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marliz3ereading's review against another edition
3.0
This book was difficult to read, hard to get into... But I must say, well done... I wasn't expecting the ending and was caught by surprise at the turn of events... I also liked the fact that it didn't have a happy happy ending, but an almost real life ending... Not my book of the year, and I wouldn't put it on my highly recommended list, but if your bored and it's there, you might as well read it...
tfitoby's review against another edition
3.0
I recently saw the film adaptation of this book, a wonderfully subtle socially aware crime film that suffers with a terrible postscript that nevertheless I rated as my favourite film of 2015 so far, without that movie I would never have dipped my toes in to the populist thriller waters that Laura Lippman's fiction resides in, in my mind at least. Whilst I respect her subtle way of writing a popular novel with a cast of characters that doesn't include one white male the subtlety ends there unlike with the Holofcener/Berg adaptation.
Lippman takes you on a roundabout route to a far more suitable postscript to the movie, travelling from an unforgivably shocking act in the prologue through some almost Carver-esque tableaux of every day existence for her wide cast of characters - major and incredibly minor; a tactic I applaud the use of in genre fiction, not everything has to be about driving the plot and thrills and shocking the reader, many miles can be gained through such careful and patient world building. However in this instance the tactic fails, Lippman places moments from certain major characters lives at odd intervals in her structured plotting, drawing attention to the mechanics of the craft and making it obvious that THERE IS A REASON for this brief paragraph that seemingly tells you nothing, therefore undermining the entire intended effect of shock and awe as clarity is eventually brought to proceedings.
In the grand scheme of contemporary female centric thriller novels this places down there with your generic Gillian Flynn's of the world, not a patch on your superior authors such as Megan Abbott and Sara Gran. But hey sometimes people want cheap and easy food instead of noir steak I guess.
Lippman takes you on a roundabout route to a far more suitable postscript to the movie, travelling from an unforgivably shocking act in the prologue through some almost Carver-esque tableaux of every day existence for her wide cast of characters - major and incredibly minor; a tactic I applaud the use of in genre fiction, not everything has to be about driving the plot and thrills and shocking the reader, many miles can be gained through such careful and patient world building. However in this instance the tactic fails, Lippman places moments from certain major characters lives at odd intervals in her structured plotting, drawing attention to the mechanics of the craft and making it obvious that THERE IS A REASON for this brief paragraph that seemingly tells you nothing, therefore undermining the entire intended effect of shock and awe as clarity is eventually brought to proceedings.
In the grand scheme of contemporary female centric thriller novels this places down there with your generic Gillian Flynn's of the world, not a patch on your superior authors such as Megan Abbott and Sara Gran. But hey sometimes people want cheap and easy food instead of noir steak I guess.
carriegunther's review against another edition
2.0
Meh, it was pretty predictible and dragged through the middle
ireadatknight's review against another edition
4.0
Startee well....fizzled at the end...wrapped up too quickly
poziomka86's review against another edition
2.0
I got this book knowing nothing about Laura Lippman’s writing, being completely ignorant about any of her novels, certainly knowing nothing about this book, other than what the blurbs on the back say. It was dirt cheap, seemed to be a promise of an easy read for when my mind is rather murky (or simply absent) so I went with it.
Easy read I wanted, easy read is what I got, although it turned out to be a typical mystery – stuff I am not too fond of. The gist of the story is the murder of a 9-month old black baby by two 11-year old white girls. Seven years later, after the culprits are released from their juvenile detention centers, little girls keep disappearing, just for a minute, or for an hour, only to be found before anyone has the time to stir serious panic. Until one time a 3-year old baby girl disappears, this time for good. That’s where “Every Secret Thing” takes off, and that’s also where it’s starting to get worse and worse.
This book is all about characters, which I normally enjoy, except here most of them are irritating and unlikable. The most interesting character is one of the girls’ mother – Helen Manning – a single mother with almost obsessive dedication to original tastes in everything. The girls themselves, Ronnie and Alice, are portrayed in a way that eludes any concrete pinpointing and labeling. Unfortunately we do not get too much time with these characters. Instead we listen to stories of an annoyingly insecure detective Nancy, or of a whiny and plain-witted reporter Mira. There are more characters that serve very little purpose and that you just want to wave away as if they were a couple of bothersome flies but, ALAS, you cannot.
The plot. Well, you’ll love it if you love SECRETS. Man, is there a pile of secrets or, rather, the sneaky-sneaky hints of existing secrets. I am being sort of sarcastic here because these hints were getting rather trying on my patience after a while. I am not even sure if they were all explained in the end or not, there were so many of them. I realize that the title is “Every Secret Thing” but, please, stop teasing me like I am a simpleton. I have a brain and I can see clearly what there is that is left to be explained, I don’t need for anyone to reiterate it to me. Other than that, the plot is fast-paced, perhaps a little clunky right before we get most of the answers to most of our possible questions, and then we close the book relieved we don’t have to meet most of these petty, self-absorbed characters ever again.
Easy read I wanted, easy read is what I got, although it turned out to be a typical mystery – stuff I am not too fond of. The gist of the story is the murder of a 9-month old black baby by two 11-year old white girls. Seven years later, after the culprits are released from their juvenile detention centers, little girls keep disappearing, just for a minute, or for an hour, only to be found before anyone has the time to stir serious panic. Until one time a 3-year old baby girl disappears, this time for good. That’s where “Every Secret Thing” takes off, and that’s also where it’s starting to get worse and worse.
This book is all about characters, which I normally enjoy, except here most of them are irritating and unlikable. The most interesting character is one of the girls’ mother – Helen Manning – a single mother with almost obsessive dedication to original tastes in everything. The girls themselves, Ronnie and Alice, are portrayed in a way that eludes any concrete pinpointing and labeling. Unfortunately we do not get too much time with these characters. Instead we listen to stories of an annoyingly insecure detective Nancy, or of a whiny and plain-witted reporter Mira. There are more characters that serve very little purpose and that you just want to wave away as if they were a couple of bothersome flies but, ALAS, you cannot.
The plot. Well, you’ll love it if you love SECRETS. Man, is there a pile of secrets or, rather, the sneaky-sneaky hints of existing secrets. I am being sort of sarcastic here because these hints were getting rather trying on my patience after a while. I am not even sure if they were all explained in the end or not, there were so many of them. I realize that the title is “Every Secret Thing” but, please, stop teasing me like I am a simpleton. I have a brain and I can see clearly what there is that is left to be explained, I don’t need for anyone to reiterate it to me. Other than that, the plot is fast-paced, perhaps a little clunky right before we get most of the answers to most of our possible questions, and then we close the book relieved we don’t have to meet most of these petty, self-absorbed characters ever again.
callmemeg's review against another edition
1.0
This was poorly written & dragged on forever with irrelevancy. So I stopped reading.
dr_jgray's review against another edition
2.0
LAME! It's like this author really gets off on hiding things from the reader. I felt intentionally tricked. It didn't feel suspenseful, it felt like Lippman intentionally hides things from the reader to make the ending more powerful.