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3.86 AVERAGE
3.86 AVERAGE
Have to be honest...this is 2 1/2 stars at best for me. I stuck with it because it's an easy read and I was indeed intrigued by the mystery. Because I am a sucker for a whodunit.
But, ugh! Was there one character in this book to like? ONE?
You can have unsympathetic characters and still love a book. (See: Gone Girl)
But not here. So freakin' whiny. It verged on intolerable at times. But again, the easy read and subtle lure of the mystery kept me going.
As a side note, I immediately followed up reading this book with listening to the Serial podcast. A real life whodunit mystery where someone may or may not have gone to jail for a murder, and it's 15 years later.
Even with Serial's ending as it was, it was significantly more satisfying than this book. I kept thinking...if only That Night was this good!
But, ugh! Was there one character in this book to like? ONE?
You can have unsympathetic characters and still love a book. (See: Gone Girl)
But not here. So freakin' whiny. It verged on intolerable at times. But again, the easy read and subtle lure of the mystery kept me going.
As a side note, I immediately followed up reading this book with listening to the Serial podcast. A real life whodunit mystery where someone may or may not have gone to jail for a murder, and it's 15 years later.
Even with Serial's ending as it was, it was significantly more satisfying than this book. I kept thinking...if only That Night was this good!
This was a good read. It definitely kept me turning the pages. Toni's parents were awful, especially her mother. That woman had no redeeming qualities anywhere. This book was hard to read at times. Toni and Ryan just went through so much. Way more than people should have too. It got frustrating for me about the third time Toni was returned to prison. I mean seriously, her mother was an awful mother before, she was bullied constantly by the mean girls at school, she lost her few friends she had, got accused of everything at home vs her perfect sister who never did wrong in her parents eyes. Then her sister is murdered, her and the only person who loves her Ryan are thrown in prison for it, her parents don't believe her, no one seems to believe in their innocence , fighting to stay alive in prison, fighting to stay alive in the half way house. Then she has to fight to keep( and loses) a job, a place to live and her poor dog. Then the only mother figure she has dies. It was just too much! I mean, seriously, they just had to go through so much and then to go back not once but twice was bullshit. Her mother is still a hateful, mean, vindictive bitch and I never got to see any happy scenes with her and Ryan at the end, though it is insinuated they are going to be together. Good read in suspense terms, it kept me wanting to see justice but that Shawna had way more coming to her than what she got. I would have liked an epilogue where Toni was finally happy with Ryan and her dog with her dad in her life (without the bitch mother) and you read about all the terrible stuff happening to Shawna in prison. It is a Chevy Stevens book so very good writing but depressing with all they had to go through. I think Still Missing will remain my favorite, but if you love this author like I do, it is definitely worth a read.
Toni and her boyfriend were convicted of the murder of her teenage sister and after completing her sentence, she goes back to her hometown to find out what really happened. I liked the first-person narrative and that it went back and forth between Toni's teen years, her time in prison, and the period after her release. I also love how it touched on how hard life is after you've been incarcerated. I didn't care for Toni, but it was well-written and it had a nice surprise ending.
I read this because Lee Child wrote a positive blurb. Lee! Why? This was only OK. :-( I won't read any more by this author.
All of the reviews for this book are glowing my review isn’t going to be. I am also probably going to accidentally spoil minor things. I read this because of the good reviews so I am going to be brutally honest here.
Okay the whole premise of this book is supposed to be about the main character and her boyfriend being accused and convicted of her sisters murder and them then getting out and figuring out who did it. Toni doesn’t decide she wants to figure out what actually happened that night until the last 77 pages of the book. I know this because I literally looked at how much was left because I was shocked that it took her this long to finally decide to be involved with clearing her name and punishing her sister’s killer. I was trying so hard to like this book. But honestly I hated it. For so many reasons. I normally don’t keep reading when I hate a book but because of the reviews I was convinced it would get better so I kept reading and honestly it was such a waste of time.
The main theme of this book is Shauna is a meanie and can change her voice to sound like anyone so she can get away with everything. She is a classic mean girl villain. All of the characters are actually classic characters. No one is unique. Or likable. I didn’t like any of them at all. You have parents who don’t understand their children, perfect sibling and problem sibling, bad boy, convict stereotypes, ect. This book is full of stereotypes. The only characters I liked were the dog, the restaurant owner, and the mean girl’s daughter. No one else was likable. At all.
That brings me to my next beef with this book. It’s so incredibly immature and poorly written. This book feels unedited? It’s just so unorganized at times. For example she sometimes will go from introducing a new character (that isn’t even relevant) to a random stream of consciousness of the main character then back to introducing characters and the two barely relate. It feels like the author is constantly just throwing as much information that she can think of at the reader as possible. I love backstory but I don’t understand why the entire first half of the book was backstory. That backstory didn’t even necessarily lay the groundwork for what actually happened either? The story progressed so painfully slow. Then good bits were laced in with unimportant and irritating fluff. The exciting page turning parts of the book were so brief. This book was so frustrating. I did not need to read so much about the main character being bullied. I get it. These girls were mean. I am a girl I have been personally victimized by mean girls. This just was so much of a drama and not enough mystery. Also look I have never been to prison but seriously? That’s all I’ll say on that. I rolled my eyes so many times reading this book. So many times. It’s just one big ramble about mean girls, injustice, I am so hard because was in prison, and (my favorite) oh yeah my sister is dead maybe I should care about that.
I refuse to acknowledge the Ryan and Toni love story. I don’t read romance so I feel like I can’t comment on that. I will say it irritated me she was more concerned with Ryan then the fact her sister was murdered. He was more motivated to get her justice then she was. What was up with that? If someone murdered my sister I do not care I am going on a freaking war path.
Why did I finish this book you ask? Well I was too far in to quit. I hate read this book. I needed to know the ending. I wanted to see if the ending was amazing. Was it? Well the reason for Nicole’s death was a shock and satisfying. The events played out in a thrilling way. But also at the same time a lot of thrill was packed into the moment. Ryan didn’t need to be there. That did not make sense. At all. Why was he there? But other than that the explanation of what happened satisfied me. I am glad I finished the book just for the explanation. The interaction between Toni and her parole officer may have been the only time in the book I liked Toni.
I really enjoyed the ending. By ending I mean the last 24 pages. The explanation of what happened. That was the best part of the book. I am rating this one star because this book is going straight to a free little library on my walking route. I loved the concept but the delivery wasn’t great.
Okay the whole premise of this book is supposed to be about the main character and her boyfriend being accused and convicted of her sisters murder and them then getting out and figuring out who did it. Toni doesn’t decide she wants to figure out what actually happened that night until the last 77 pages of the book. I know this because I literally looked at how much was left because I was shocked that it took her this long to finally decide to be involved with clearing her name and punishing her sister’s killer. I was trying so hard to like this book. But honestly I hated it. For so many reasons. I normally don’t keep reading when I hate a book but because of the reviews I was convinced it would get better so I kept reading and honestly it was such a waste of time.
The main theme of this book is Shauna is a meanie and can change her voice to sound like anyone so she can get away with everything. She is a classic mean girl villain. All of the characters are actually classic characters. No one is unique. Or likable. I didn’t like any of them at all. You have parents who don’t understand their children, perfect sibling and problem sibling, bad boy, convict stereotypes, ect. This book is full of stereotypes. The only characters I liked were the dog, the restaurant owner, and the mean girl’s daughter. No one else was likable. At all.
That brings me to my next beef with this book. It’s so incredibly immature and poorly written. This book feels unedited? It’s just so unorganized at times. For example she sometimes will go from introducing a new character (that isn’t even relevant) to a random stream of consciousness of the main character then back to introducing characters and the two barely relate. It feels like the author is constantly just throwing as much information that she can think of at the reader as possible. I love backstory but I don’t understand why the entire first half of the book was backstory. That backstory didn’t even necessarily lay the groundwork for what actually happened either? The story progressed so painfully slow. Then good bits were laced in with unimportant and irritating fluff. The exciting page turning parts of the book were so brief. This book was so frustrating. I did not need to read so much about the main character being bullied. I get it. These girls were mean. I am a girl I have been personally victimized by mean girls. This just was so much of a drama and not enough mystery. Also look I have never been to prison but seriously? That’s all I’ll say on that. I rolled my eyes so many times reading this book. So many times. It’s just one big ramble about mean girls, injustice, I am so hard because was in prison, and (my favorite) oh yeah my sister is dead maybe I should care about that.
I refuse to acknowledge the Ryan and Toni love story. I don’t read romance so I feel like I can’t comment on that. I will say it irritated me she was more concerned with Ryan then the fact her sister was murdered. He was more motivated to get her justice then she was. What was up with that? If someone murdered my sister I do not care I am going on a freaking war path.
Why did I finish this book you ask? Well I was too far in to quit. I hate read this book. I needed to know the ending. I wanted to see if the ending was amazing. Was it? Well the reason for Nicole’s death was a shock and satisfying. The events played out in a thrilling way. But also at the same time a lot of thrill was packed into the moment. Ryan didn’t need to be there. That did not make sense. At all. Why was he there? But other than that the explanation of what happened satisfied me. I am glad I finished the book just for the explanation. The interaction between Toni and her parole officer may have been the only time in the book I liked Toni.
I really enjoyed the ending. By ending I mean the last 24 pages. The explanation of what happened. That was the best part of the book. I am rating this one star because this book is going straight to a free little library on my walking route. I loved the concept but the delivery wasn’t great.
This was so frustrating because I really felt for the character! The justice system is trash and it was nice that it didn’t feel entirely hopeless. The ending was satisfying, especially cause I wasn’t sure if things would be okay in the end.
I did not see that ending coming! So good! It kept me on the edge of my seat.
This is my third chevy Stevens book I've read. She tends to have a theme sometimes, but in this book it wasn't evident at all. I loved this book