This book has good intentions in its scathing indictment of the systems that enable sexual abuse, but the execution is muddled. Character motivations This book has good intentions in its scathing indictment of the systems that enable sexual abuse, but the execution is muddled. Character motivations are unclear, pacing is uneven, details are withheld for shock value that are easily discernible, and certain plot points stretch credulity. Ultimately this just has a lot of common pitfalls of a debut novel, so I can’t fault it too harshly, but my petty annoyances kept adding up to the point where they were clouding the reading experience. ...more
I’m not sure whether this was inspired directly by the aftermath of Gabby Petito’s murder, but the parallels are clear, with McTiernan’s main focus beI’m not sure whether this was inspired directly by the aftermath of Gabby Petito’s murder, but the parallels are clear, with McTiernan’s main focus being the lack of cooperation from the parents of the young man suspected of killing his girlfriend. At times it’s frustrating and repetitive but that’s very much the point—this isn’t a story of twists and turns as much as a portrait of two families being undone by a tragedy, one of those families making unconscionably evil choices in the name of keeping their family sheltered from public scrutiny.
(Also, this book was set in my hometown which was wild and surreal and very random as McTiernan is an Irish writer living in Australia and I live in a small town in Vermont that no one has ever heard of. Kudos to her for the mostly accurate portrayal.)...more
Sara Marsala is going through a rough patch, to say the least. In the process of divorcing from her husband and battling for custody of her four-year-Sara Marsala is going through a rough patch, to say the least. In the process of divorcing from her husband and battling for custody of her four-year-old daughter, being forced to close her restaurant that she poured her heart and soul into, and now learning of the news of her beloved great-aunt Rosie's death, Sara feels as though she's in the process of losing everything she once held dear. When she receives instructions from Rosie to travel to the family's homeland in Sicily to claim a deed of valuable land that possibly belongs to the Marsala family, Sara only reluctantly agrees out of affection for her late great-aunt. It's only when she arrives in Sicily that she receives another missive from Rosie in which the real purpose of this trip is made clear: she wants Sara to investigate the death of Rosie's mother and Sara's namesake, Serafina Forte.
You can read my full review HERE on BookBrowse and a piece I wrote on a brief history of Sicily HERE....more
Riley Sager goes full Stephen King in his first book featuring a young male protagonist, and it might have worked if he spent more time developing hisRiley Sager goes full Stephen King in his first book featuring a young male protagonist, and it might have worked if he spent more time developing his characters into something memorable and less time on the half-baked attempts to cultivate a creepy atmosphere by introducing the paranormal. The slow pace didn't really pay off--there was no rhyme or reason as to when information was revealed or when characters remembered certain events which made the whole finale feel very convenient and arbitrary and there weren't really any explosive revelations. This didn't piss me off like Sager has done in the past (see: The House Across the Lake), but it just thoroughly bored me which is a bummer when readability is usually Sager's strongest asset. ...more
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