruth Ware fan from here on out. The Lying Game easily earned itself a very strong 4 stars. ****
(I've downgraded this review from a 5* to a very strong 4* read, because the 5* nagged at me. I reserve that for the absolutely breath-taking works of writing, and this was not quite that, though it was exceptionally well done!)
**I received an advance-read copy of this book from the publisher, Gallery/Scout Press, via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.**
See my EXCLUSIVE interview with Francesca Hornak here!
Seven Days of Us is the quintessential heartwarming family novel, a quick and quaint little holiSee my EXCLUSIVE interview with Francesca Hornak here!
Seven Days of Us is the quintessential heartwarming family novel, a quick and quaint little holiday read to be devoured in one sitting. With flashes of wit, intellect and social reflection peppered in, Seven Days offers a great combination of laughter and insight, as we get to know these characters while they re-get to know each other. Imagine being stuck in your home for seven days with your family, unable to flee into the night, unable to avoid the unavoidable. To me, that sounds like the worst kind of torture! And Francesca Hornak brought that feeling to life in a meaningful way that allows the reader to identify with at least one of the characters, always a treat.
This read is not one that will bog you down, nor is it one that will stay with me, personally, for very long. Seven Days of Us is a novel that stays in its lane; it doesn't try to masquerade as something it's not, and I can respect that. I don't know that it was "sharply" anything, as the blurb implied, and the ending did hurry to a close like an urgent hand at your back. BUT, it is a read for the lovers of the quaint and cozy literary experience, a novel for anyone who loved the movie The Family Stone (2005), and a delightful treat for those on holiday to pass the time and enjoy a chuckle. If that's what you're looking for, you've found a home and a warm mug of Earl Grey within the pages of Hornak's Seven Days. 3*
**Thank you so much to Berkley Publishing who reached out to me and sent me a physical ARC of this book!
I absolutely adored Fiona Barton’s debut novel, The Widow, so I was all-too eager to get my little hands on this one when I heard about The Child. Of I absolutely adored Fiona Barton’s debut novel, The Widow, so I was all-too eager to get my little hands on this one when I heard about The Child. Of course, that’s the problem with not reading blindly, isn't it--with already being familiar with an author’s previous works: you go in with expectations, undoubtedly heightening your expectations on the author, and it doesn’t always pan out. When that happens, those reads seem to fall harder than if you’d never met their predecessors in the first place. But that didn't happen here! This follow-up was awesome! Unfortunately, that’s what happened here.
Not too far into Fiona Barton’s sophomore novel, The Child, I realized that this one wasn’t nearly as clever as her debut, The Widow, and wasn’t nearly as captivating either. Read as a “rush job,” without the finesse and nuance of her previous novel. In a lot of ways, it reminded me of the follow-up to a blockbuster movie--you know, the ones where you can tell the studio was just rushing to churn the next one out to capitalize on the fanfare of the last one.
Have you ever read a novel and just knew you could pick out the characters on the street if you saw them? Their mannerisms are so real, their dialogue so witty, so poignant, so enthralling, that you recall a whole slew of their quotes from memory. These characters come alive on the page and delight you, make you want to be them—or at least kidnap them and keep them as your new bestie. Well, you won’t find that here, people. These characters didn’t saunter around, exuding their very essence across the page like in the previous novel.
Though, to be fair, it’s not all cons in this one. One of the better aspects of this novel is that Barton uses the format of short chapters to swiftly draw her reader in and keep them turning pages. It’s a style that I now recognize her for. That technique makes the read seem shorter, faster, and is a true hallmark of the modern-day thriller, which was once again used brilliantly here. Well, to an extent. Of all things, The Child was chalked full of filler. I could almost palpably feel myself ripping at the cotton-like filler to get down to the meat, the core of the novel. Some of the chapters were completely useless to the plot as a whole and slowed the read down to a near-screeching halt, contradictory to the goals of the short chapters, placing The Child very squarely into the “cozy thriller” category and loosening the tauntness that readers look for in a good mystery thriller.
All I needed for complete this novel was a cuppa Earl Grey and a biscuit. For some, this’ll work brilliantly, but I can see the flatly written characters turning off character piece buffs, while the added family drama will turn off mystery thrill seekers, stripping away its well-roundedness and landing this one in a category for a very specific kind of reader. It’s not that the characters here were unlikeable, more like they were just silly. Crying at the slightest stimulus. Sighing and huffing and wedge-driving over men who, for the majority of the read, weren’t much more than cliché sketches of cheaters and adulterers themselves. There were moments where I actually imagined them fawning and fanning themselves at the thought of these men, swooning in their own misery, and that made the read feel long, like I was trudging through used Kleenex the entire time.
Let’s go ahead and address this here, shall we?
There’s so much chatter in the book world about (female) characters who are unlikeable for being shallow or crass—The Girl on the Train immediately comes to mind—but these characters in The Child were equally unlikeable for a completely different reason: because they were so spineless, weak and lacking of any motivation that I could get behind for the vast majority of the novel. (view spoiler)[You can’t toss in driving motivation in the last quarter of the novel and expect me to suddenly care; no, I’ve already been too turned off by the past 300 pages to care at this point: Writer 101. (hide spoiler)] There were a lot of tears in this book, even moments of rushing out of a grocery store, abandoning their grocery cart, because the noise was too unbearable. These characters all needed a swift kick in the ass if you ask me.
Hmm, and the ending. I won’t give anything away, but I will definitely say that I’m not sure how I feel about it. It could’ve been a phenomenal ending, but it was executed poorly and via unlikeable characters, so, in the end, it just felt like a hastily done soap opera ending. There were loads of other sections that could have been scrapped in favor of perfecting the ending, believe me—and the fact that the ending was held up by sappy, weak-willed characters just ruined it, like spilling liquid on a watercolor painting. (view spoiler)[I get the feeling that it was meant to be a tear-jerker ending but came off as vaguely melodramatic the way that it was handled, which, (hide spoiler)] all in all, landed The Child with a average score of 3 stars ***
“Karen didn’t believe in keeping a lid on things, picking your battles, and all that other claptrap parents were advised to do. When did people stop b“Karen didn’t believe in keeping a lid on things, picking your battles, and all that other claptrap parents were advised to do. When did people stop being parents, exactly? Karen knew when—when they were scared to death their kids wouldn’t love them any more if they scolded them, that’s when. When they’d fallen out of love with their spouses and so the thought of conflict with their child, the thought of saying a simple ‘no’, panicked them beyond measure. For Christ’s sake, people didn’t even scold their dogs any more…”
Trophy children are quite en vogue these days, judging by the recent publications so many publishing houses have put out. I, myself, have read and reviewed a large handful of novels about this “perfect child” phenomenon, often featuring plots wrapped around the mystery of the death or fall of that child. The backstories here are often the same, stemming from parental pressures inflicted by those living vicariously through their offspring, rather than asserting those pressures upon their own lives, so it really ends up coming down to two things: intended audience and execution. Paula Daly’s latest novel, The Trophy Child, is definitely for a certain audience and the execution was fine. But that’s about all that it was: fine. If the above blurb made you think you’d encounter some spin on this “perfect child” motif, adding poignancy, startlingly well-drawn characters, or anything resembling originality, you may be disappointed by this one.
Here you will find the quintessential “thriller” for housewives. I say that more so honestly than sarcastically, but, to answer your next question, “No, this one did not work for me.” I was bored to skimming (if not tears) for the majority of the first half of this novel, and could find nothing of value or originality to take from this one. It was formulaic in most ways imaginable; the twists were enough to keep me reading, while not enough to get any sense of shock or admiration from me. Not a single character in this novel interested me or made me yearn for more, likely because I never saw anything within any one of them that made me care about the outcome of their lives in the slightest. How’s that for honest?
Starting with the “Tiger Mom” herself, Karen Bloom is painted as an overly ambitious sort of mother, one who pushes herself, her children and her husband to exude perfection in all shapes and forms. We have them here in the U.S., too, of course, usually identifiable by their hectic schedules filled to the brim with carting their minivan full of children to this practice or that, passing the days away in Whole Foods in their Lululemon getups. We know these women, and whether we identify with them or not, they have become a notorious stereotype in our culture. Thus, suffice it to say, the brilliantly written blurb for this novel will be more than enough to get readers to pick this novel up, but I suspect there will be polarizing opinions on this one. Here’s why:
Paula Daly has a fan base; there are plenty of people out there who are looking for a comfy pseudo-thriller, some book that you can curl up on the couch with and take in with a cup of Earl Grey and a bit of skim milk. If you’re one of those readers, then you may absolutely love this one! Daly will have lived up to her reputation and really entertained. However, if you’re looking for any sort of depth, action, major thrill or narrative creativity, you’ve come to the wrong place and should step no further.
The trouble with Paula Daly’s The Trophy Child is that the 350+ pages that it took to tell this tale were not particularly well used. The characterizations were in a lot of ways lackluster and uninteresting, namely because the characters failed to live up to anything more than the stereotypes they’d been written as. Karen Bloom is, seriously, just a disagreeable and annoying person to the point that she actually contemplates fairly early on in the novel whether or not she should throw a huge tantrum, because its ‘been a while since she’s thrown one.’ (Goodness, I just wanted to slap her in the face and tell her to get off the page.) Her husband is mealy mouthed and spineless and also happens to be a drinker and womanizer. Add in the pothead son, the duo of the order-barking military grandfather + the spacey wife and you’ve got yourself a rather interesting novel, right? Wrong. Just think The Nest meets cozy pseudo-thriller, and you’ll have a pretty good idea of what to expect here, because none of these stereotypes were particularly turned on their head, no new and entertaining characterization of these typecasts ever happened across the page. I quickly lost interest and had to fight the urge to skim ahead. Often, I lost this fight with myself and went ahead and did it.
I would characterize Paula Daly’s The Trophy Child as an okay read for a quick little jaunt, something to read when you’re off of work on a random Tuesday or something. A nice airport read as you suffer through a layover. But it’s unlikely that I’ll remember anything in particular about this novel by the time I finish my next one, and, for me, that warrants a ‘Meh’ and a half. That’s about it. 2.5 stars, which, on a good day, could be rounded up to 3, per my rating scale of "Average." ***
I received an advance-read copy of this novel from the publisher, Grove Press, via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
See all of my reviews at The Navi Review! www.thenavireview.com and follow the blog on Twitter @thenavireview
MILD SPOILER ALERT This was a novel for tSee all of my reviews at The Navi Review! www.thenavireview.com and follow the blog on Twitter @thenavireview
MILD SPOILER ALERT This was a novel for the gentle of spirit and of mind. Waller managed to craft a solid idea but the writing did not read as either fluid or gripping. It read in a jolty, staccato sort of manner that did not enhance the novel but irritated me with its knack for telling instead of showing and jumping from scene to scene without properly filling out for the reader what had even happened. Without spoiling it, the end was exactly this, which made for quite the anticlimactic read as a whole. To come through over 400 pages to be rushed through the end (the end scene was literally comprised of one page of text, the epilogue only a sentence or two)? I found that to be quite the annoyance.
At the start, Beautiful was neither innovatively written nor particularly insightful. I struggled with each turn of a page because there was no meat of substance. Sure, there were twists to the plot within those pages, but they were so swiftly presented with no “meat on the bone,” no climax of suspense, that it was as if I were reading the author’s outline of events, not the intended finished outcome. Amy’s mental and emotional hang-ups are completely realistic in theory, but were not eloquently portrayed so as to elicit the intended reaction out of me as a reader. In all honesty, I had difficulty even finishing this one. I was spurred on by the plot line fundamentally, not by the writing or the execution of said plot line.
In addition, a big show was made of the era in which this novel was set, with the years of the setting at the start of each chapter. Yet, there were almost no references to the era whatsoever. No mention of what these characters may’ve worn, what they would have driven; there was no setting at all really aside from a few scattered cameo mentions and television or disk that may have alerted one to what decade it was. There was no world to be immersed in.
What Beautiful did have was good intentions. I could see where the author was trying to go but never felt that I’d actually arrived. I never read the other reviews for a work before I write my own, but this one made me curious because I felt that surely I’d missed something that others must have seen. However, what I found was that for those who seemed to rate the novel highly, they all commented on how “shocking or difficult” the subject matter was, which makes me believe that this is a wonderful read for those who have never experienced hardship or malice of any sort in life themselves, hence the opening line here.
What I felt was lacking was depth of character and emotion. The presence of the subject matter alone cannot carry the story for those readers who are not easily shocked and who expect more. For those of us in this category, this one merely scratched the surface, softly. Oh, there were wonderful elements to this story that could have really soared if properly filled out, but they instead were one-note and one-dimensional. Here you can find sexual abuse and the emotional trauma that comes along with it, love, murder, sex—the makings of a thrilling work. However, the volume was turned down so low here that it was nearly mute in impact, assuming that the mere presence of the subject matter would carry the novel. For some, that may work as a great read—and it seems that it did; for others, more is needed to make such a work stand out on the shelves, to make it worthy of digging into your pocket and spending your hard-earned money. I, myself, would not have gone into my wallet for this one. Two stars for the plot of this one but nothing for the read of it. **
I was given this book by Mel at Bloodhound Books in exchange for an honest review. This one started off a bit wobbly ouThe Quiet Ones by Betsy Reavley
I was given this book by Mel at Bloodhound Books in exchange for an honest review. This one started off a bit wobbly out of the gate, but turned out to be worth a closer look by the end of it. The prologue turned me off a bit, which is never a good start; the voice was so affected and juvenile that I wasn’t sure I hadn’t picked up a teen thriller. Many of the chapters were slow and little tedious, particularly at the start. At times, this method can be exhilarating, especially in thrillers—that slow build that the reader can feel without yet knowing where they’ll find the quick bend around the corner. Yet, the quick bend here didn’t arrive until roughly two-thirds of the way through the novel, so this build ended up being more of a slightly laborious read, filling in the everyday life of Josie and her husband right down to the color of her nails and the way she takes her breakfast. Such an intimate look at characters can be rewarding, but the way that it was presented in The Quiet Ones did not have the immediate payoff that I’d hoped for; the author wasn’t able to make me care (or give me anything to care about) throughout the first half. Yes, there is the theme of abuse here, but the way that it was presented has been done before (countless times), so it came off as cliché—a prop for the main character’s issues and situations that was never really filled out and wasn’t helped by the flaccid dialogue surrounding the topic either. In fact, many of the themes and circumstances here weren’t properly filled out the way that we’ve come to expect today—they were just sort of placed there in the novel and then rushed through. Soph and her beau are great examples of this. She was painted as the stereotypical Perfect Patty, and that feeling that Josie had about the new boyfriend, this being a psychological thriller and all, never really panned out and felt limply handled once I realized that his last scene had passed me by and no deeper look at him had been presented. Was he a good guy? Did he have a secret? Was he after her money or did he truly love Josie’s friend? This was never explored. The shift in voice was off-putting and sudden, again something that could have worked if executed better. I made a note at the start that the voice sounded just like the narrator’s just with a splattering of apostrophes and a few filthy words. I thought that this might play out later, but it seems that it was just the author’s attempt at displaying two voices in one work that fell flat. Then there’s the glaring appendage of a loose end. I’ll leave that one at that. All in all, this novel had a wonderful premise—honestly, the plot line of it had the makings of a really top-notch psychological roller coaster. But the execution fell short for me, probably because this one could have easily stood up to another 100 pages or so. That extra filling out of the characters and situations—not additional exposition about the peculiars of Josie’s day-to-day that did nothing to move the novel forward, mind you—would have been an immense help here. Don’t get me wrong—the last 45 pages or so had bite, but it could have been much sharper if done in a different way. This one forgot that television exists. By that I mean it didn’t cater to the reader who’s “been there, done that;” it didn’t quicken the heart rate or pull me in the way that thrillers these days are designed to do. That can be a plus for some. If you’re looking for a slower read that attempts a cozier approach than other psych thrillers, one that carries your read more gently around the bend of suspense than many of the more fast-paced thrillers on the shelf at your local bookstore or on the NYT, this one may be a great one for you. Two stars. **
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