Review: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

 

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Other Tales of Terror by Robert Louis Stevenson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a surprisingly quick read; while the writing style was somewhat 'wordy' and a little heavy, I found it very compelling and read the whole thing in a couple of days as part of my PhD research on the Victorians' fear of primitiveness and devolution.

Going into the story, I already knew the rough plot, given it's a book that's talked about a lot. But I was still engrossed, and it's actually made me want to seek out some of the film and TV adaptations.

The language that Stevenson uses in this book was of particular interest to me. I was fascinated by the way that Hyde's personality and criminality is inscribed on his body, via his 'inherently malign and villainous' appearance due to his 'impression of deformity without any nameable malformation' and 'his displeasing smile'. He's described as unfeeling, 'a man of stone' whose 'every act and thought centred on self', in great contrast to Dr. Jekyl's caring nature. We get two very different personalities here, as Stevenson is one of the first--if not the first--author to look at the idea of split personalities, but does so in the context of nineteenth century anxieties around primitiveness, evilness, appearance, and monstrosity.

Physiognomy is at play largely in this text, as we are told that Hyde's 'black secrets, by the look of him' are visible to everyone as his 'particularly wicked-looking' countenance represents the evil inside him. There is never any doubt presented to characters or readers that Hyde is the bad guy, the killer, because this is a cruel man 'at once so callous and violent' that it has physically distorted his appearance. He is also described with primitive language and is likened to 'a monkey', tying into contextual anxieties surrounding repression and return of primitive nature. Hyde represents the uncontrollable, the evil, and the monstrous, and while Dr. Jekyll does initially manage to control him to some degree, Jekyll's death can be seen to represent a death of civilisation and goodness. Instead, all that's left is evil and reversion to what Victorians considered primitive and murderous states of being.

Yet, looking at Hyde's death--when Dr. Jekyll is trapped in Hyde's form--and he takes his own life, we can see an attempt at being the saviour, at keeping the evil at bay. While Dr Jekyll has solved the problem of the killer being at large--a problem which only came about due to his own obsession with making a drug that separates the two sides of one's personality--we also lose the 'goodness' that is Dr. Jekyll. Stevenson therefore somewhat suggests that evil runs amok when there is no goodness there to ground it.



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Review: COUNTERFEIT by Kirstin Chen

 

Counterfeit by Kirstin Chen
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

For fans of Hustlers and How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia, the story of two Asian American women who band together to grow a counterfeit handbag scheme into a global enterprise--an incisive and glittering blend of fashion, crime, and friendship from the author of Bury What We Cannot Take and Soy Sauce for Beginners.

Money can't buy happiness... but it can buy a decent fake.

Ava Wong has always played it safe. As a strait-laced, rule-abiding Chinese American lawyer with a successful surgeon as a husband, a young son, and a beautiful home--she's built the perfect life. But beneath this façade, Ava's world is crumbling: her marriage is falling apart, her expensive law degree hasn't been used in years, and her toddler's tantrums are pushing her to the breaking point.

Enter Winnie Fang, Ava's enigmatic college roommate from Mainland China, who abruptly dropped out under mysterious circumstances. Now, twenty years later, Winnie is looking to reconnect with her old friend. But the shy, awkward girl Ava once knew has been replaced with a confident woman of the world, dripping in luxury goods, including a coveted Birkin in classic orange. The secret to her success? Winnie has developed an ingenious counterfeit scheme that involves importing near-exact replicas of luxury handbags and now she needs someone with a U.S. passport to help manage her business--someone who'd never be suspected of wrongdoing, someone like Ava. But when their spectacular success is threatened and Winnie vanishes once again, Ava is left to face the consequences.

Swift, surprising, and sharply comic, Counterfeit is a stylish and feminist caper with a strong point of view and an axe to grind. Peering behind the curtain of the upscale designer storefronts and the Chinese factories where luxury goods are produced, Kirstin Chen interrogates the myth of the model minority through two unforgettable women determined to demand more from life.

--

This book has been on my radar forever. I'd borrowed it from the library a couple of times but then my loan was always due before I had a chance to start it, and when this was about to happen for the third time in a row I decided to knuckle down and get started. And I read this book soooooo quickly!

I love stories about con men and women. I love stories where the narrators lie. I love stories that are multiple POV and you never know who is the most reliable. I love stories with huge plot twists. So, essentially, this book was PERFECT for me!!!!

Counterfeit follows Ava Wong, a pretty 'ordinary' law-abiding woman, as she reunites with former best friend Winnie Fang--and becomes embroiled in Winnie's illegal, fraudulent business where she produces counterfeit designer handbags. So, like, I didn't realise that I would be so interested in the world of handbag production and counterfeits. This book has soooo much detail on this, and I found it fascinating. Like, we have pages and pages about it, and it's so eye-opening.

But the characterisation is what really makes this book amazing. And the plot twist. Okay, spoilers ahead! So, for the first half of the book, I was feeling sorry for Ava. She's married to a pretty awful guy who cuts off her money and controls her and throws strops. She's having to single-parent their child because he decides to move somewhere else for work, leaving his family for pretty much the whole week, every week. And when Ava dares go and visit her family, he throws a temper tantrum about that, and removes her from their joint bank account. Cue Winnie stepping in and giving her an easy way to make a lot of money. We see Ava struggling with the ethics of this and we see how once she gets started she can't get out. There are a lot of mind games, and she just seems so vulnerable. The narrative at this point also consists entirely of Ava recounting all these events to a police detective, as part of her interview, so it's first person. (I loved this as a narrative mode, plus we have no speechmarks for dialogue within this as the whole thing is pretty much the prose transcript of Ava's speech.)

I totally believed her--and then part two gives us Winnie's third-person narration where we begin to piece together that Ava has been lying to the police the whole time (and lying to us!). She's not innocent, being swept along by Winnie. She too is a con woman (she conned us all!). And that reveal is just FANTASTIC. So, so, so good!!!! We then alternate between the rest of Ava's dialogue to the detective and Winnie's narration, which give quite different versions of the same events. And I loved this, because who are we supposed to believe? Winnie's narration seems more objective as it's third person, but it's still close third person, so can she be trusted either?

I am a sucker for unreliable narrators and this book was great!

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Review: Chloe Cates is Missing by Mandy McHugh

 

Chloe Cates is Missing by Mandy McHugh
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

AThe disappearance of a young internet celebrity ignites a firestorm of speculation on social media, and to find her a detective will have to extinguish the blaze. 

Chloe Cates is missing. The 13-year-old star of the hit YouTube series, “CC and Me,” has disappeared, and nobody knows where she’s gone — least of all ruthless momager Jennifer Scarborough, who has spent much of her daughter’s young life crafting a child celebrity persona that is finally beginning to pay off. And in Chloe’s absence, the faux-fairytale world that supported that persona begins to fracture, revealing secrets capable of reducing the highly-dysfunctional Scarborough family to rubble. 

Anxious to find her daughter and preserve the life she’s worked so hard to build, Jennifer turns to social media for help, but the hearsay, false claims, and salacious suspicions only multiply. As the search becomes as sensational as Chloe’s series, Missing Persons detective Emilina Stone steps in, only to realize she has a connection to this case herself. Will she be able to stay objective and cut through the rumors to find the truth before it’s too late?

Told from multiple points of view including Jennifer, Emilina, and pages from Chloe’s lost diary, Chloe Cates Is Missing is a suspenseful novel of a child pushed to the brink, and of the troubled family that desperately needs her back.

—-

Chloe Cates is missing is a phenomenal debut. Seriously. It’s SO good.

I started it late evening yesterday and read until the early hours, and then picked it up again as soon as I could today. Within twenty-four hours of starting this book, I’d finished it. I simply couldn’t read it fast enough. Chloe Cates is Missing is a twisty, complicated story that spirals around Jennifer, the mother of Abigail who is more publicly known as Chloe. Jennifer began a ‘mommy blog’ when Abby was little, and ‘Chloe’ is its main character. While Jennifer’s son is allowed a normal life, Abby isn’t. She’s not allowed to go to school, have friends, or make any of her own choices. She has to constantly perform as Chloe, and we see the horrific things that this leads to. And the story begins when Jennifer finds that her precious daughter is missing…

Jennifer is such a fascinating character. She’s dark and twisty. She sees her daughter only in terms of what Chloe can provide her. She treats her like a doll, wanting to control every aspect of her life. And she’ll do anything to make sure she gets her own way. And she lies. She lies a lot, and I was never quite sure when she was telling the truth. This made the tension so, so high. I couldn’t stop reading. She’d engineered an entire fake life for her daughter for her followers to watch. Chloe’s ‘friends’ were photoshopped models. Any time Abby really did start making friends of her own, Jennifer put a stop to it. She wanted her daughter isolated and dependent, and Jackson, Jennifer’s husband and Chloe’s father just lets it happen.

Jennifer is also a murderer. Part of the narrative is from the perspective of Emilina, the former best friend of Jennifer and the now detective investigating Chloe’s disappearance. Emilina knows exactly what kind of person Jennifer is, as Jennifer forced her to cover up the murder when they were kids. 

And that’s not the only murder in the book. We’ve also got the murder of Missy, a girl the same age as Chloe and who looks pretty similar to her. And it soon becomes clear the murder of Missy and the disappearance of Chloe are intrinsically connected.

Chloe/Abby is a fascinating character. I really felt for her, could feel her desperation through her journal entries as she tried to fight her controlling mother. Indeed, the journal was quite horrifying to read when it became apparent just how far Jennifer would go to make sure her daughter was doing what she wanted. There was a fantastic twist about the boy whom Abby was secretly getting to know. And we really see the effect of all this emotional abuse on Abby and learn how her mother’s behaviour has shaped her. Nothing is as it seems!

There are so many twists in this book. The pacing is spot-on, and I simply had to read it as quickly as possible to find out who was the evil mastermind—because no matter how hard I tried to work it out, I just couldn’t. Every time I thought I had a handle on one of the suspects, a new curveball was thrown into the mix.

We’ve got a lot of first person narrators—Jennifer, Emilina, Abby, and Jackson (Jennifer’s husband)—but it didn’t feel like too many and I was able to separate the narratives quite easily.

All in all, this is a highly recommended read. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

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Review: STILLHOUSE LAKE by Rachel Caine

Stillhouse Lake by Rachel Caine
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Gina Royal is the definition of average—a shy Midwestern housewife with a happy marriage and two adorable children. But when a car accident reveals her husband’s secret life as a serial killer, she must remake herself as Gwen Proctor—the ultimate warrior mom.

With her ex now in prison, Gwen has finally found refuge in a new home on remote Stillhouse Lake. Though still the target of stalkers and Internet trolls who think she had something to do with her husband’s crimes, Gwen dares to think her kids can finally grow up in peace.

But just when she’s starting to feel at ease in her new identity, a body turns up in the lake—and threatening letters start arriving from an all-too-familiar address. Gwen Proctor must keep friends close and enemies at bay to avoid being exposed—or watch her kids fall victim to a killer who takes pleasure in tormenting her. One thing is certain: she’s learned how to fight evil. And she’ll never stop.

--- 
I listened to the audiobook shortly after Rachel Caine passed away, and it definitely was poignant listening to this as she was such a great writer. I'd had the ebook of this for a while, but when I joined audible and saw this was there too, I thought I'd try it out that way as I'd been having problems with my vision.

I ended up listening to this in quite intense chunks--several hours at a time--as it was when we had the really hot weather and I needed to sit outside with my guinea pigs to make sure they weren't getting too hot. They always like the sound of the radio and so on, so I put the audio on out loud for them all to hear--and we all enjoyed it.

In Stillhouse Lake, Caine proved once again that she is a master of writing. This is the first of her adult books I've read--and the first thriller from her, given I was obsessed with her YA fantasy Morganville series and was a bit scared to try something new from her for so long due to being afraid of being disappointed. But I wasn't disappointed at all.

From the moment I started listening to this book, I was drawn in. The characters are just so, so real, and the emotion in the writing is incredible.

I'll admit, I found the first half of the book a tiny bit slow at times--but this is just nitpicking really, because it really is amazing. And that ending! Wow. Just wow.

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Review: HER LAST HOLIDAY by C. L. Taylor

 

Her Last Holiday by C.L. Taylor
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

You come to the retreat to be healed. You don’t expect to die.

Two years ago, Fran’s sister Jenna disappeared on a wellness retreat in Gozo that went terribly wrong.

Tom Wade, the now infamous man behind Soul Shrink Retreats, has just been released from prison after serving his sentence for the deaths of two people. But he has never let on what happened to the third victim: Jenna.

Determined to find out the truth, Fran books herself onto his upcoming retreat – the first since his release – and finds herself face to face with the man who might hold the key to her sister’s disappearance. The only question is, will she escape the retreat alive? Or does someone out there want Jenna’s secrets to stay hidden?

The master of suspense is back. Prepare yourself for the latest heart-in-mouth rollercoaster ride from the Sunday Times bestseller.

--

I have to admit, this book didn't blow me away like I'd hoped it would. I'm a massive fan of C.L. Taylor's other works, but this one just fell a bit short me. I don't know if it was because I had such high expectations, or if it's because I loved her first-person narrators so much (and this is third person and three narrators), but it just felt a bit...flat. I didn't really think the tension was there, and a few of the twists I managed to guess. 

And the ending--well, I just didn't think it was 'enough'. The whole story seemed to have been leading one way, and then well, it didn't. It just stopped, taking us a new direction as we discover the truth--and I just found that it all wrapped up too nicely. It felt like it was just too convenient. Too perfect an ending for such a dark novel. 

Having said that, the characterisation is solid and the setting was really well written. I do love stories set in retreats as you get this locked-room mystery vibe, and we do have two timelines here too, both with retreats. 

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Review: SWEET LITTLE LIES by Caz Frear

 

Sweet Little Lies by Caz Frear
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

In this gripping debut procedural, a young London policewoman must probe dark secrets buried deep in her own family's past to solve a murder and a long-ago disappearance.

Your father is a liar. But is he a killer?
Even liars tell the truth... sometimes.

Twenty-six-year-old Cat Kinsella overcame a troubled childhood to become a Detective Constable with the Metropolitan Police Force, but she's never been able to banish these ghosts. When she's called to the scene of a murder in Islington, not far from the pub her estranged father still runs, she discovers that Alice Lapaine, a young housewife who didn't get out much, has been found strangled.

Cat and her team immediately suspect Alice's husband, until she receives a mysterious phone call that links the victim to Maryanne Doyle, a teenage girl who went missing in Ireland eighteen years earlier. The call raises uneasy memories for Cat--her family met Maryanne while on holiday, right before she vanished. Though she was only a child, Cat knew that her charming but dissolute father wasn't telling the truth when he denied knowing anything about Maryanne or her disappearance. Did her father do something to the teenage girl all those years ago? Could he have harmed Alice now? And how can you trust a liar even if he might be telling the truth?

Determined to close the two cases, Cat rushes headlong into the investigation, crossing ethical lines and trampling professional codes. But in looking into the past, she might not like what she finds... 

--

I've had this book on my shelf for a while, and I don't know why I didn't pick it up for so long--because the moment I started it, I could not stop reading. Seriously, I've been in a bit of a reading slump lately and I finished off this book in just over two days. It's just amazing.

Right away, Frear introduces us to main character Cat and the dark secret she's hiding about her father. When she was a child, a girl went missing and she knows her father lied to the police. Now, an adult, Cat is a police detective. She's suffering with fragile mental health--PTSD following a gruelling murder case--and the new case she's on has links to the past, and her father.

This is just such a complex book. And it covers so much. Secrets and lies and betrayal. You've got complicated familial relationships, an examination of grief and one's desire to protect themselves.

The story is told across two timelines, and the inclusion of the flashbacks was particularly well done. Seriously, really good. They may have been short snippets but they not only fleshed out the past mystery but were placed wonderfully to spur on the present-day storyline too.

And the characterisation! So, this has to be my favourite thing about this book. Frear is masterful at creating believable characters. Every single one of them just leapt off the page. The dialogue for each was spot-on. I especially loved Steele, Cat's boss, but all of them were just so real and authentic.

And the twists! There's a huge twist around who the latest murder victim is, and that left me speechless. Well, I mean, there are many twists in the book, and I found myself really looking forward to the ends of chapters as nearly every one delivered some sort of twist or charged moment.

And the ending--so I hadn't been able to work out who the 'bad guy' was for so long. Every time I thought I knew, Frear was one step ahead. But learning the truth was so satisfying. It really worked. 

There's some dark content in this book: murder, child abuse, sex trafficking, grooming, baby factories, mental illness, and death. 

I'll definitely be looking out for the next book in this series.

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Review: CONCRETE ROSE by Angie Thomas

 

Concrete Rose by Angie Thomas
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

International phenomenon Angie Thomas revisits Garden Heights seventeen years before the events of The Hate U Give in this searing and poignant exploration of Black boyhood and manhood.

If there’s one thing seventeen-year-old Maverick Carter knows, it’s that a real man takes care of his family. As the son of a former gang legend, Mav does that the only way he knows how: dealing for the King Lords. With this money he can help his mom, who works two jobs while his dad’s in prison.

Life’s not perfect, but with a fly girlfriend and a cousin who always has his back, Mav’s got everything under control.

Until, that is, Maverick finds out he’s a father.

Suddenly he has a baby, Seven, who depends on him for everything. But it’s not so easy to sling dope, finish school, and raise a child. So when he’s offered the chance to go straight, he takes it. In a world where he’s expected to amount to nothing, maybe Mav can prove he’s different.

When King Lord blood runs through your veins, though, you can't just walk away. Loyalty, revenge, and responsibility threaten to tear Mav apart, especially after the brutal murder of a loved one. He’ll have to figure out for himself what it really means to be a man.

----

This book--just wow!!!! I loved THE HATE U GIVE, and so the moment I heard that CONCRETE ROSE was set in the same world of Garden Heights, I just had to drop everything and read it immediately. And I'm sooooo glad I did.

Angie Thomas's writing is just amazing, and this story is so, so real. It's authentic and compelling. And it really helps to remove stigma too.

Maverick is such a great character. He is a Black man who is in a gang. He deals drugs, and there's drug-related violence, and drug-related murders and deaths affecting those close to him. But he is so much more than this--he's a doting father, even as a teenager. He's only selling drugs as he needs to support his mother, and especially when he finds out he's got a child. (And then discovers his girlfriend is also pregnant--two children. He is desperate to provide for his family.) He's fiercely protective of his family and friends. He's kind. He's genuine. We see him make mistakes--and we see him learn from mistakes.

Mav's father is in prison for the entirety of the book, and we learn that this is because the only way out of the King Lords' gang is to be go to prison, often taking the fall for someone else in the gang, or to end up dead. Mav says countless times how he was encouraged by his father to join the gang for his protection--and we can really see this in the book too. King and the other King Lords do protect him from the GDs, the warring gang. And we can see how this almost creates a vicious cycle of these men ending up in prison. Something Mav is desperate to avoid as he wants to be there for his children, especially when he knows what it's like to grow up with a father in prison.

But then Mav's cousin is murdered and he's expected to kill the murderer. We see his desperation to do this, and it's heartbreaking because we've already been shown what could happen.

And, you know what? I desperately wanted things to work out for Maverick--perhaps more than any other protagonist I'd read. And I was so worried that it was going to end with him in big trouble in prison (like, I was sure that was happening). Thankfully, it didn't--though having read THUG we get a hint of what Maverick does have to do to get out of the gang.

But, yes, I couldn't read this book fast enough. (I also LOVED the reference to Justyce in Nic Stone's Dear Martin too!)

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Review: GENUINE FRAUD by E. Lockhart

 

Genuine Fraud by E. Lockhart
My rating: 5 of 5 stars


From the author of the unforgettable New York Times bestseller We Were Liars comes a masterful new psychological suspense novel--the story of a young woman whose diabolical smarts are her ticket into a charmed life. But how many times can someone reinvent themselves? You be the judge.

Imogen is a runaway heiress, an orphan, a cook, and a cheat.
Jule is a fighter, a social chameleon, and an athlete.
An intense friendship. A disappearance. A murder, or maybe two.
A bad romance, or maybe three.
Blunt objects, disguises, blood, and chocolate. The American dream, superheroes, spies, and villains.
A girl who refuses to give people what they want from her.
A girl who refuses to be the person she once was.

I went into this book, having read some of the reviews that say it's not as good as We Were Liars, and so I was a bit hesitant at first...but I have to say that Genuine Fraud is amazing. I LOVED it.

It's very different to We Were Liars, yes. It's not trying to be the same. It's standing proud to be different, and I was really hooked after the first couple of chapters.

Genuine Fraud is all about character. It's about giving the reader snippets of Jule's life and Immie's life, all from Jule's POV. It's about constructing these complex and devastating characters through spinning a sort of web around Jule--as the web increases with each chapter, so does our knowledge of what these characters really are like. Jule becomes more and more complex with each chapter, and by about the halfway point, we know exactly what kind of person we're dealing with.

Jule is a murderer. She kills two people in this book--possibly three, I'm not quite sure. She's dark and when she doesn't get what she wants, she throws a tantrum. And her tantrums always end in the same way. And yet despite this there are still twists cleverly incorporated into this--proper moments that had me literally gasping.

This is a story of friendship and what happens when it becomes obsessive. It's a story of a damaged girl who's undeniably clever and so, so cold.

I loved the writing style. I'll be honest, I don't connect strongly with books that are told in third-person. I need that closeness to the main character. Yet third person was undeniably the right choice for Genuine Fraud, precisely because it keeps Jule at a distance. We're not supposed to see right into her mind. We're supposed to be wondering who she is and what she is capable. As we read, we're trying to learn more about her, and it often feels a bit like we're a detective and Jule is the mystery. And I think that's why I liked this book so much because we're kept on the outside a little bit. We're trying to work out who this character is--a character who freely admits that she lies and makes up her 'origin story'. I still don't know which of Jule's 'childhood origin stories' are based on truth, if any are.

And (spoilers ahead), I just have to talk about this: this book shows how someone can just step into someone's life so quickly, claiming that you used to be friends at school--when in fact you weren't. And the way it's done in this book is just so amazing. Because Jule and Immie knew each other from school--and yet they didn't. Each chapter adds a little bit to the puzzle, until we realise that Immie is someone Jule has become fixated on and vowed to find a way into her life. Jule gets all these tidbits of info about Immie's schooldays (from names of classmates to what Immie was wearing at a concert), getting these pieces of information through hiding her intentions, and then 'reminds' Immie of how they were at the same school. And that means Immie has this instant trust for Jule. Trust that is her downfall. I just wanted to talk about that because that revelation that Jule's memories of Immie and their shared schooldays were constructed and not organic just blew me away. That was the point where I realised just how clever E. Lockhart is.

And each chapter does build a new layer, add a layer to the onion that is Jule, so to speak. And the timeline jumps back and forth too. We're not given things in a chronological order, which adds to the puzzle-feel of this book. And I just loved that.

As expected from any book by E. Lockhart, this one covers some dark topics: you've got suicide mentioned, murder, desperation, obsession... But this is a must-read.

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Review: LUCKIEST GIRL ALIVE by Jessica Knoll (audiobook narrated by Madeleine Maby)

 

Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knoll
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

HER PERFECT LIFE IS A PERFECT LIE.

As a teenager at the prestigious Bradley School, Ani FaNelli endured a shocking, public humiliation that left her desperate to reinvent herself. Now, with a glamorous job, expensive wardrobe, and handsome blue blood fiancé, she’s this close to living the perfect life she’s worked so hard to achieve.

But Ani has a secret.

There’s something else buried in her past that still haunts her, something private and painful that threatens to bubble to the surface and destroy everything.

With a singular voice and twists you won’t see coming, Luckiest Girl Alive explores the unbearable pressure that so many women feel to “have it all” and introduces a heroine whose sharp edges and cutthroat ambition have been protecting a scandalous truth, and a heart that's bigger than it first appears.

The question remains: will breaking her silence destroy all that she has worked for—or, will it at long last, set Ani free?

--

This is the first audiobook I've ever listened to, and it was a great one to start with. LUCKIEST GIRL ALIVE is a complex story of lies, trust, and one woman's desperation to be 'perfect'. We meet Ani when she's in her late twenties, and she seems to have it all: a great job, a great boyfriend, an impending marriage, great prospects in life. But right from the start, there's something disturbing about our narrating character. It becomes clear very quickly that Ani has a dark side. And I just LOVE dark narrators. She's also pretty unlikeable and not your typical female narrator--and that I just loved.

(Spoilers ahead:)

Ani is a disturbed woman with lots of secrets--least of all that she murdered someone. I hesitate to call her a murderer because as the book reveals it was in self-defence and happened when she was 14. And wow, this girl's past is just phenomenal. The book alternates between present-day action where Ani is preparing to take part in a documentary to 'set the record straight' about what happened when she was school, and gives us real-time chapters of that time.

We follow Ani as she joins the Bradley school, as she becomes mixed up in toxic friendship groups, as she becomes victim of sexual assault and rape, as she suddenly finds herself in a school shooting. This book is POWERFUL. That, I can't stress this enough. And the characterisation is so phenomenal. In the present-day, Ani comes across as an entitled and arrogant woman who cares wholly about perceptions and what others think when they see her. Yet, from reading everything that's happened to her, it becomes understandable. This new identity is one she's actually constructed to protect herself.

And it's not just her characterisation which is amazing. Every single character in this book has amazing characterisation--and this makes it quite complicated in some respects, as Ani's rapists are shown to have good traits. It makes it realistic, but it also makes for such a disturbing read. Jessica Knoll is an expert.

I particularly liked as, the more we read, the more layers of the main characters were revealed. This was especially the case with Luke, the 'perfect' fiance. By about the halfway point, his true character had been revealed, and I desperately wanted Ani to do better than him. So, I was really satisfied with the ending, where she leaves him.

There's also a big emphasis on names and identity in this book. Throughout it, Ani has multiple names referring to the various different identities she has been through--she reinvented herself after leaving the Bradley school, going by Ani then (whereas before she was Tiffany). And this just seemed really realistic and added to the idea that 'Ani' (the successful and rich magazine editor) is a construction. Ani is a cage around Tiffany, one to protect her--and that final line of the book, where Ani reclaims her identity as Tiffany FaNelli, is just so powerful because of this.

There are some difficult scenes in this book, as can be expected. At 14, Tiffany is invited to a party by her male classmates. She is the only girl there, and she's raped by three of them. She later attends Planned Parenthood to get the Morning After pill. When her mother finds out about this, we get a victim-blaming narrative from her (which is challenged by other characters). We're also dealing with content about suicide and mass-shootings in schools. Children do die in this book and it is heart-wrenching. The shooters are both children too--one of whom is Tiffany's friend.

Madeleine Maby is a terrific narrator. That has to be said too. I was apprehensive about audiobooks, thinking I wouldn't be sucked in in the way I am when reading a paperback or ebook, and although the experience of listening to an audiobook is different, this really was excellent.

I highly recommend this story of identity, revenge, loss, lies, and secrets.

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Review: STRANGERS by C.L. Taylor

Strangers by C.L. Taylor
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Ursula, Gareth and Alice have never met before.

Ursula thinks she killed the love of her life.
Gareth’s been receiving strange postcards.
And Alice is being stalked.

None of them are used to relying on others – but when the three strangers’ lives unexpectedly collide, there’s only one thing for it: they have to stick together. Otherwise, one of them will die.

Three strangers, two secrets, one terrifying evening.

The million-copy bestseller returns with a gripping new novel that will keep you guessing until the end.

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I'm a massive fan of C.L. Taylor's psychological thrillers, and while this one was really good, I think I prefer some of her others. This is just a personal preference--and it's mainly because I'm not a huge fan of books written in third person present tense and I'm so used to Taylor writing first person narrative. Third person present is always something I find harder to get into. It just doesn't grab me as much.

Having said that, this is still a great book--and I can totally see why Taylor used third person present. It does work for the book.

STRANGERS centres around three strangers who've never met before, but live and work in the same area. It's a gripping story of secrets and stalking, of how you can never really know another person, and the things we all keep hidden.

This book was such a mind-trip! So many times, I had no idea who the villain was. Taylor is a master of this, setting us up to think one thing, then revealing it's actually another. And until the ending, I honestly had no idea exactly what was happening, until we're given the climax. Then everything in the book came together wonderfully and made sense. From about the 66% mark, I couldn't read quickly enough! I was flying through the ebook.

As we've got three POV characters, each with their own storylines, we end up with A LOT of characters. At times, I found it hard to follow this, and I kept getting a little mixed up. The climax, however, involves all the characters from all three narrators' perspectives, and so there were a lot of characters in that tense scene. I found myself having to concentrate super hard as I read to check that I was understanding everything.

I loved the ending. It's really good.

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Review: SLEEP by C.L. Taylor

Sleep by C.L. Taylor
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I finished reading SLEEP by CL Taylor just over a week and a half ago, and I still can’t quite believe how amazing it is.

I mean, I knew it would be. I’m a fierce fan of CL Taylor’s books, and I just couldn’t wait to start reading this one. It did no disappoint.

SLEEP weaves a complicated tale of guilt, revenge, death, and regret. It’s a tightly plotted thriller, and honestly, I had no idea who the killer was until the end—that’s how good it was. (And I pride myself on working out who the killer is).

The story follows Anna as she recovers from a horrific car crash that resulted in the deaths of two of her colleagues. And she was driving.

We see her go through a breakup, and decide to start a new life on the island of Rum.

I loved how this island setting almost becomes a character. And what a great place for a murder mystery. It reminded me a lot of And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie at first—but there were plenty of differences I was delighted to discover as I read on (and I love that Christie book too).

The narrative is told through multiple characters, and slowly we begin to see how all the apparently separate subplots link together as it becomes clear Anna really is being stalked by someone who believes she should’ve died in the car crash.

There are so many twists, and I honestly can’t tell you enough how much I loved this book. And that ending! Wow. Really chilling.

I really can’t wait to see what CL Taylor writes next.

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Review: PRETTY DEAD GIRLS by Monica Murphy

Beautiful. Perfect. Dead.

In the peaceful seaside town of Cape Bonita, wicked secrets and lies are hidden just beneath the surface. But all it takes is one tragedy for them to be exposed.

The most popular girls in school are turning up dead, and Penelope Malone is terrified she's next. All the victims so far have been linked to Penelope—and to a boy from her physics class. The one she's never really noticed before, with the rumored dark past and a brooding stare that cuts right through her.

There's something he isn't telling her. But there's something she's not telling him, either.

Everyone has secrets, and theirs might get them killed.


FIVE STARS

I've been on the look out for amazing YA thrillers recently, and PRETTY DEAD GIRLS by Monica Murphy definitely fits this criteria. In short, this book is amazing. 

I'll be honest, when I started it, I wasn't totally convinced of just how great this story was going to be. I've just started watching Pretty Little Liars on Netflix, and the opening of this book reminded me A LOT of that show. You've got the same set-up: a group of popular high school girls, and one of them has been murdered, with the others looking for the identity of the murderer. PRETTY DEAD GIRLS didn't feel like anything spectacular--until I got to the 30% mark or there about, when I realised that we were also having the odd chapter narrated by the murderer. 

It's all first person narrative with no tags for who is narrating, and there'd been a few instances where I was confused as Penny's narrative style suddenly seemed to change. (Particularly the first chapter where I got very dark vibes and wondered if the narrator was the murderer--but as I read on and learned more about Penny, I doubted she was really the murderer and that the first chapter had been set to throw me off the scent). But at the 30% mark, I realised that some of the chapters weren't narrated by Penny. Instead it really was the murderer, and we see the murderer in the lead-up to the next deaths. 

When Lex is the second girl to die, I felt really invested. This is where this book went from being okay to amazing, and I just couldn't read fast enough. We follow Penny and Cass as they investigate, and as they realise that all the Larks girls are being killed off, one by one. 

What struck me about PRETTY DEAD GIRLS is that I think this is the first murder mystery YA thriller that I've read where I didn't have a clue who the murderer was until the end. Every time I thought I knew, the murderer's own narration would then mention my suspect in a way that made it clear that it wasn't them. And because the murderer never gives us any clues on their identity--other than that they're female--I was so stumped. And, despite this, I was STILL suspecting one of the boys in the story as I just couldn't figure out who it was going to be. 

When the murderer is revealed, it was a tense and well-written scene that brought everything together in a wonderful and concise way. I was very impressed. 

This book definitely seems to be written with teenage readers in mind. I'm in my mid-20s, and I was struck by how often the characters Snapchatted each other and how many selfies they took, but this really helped ground it as a YA novel, and I loved this so much. 

The romance in this book between Penny and Cass is low-key and very much secondary to the who-is-killing-the-girls storyline. That, I really appreciated as it wouldn't have made sense for the romance to be central, given that Penny's friends keep turning up dead and that she's possibly next. 

Penny is a great character. Complex and relatable, likeable and still a bit prickly. Her relationship with Cass is turbulent, with lots of on/off moments that felt very believable. And Cass himself is so well written. He's got just the right amount of intrigue and charm, says some really heart-wrenching lines that make him a perfect brooding YA hero, and has a dark past that links to many of the dead girls. 

In short, I loved this book and highly recommend it. 

Review: SADIE by Courtney Summers

Sadie by Courtney Summers
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A missing girl on a journey of revenge and a Serial - like podcast following the clues she's left behind. Sadie hasn't had an easy life. Growing up on her own, she's been raising her sister Mattie in an isolated small town, trying her best to provide a normal life and keep their heads above water. But when Mattie is found dead, Sadie's entire world crumbles. After a somewhat botched police investigation, Sadie is determined to bring her sister's killer to justice and hits the road following a few meager clues to find him. When West McCray - a radio personality working on a segment about small, forgotten towns in America - overhears Sadie's story at a local gas station, he becomes obsessed with finding the missing girl. He starts his own podcast as he tracks Sadie's journey, trying to figure out what happened, hoping to find her before it's too late. Courtney Summers has written the breakout book of her career. Sadie is propulsive and harrowing and will keep you riveted until the last page.

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I was a little nervous to start reading SADIE as I’d heard so many positive things about this book and it had been recommended to me countless times. It’s one of those books that felt huge, and seeing recently that it had won a prestigious award finally motivated me to open it on my kindle. And immediately, I was hooked.

I love books that use unusual writing devices as part of their narrative style, and just over half of this story is told via a podcast. I’ll confess, I’ve never listened to a podcast, so this format was new to me—and I was reading it rather than listening. The podcast revolves around a journalist called West who’s been employed by May Beth to look for her missing granddaughter (or rather surrogate granddaughter) and the episodes follow West as he travels around meeting people who Sadie, the missing girl, has talked to in her hunt for the man who killed her younger sister.

The other half of the story is told by Sadie in a first person narrative and the alternating order of the writing and podcast episodes means that we witness something with Sadie and are left on a cliffhanger, only to discover what then happened a chapter or so later via West’s investigation as he interviews the shady people Sadie’s come into contact with.

Sadie is a great character. She’s real, flawed, overwhelmed with grief over her sister’s murder and how she feels like she let her down. Sadie is thin and small, but as she tells the reader at several points, she is dangerous. She’s ruthless in her hunt for the murderer, and she saves a lot of other young girls on the way.

Claire, Sadie’s mother, is also an interesting character. We see an almost transformation from rubbish mother to caring mother as the book progresses as West interviews her for the podcast, looking for any leads as to where Sadie is now. Claire’s characterisation is strong and well written.

And the ending! Small spoilers here. It’s an ambiguous ending and we’re left only knowing the “ending” via the final episode of the podcast—which isn’t really an ending to Sadie’s story as the trail has gone cold. We don’t know what happened to her as her narrative is cut short during her meeting with her sister’s murderer. I was turning the pages eagerly as I read the podcast, hoping to be brought back to Sadie’s narration. But we’re not. This leaves an intentional and well crafted sense of unease in readers as we finish the book and it’s almost haunting. I can’t stop thinking about it.

The writing is also equally beautiful and well-crafted and in Sadie’s narrative, there are many powerful and poignant statements and messages. I found myself really thinking about her thoughts, and her voice is so strong.

Warning: This book does go to some very dark places: child abuse, rape, pedophilia, and murder are all bound up within the plot.

Overall, this is a powerful read. Highly recommended.

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Review: THE TRUTH WAITS by Susanna Beard

I'm so excited to be taking part in the publisher's blog tour for The Truth Waits by Susanna Beard!

About The Truth Waits: 

Anna has everything worked out – a successful company, all the comforts she needs and no ties. But when she stumbles across the body of a young girl on a deserted beach in Lithuania, everything changes.

Anna is compelled to uncover the story behind the tragedy, despite concern from her partner, Will. Everything points towards sex trafficking, but as she searches, her own deepest secrets start to surface.

When Will disappears without a trace, Anna is pulled further into the murky world of organised crime. Time is running out for them all, and there’s a killer out there who will stop at nothing.

Beard enthralls the reader in this fast-paced psychological crime thriller. Anna serves as the perfect power-house protagonist, her daring escapades leaving the reader questioning: how far should one go to solve a murder?

Review: 

The Truth Waits is the first book by Susanna Beard that I’ve read, and I was not disappointed. This is a fast-paced crime thriller about sex trafficking. 

When I started reading and found this book is written in third-person present tense, I wasn’t sure how easily I’d become caught up in the narrative. I love present tense, but third-person present tense has always been a hard read for me, and I’m not sure why. Yet I had no problems getting into this book. There’s something compelling and almost lyrical about the writing, and I just felt like I needed to read more and more every time I sat down to read “just a couple of chapters.” 

What really makes this book is the characterisation. Anna is a great main character. She’s a work-obsessed business woman and it’s hinted early on that she has a dark secret. On the surface, she seems rather cold, but as you read, you discover hidden depths to her character. When her dark secret is revealed, it’s done so in a way that is still sensitive to the character and heart-wrenching for readers. Though the secret had the capability to paint her as a villain, Anna still doesn’t seem like a villain in the reader’s eyes, despite her secret, and I think the execution of it was beautifully done. She’s definitely the villain from another (off page) character, and it just proves that the protagonist and antagonist of a story very much depends on the point of view and narrator. 

Our other main character is Will, a travel journalist. We start off not knowing much about him, and Beard cleverly builds the suspense as she has us questioning whether Will really is everything that he says he is, as Anna finds evidence to support both her theories (that he’s a sex trafficker and/or that he’s investigating the sex trafficking). This back-and-forth structure as Anna tries to make up her mind, made it a compelling read, and right from the start, I found Will to be an intriguing character. 

The book begins with Anna finding the body of a sixteen-year-old girl on the beach not far from her hotel in Lithuania. What follows is a dark journey into the gritty world of sex trafficking as Anna tries to work out who murdered the girl, and struggles to trust those around her. 

For me, the only negative point about this book was the ending. Although all the plot points are wrapped up in a satisfying way, it felt a little rushed in places. Anna almost seems to find out the answer too quickly, after spending so much of the book deliberating, and there are no huge twists in the final section—due to the large amount of back-and-forth worrying that Anna has as she suspects other characters, the ending confirms that the bad guy is one of the people she suspected. I was expecting there to be a reveal after this that someone else close to Anna was also involved, and I feel that would’ve just made this book have the edge. 

Overall, this is an engaging crime thriller and well worth the read. 

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC of this book and for the publisher for inviting me to be part of the blog tour with this review. 

My rating: 4 of 5 stars