I first want to thank Netgalley and everyone involved in making the master piece that is Providence by Caroline Kepnes. I LOVED Caroline Kepnes’ YOU and Hidden Bodies so when this came up on my screen I knew I had to read it. Providence is a mishmash of genres- thriller, paranormal, urban fantasy, young adult and it made it a mishmash 0n how I felt about it at certain times but it is so interesting and well written that by the end you love it. Jon and Chloe grow up as best friends in New Hampshire. Their feelings for each other start to grow, but they never talk about it. Just as Jon is about to confess how he feels, he is kidnapped by his teacher. His teacher has an obsession for H.P. Lovecraft, an author of horror pulp fiction, and by kidnapping Jon, the teacher is planning to save the world. Chloe is left to mourn Jon and becomes an adult without him there to support her. Jon finally escapes, but does so with an uncontrollable superpower, which can hurt the people he loves most. Of course he runs away to protect Chloe from his power, but all the while, he is being tracked by a detective. What is good about this story is that it is told from multiple points of view. I find Cloe and Jons story easy t0 read and likeable characters. The story is well written and shows the different dimensions of the writer making this a must read book.
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I love Caroline Kepnes writing style. Lean, efficient, clever, and descriptive. When I saw Providence on NetGalley, I requested it based on name recognition alone. The plot didn’t sound like something I would normally read, but it was Caroline Kepnes, and I so thoroughly enjoyed YOU that I decided to try it. I did not, in any way, expect Providence to be anything like her other books, which is good—writers should stretch their legs—and Providence isn’t like You and Hidden Bodies, but my feelings about it aren’t based on that.

The good: with Caroline Kepnes, and maybe even unique to her, there are never any secondary characters. This book has a big cast and she does a commendable job creating such three-dimensional individuals that one never has to wonder who is whom. In the beginning, I loved underdog Jon. Teased and picked on and unrequited love Jon. Jon with the hamster. The ending of the opening chapter hooked me, and I was sure that even though I’m not a Lovecraft fan or into sci-fi (which this kind of feels like), I’m still going to love this book. Chloe didn’t sit as well with me, because she played both sides—Jon vs. Carrig, the bully who makes Jon miserable—and I decided early on that I didn’t like her. That feeling stuck, and by the end of the book, the Jon/Chloe magic was gone, because I plain didn’t like her. Her art. Her pining. Her whininess. Her willingness to be this or that. I went to school in a different time, but girls like Chloe did not hang out with boys like Jon, ever, not and date the Carrigs of the world.

Then come “Eggs” and “Lo.” A fantastic couple, I loved their backstory with Chuckie; how Eggs was trying to solve the riddle of their boy’s illness while Lo was just the removed mom. I had really thought this could go somewhere positive, but it doesn’t, and by the end, Eggs and Lo turned from a couple I enjoyed reading about to something more like Chloe: people I didn’t want to read about anymore. But I said this is the good, right? The setups for both stories are solid, and Caroline’s writing style is always spot-on, but the plot…

The bad: For as well-written as the characters in Providence are, the plot suffers. It starts strong, but with zero explanation given for Jon’s new abilities by the end of the book, I’m left feeling unsatisfied.

Same goes for Eggs’ and Lo’s story, because while Eggs finally goes to see Chuckie, there’s a whole side trip where I blinked and Eggs went from a middle-aged guy on a mission to a Stage IV cancer survivor with a colostomy bag?!? I feel like this rubbed me more wrong than it should have, but after reading Zoje Stage’s Baby Teeth, I have zero patience left for feces and colostomy stories. There’s no reason Eggs needed to be sick and it felt like a forced and underdeveloped subplot that failed on a lot of levels. I also feel like I missed the Introduction to Colostomies article in some recent issue of Writer’s Digest.

Overall, I think the book tried to accomplish too much and missed the mark on most of it. There’s no closure with Jon, and he and Chloe will continue pining and whining in perpetuity. Eggs and Lo are only a semi-solid couple, and sorry to be judge-y here, but kind of crappy people and kind of crappy parents. Lo substitutes her students for her son, calling them “her kids,” and it was good that this was her coping mechanism in the beginning, but hers and Marko’s relationship took a weird tone, and why on earth would Marko and his then girlfriend bring Eggs a post-chemo-recovery casserole and screw in his house?!?

Lo becomes very “me me me,” like Chloe, and it’s as if she begrudges all the “work” she put in keeping Eggs alive, which happens off-screen and is totally ineffective. And Eggs, in a span of months goes from death’s door to returning to work after a hiatus that seemed incredibly short and overlooked. I think this, too, bugs me more than it should, but I’ve seen someone through cancer treatment and know the toll it takes. I worked for fifteen years in medicine, including in a radiation oncology practice. I can’t buy Eggs returning to work or having nearly as much energy to chase Jon with as he does, and carrying Chloe to his car at the end… I just can’t get behind this subplot and I don’t like it. It really hurt the book for me.

I hesitate to call it this, but the plot feels half-baked, confusingly busy with too many instances of unbelievable coincidences, like Eggs figuring out the pseudonym “Peter Feder” out of thin air because of Spiderman and Grownups 2. The pop culture references feel forced, and while I think Caroline did a great job sprinkling in Lovecraft trivia, there are a whole lot of things about the character’s hometown I just don’t get—inside information about I am Providence and grain alcohol and “packies” and “townies.” I have no clue and have decided I am not this book’s target market. Caroline Kepnes has a knack for writing obsessive love, and if one is looking to see a glimmer of YOU and Hidden Bodies (and yes, I did say not to compare but people will because of the author’s name attached to it), it is in the early stages of Jon and Chloe’s relationship, when the two are so desperate to be back in proximity to one another. There’s a great undertone of want in all the relationships in this book, but just too much happening across multiple time breaks, in several locations, with too many aliases, and just too much. I feel like this is easily four books smashed into one, and for that, I say three stars, because I like Caroline Kepnes writing too much to give it two.

Thank you to NetGalley, Caroline Kepnes, and the publisher for providing me with an Advance Reader Copy. ( )

This is one of five hotly-anticipated novels to come out this year for me, the others being the new offerings from Paul Tremblay, Marisha Pessl, and two from Stephen King.

Kepnes' narrative style hasn't suffered at all, I still love it as much as I did with her last two novels. And the overall plot is an absolutely fascinating one. Think H.P. Lovecraft with some romance and actual dialogue, meets When Harry Met Sally without any of the comedic bits.

There's a lot to love here, but overall, much like the first of the Stephen King offerings The Outsider, it started strong and then...just kind of...fizzled for me.

I could anticipate the set up of the ending by about two-thirds of the way through the story, but Kepnes did manage to throw in a bit of twist, but nowhere near enough to mitigate the impending fizzle of the ending as a whole.

I think the biggest issues I had with this one was with the bulk of the main characters. I wasn't overly sympathetic to Jon's plight, or Eggs, and Carrig is simply a whiny asshole.

So, for those keeping count, of the five anticipated books, two of the five have started strong, but let me down by the end. ( )

Cross-posted to my blog: https://thesebooksaremyfriends.wordpress.com/2018/06/17/providence-by-caroline-k...

I start this review with an apology to the author. It’s not fair of me to keep reading your books and bringing your ratings down when I haven’t liked any of them so far. I just keep hoping that I’ll change my mind since so many people, including some of my friends love your books. So readers of mine, keep this in mind while reading this review.

Providence starts out with Chloe and Jon, two BFFs who by all accounts shouldn’t be. She is popular, he’s a geeky loner who gets picked on but they make their friendship work. They’re in middle school/junior high so here we have point one that I had an issue with. Do kids in middle school talk about keg parties and hooking up? Things sure have changed if so.

Jon disappears (it’s in the summary, this isn’t a spoiler) and everyone looks for him and then forgets about him (except Chloe). Fast forward four years, Jon is back. Then throughout the rest of the story, we fast forward some more. And then some more. This is point two. I had a really hard time trying to figure out when this book was set (year wise) and where we ended up. It didn’t quite fit for me and I found it took away from the story.

We then meet some other characters including a professor and a detective who really just added to my confusion. This is point three. So many characters, so much fast forwarding, I had the worst time trying to keep up and I got annoyed.

Add in some mystery, murders, some Lovecraft and a tiny bit of romance and there you have Providence. I didn’t hate it but I certainly can’t so oh my goodness YOU HAVE GOT TO READ THIS. Because that would be a lie. ( )

Well this was another enjoyable yet very sad story. To basically have your whole life taken from you without having any choice in the matter so somebody else can do what they want is completely unfair. And having such catastrophic results due to this seems absolutely horrid. But I really did enjoy the book! ( )