read

Not my fav - long (almost tediously so), got the gust early but it was “not happening” for me. Well narrated. ( )

I wish I could give this more than 5 stars, it really blew my mind.

To say it was a page turner would be an understatement, and it is the best psychological thriller I have read in a very long time. ( )

This earned all sorts of "Best Book" awards back in 2021 - I wish I understood why! There's almost no action, the characters are unoriginal and not particularly interesting, the psychology is rudimentary, the writing is pedestrian, and the plot twists just aren't that twisty - in fact, I suspect anyone familiar with the genre will see them coming from a mile away.

Though billed as a "thriller," nothing thrilling actually happens - just a couple of mild surprises that fail to deliver any sort of gratifying emotional or psychological impact. Even the "gimmick" of setting the action during Covid is oversold: besides providing a bit of narrative convenience (an excuse to closet the two characters in a room for a couple of weeks), the author doesn't even try to leverage the crisis to introduce any meaningful novelty or suspense. What a missed opportunity!

Finally, this is simply waaaay too long: if you read the first 100 pages and the last 100 pages, you can skip the150 pages in the middle without losing a single bit of critical information or character development. First dates are cringy to begin with - the last thing I want is to wade through 100s of pages of lame "getting to know you" dialog, retold over and over again, that doesn't even end up contributing in a meaningful way to the denouement.

After 56 days and 364 pages, the only genuine mystery here is how this wowed so many critics. What am I not getting? ( )

I don't know where to start. Definitely one of those "what the heck did I just read" books. But here's the deal. Started with the audiobook and had no idea what was going on. Restarted four or five times trying to figure it out. Got to the point where I decided the audio was defective because I was hearing the same words a couple of chapters later. Switched to the e-book at about 30%, but started (once again) from the beginning and was finally able to follow the format. Holy jumping crazy complicated writing. It was like the manuscript chapters were shuffled like a deck of cards. Chapters jumped all over the place timewise and some chapters (not back to back) presented the same event from a different POV, but using many of the same phrases and descriptions. I'm sure the author thought this would be an interesting twist but good grief -- give us readers a break.
Check out the opening chapters:
Today
56 days ago
Today
53 days ago
Today
50 days ago
56 days ago
Today
35 days ago
53 days ago
Today
34 days ago
Sorry, this was trying to hard to be different. Surely the editor suggested a simpler timeline.
The characters were interesting enough, but as with so many of these thrillers, they kept you guessing what was in their minds and how they would react to situations. The depiction of initial Covid quarantine and lockdown was spot on. Enjoyed the pandemic scenario as background to a plot that I thought I had figured out, but didn't really. This book had a lot of potential but just didn't come through. It did keep me interested and I stayed up late to find out how it would end. But looking back, it may have been just wondering how the heck the author was going to pull of this stuff together to a resolution.
Audiobooks are my preferred reading method, but the audio version only gets one star. Between the erratic timeline and the heavy Irish accent of the narrator, this is not one to listen to. ( )