Reviews

Close To Me by Amanda Reynolds

etienne02's review against another edition

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2.0

2,5/5. Quand les ficelles de la trame narrative sont si grosses cela n’est même plus des ficelles, c’est carrément des câbles! La construction est grossière, évidente et prévisible. Sans être mal écrit, le ton est simple, mais correct, tous les éléments de suspenses sont très mal maitrisés. On peu facilement prédire le tout, dans les grandes lignes, après avoir lu une vingtaine de page. Si comme moi c’est la prémisse qi vous à attirer, aller plutôt lire Avant d’aller dormir de S. J. Watson, beaucoup plus efficace!

jessicamap's review against another edition

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4.0

Thanks to Quercus for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest review!

What would you do if you woke up and couldn't remember anything from the last year of your life? CLOSE TO ME by Amanda Reynolds follows Jo Harding as she struggles to find out what happened to her the night she fell as well has the year of memories she has lost.

We start off with Jo waking up in the hospital. She finds out she has partial amnesia from falling down the stairs. The last thing she can remember - dropping her son off at college - happened a year ago. As she tries to piece together her life from the last year, things don't feel right. Her husband and her children don't feel familiar. Was she the attentive wife and mother she thought she was? As she begins to remember, she quickly realizes that she wasn't who everyone thought she was.

This is definitely more of a "diving inside the mind of the character" type mystery. It's a slow burning mystery/thriller and I felt that Reynolds did a good job pulling me along through the novel. What happened to Jo? I couldn't imagine not knowing what happened for a year of my life and having everyone around me feel foreign. I know that this won't be for everyone - if you're looking for a fast-paced thriller then this won't fit the bill. However, if you like the slow build of tension with a faster paced ending, then you'll have to grab this debut!

Overall, this was a solid debut. It felt a little slow in parts, but that's expected when it's a more character focused suspense. I'll be keeping my eyes peeled for more from Amanda Reynolds in the future!

I give this 4/5 stars

exorcismemily's review against another edition

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3.0

3.5🌟

This was a quick & mysterious read! The story went differently than I expected for it to go, but I think that was the plan. If you like mysteries with unlikable / questionable / unreliable characters, this is 100% the book for you. Thank you so much to @quercus_usa for sending me an early copy of Close to Me!

whatsheread's review against another edition

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There is not anything wrong with Amanda Reynold‘s Close to Me per se. It is exactly what it says it is after all — a domestic psychological story. It may not have much in the way of plot twists; in fact, there are no major surprises within the plot. In spite of that, Ms. Reynolds keeps the tension high through Jo’s increasing frustration and sense of wrongness. The plot kept me entertained enough to quickly read through the story, but I promptly set it aside upon finishing never to consider it again.

Except, now that I am finally getting around to writing a review, I find myself actually thinking about the story and the characters for the first time; I am not impressed with what I remember. For one, the story is old. Wife loses memory; significant other keeps secrets about those missing memories. Everything appears happy and healthy on the surface, but it does not take much scratching below that surface to uncover issues. I said there are no surprises, and there are literally no surprises. The secrets are exactly what you think they are, and the Jo’s accident happens just as you believe it does. Just as her husband plays with Jo’s memories, Ms. Reynolds plays with readers in an effort to make you doubt your guesses, but she does so halfheartedly with an end result that you never truly question yourself.

The characters themselves are just as despicable as befits any domestic thriller. Jo’s husband is needy and overly protective, so obvious in his lies and secrets that you wonder how Jo ever believes him. We do not learn enough about her children to ever form a solid opinion about them other than they go along with their father’s plans to hide the truth when they have no reason to do so. As for Jo, she is supposed to appear as this strong figure who takes things by the hand and sets out to uncover the truth. For me, all I see is her weakness. She is weak, and we repeatedly see this in the easy lies she so willingly accepts, in her inability to follow her instincts, in her shirking of holding people accountable for their actions. The length of time it takes her to finally start asking questions about her flashes of memory and the even longer time it takes her to accept the truth of what happened is disconcerting. There is no character development and nothing to differentiate them from the numerous other husbands and wives keeping secrets from each other. In the end, none of the characters are ones you want to support and with whom you want to sympathize. They all leave a bad taste.

When you get right down to it, Close to Me is one of those novels you sort of enjoy at the time of reading but does not hold up under the most rudimentary of scrutiny. While reading, the story is rather engrossing and sort of fun in a dark way as you read to uncover the secrets and determine how accurate your suppositions are. After reading, you realize how very flat a story it is, filled with all the tropes and with nothing in the way of creativity. To come to this realization only after finishing the novel is disappointing and yet at the same time you shrug and move on with your life. After all, your next book might just become your favorite book of all time so there is no need to dwell on what was not a stellar read.

jess_reads_books's review against another edition

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4.0

Jo Harding wakes up on the way to the hospital in an ambulance. Everyone around her is telling her she fell down the stairs. The last thing Jo can remember is taking her son, Fin, to university with her husband, Rob. The problem is that was a year ago.

Jo has no recollection of what happened in the last year of her life. She can’t remember the night of her fall, but she has an overwhelming sense of dread and fear towards her husband. Rob seems to have convinced her children to not to mention what has happened over the course of the last year. He is constantly reiterating to Jo how happy they are in their marriage. If all of this is true, why does Rob insist on hiding the last year? Why is Jo feeling this way towards the man she has been married to for the last 24 years? Is it possible that Rob pushed her down the stairs?

Amanda Reynolds does a stunning job of drawing the reader in to Jo Harding’s life in CLOSE TO ME. Each chapter is broken down between present day and a flashback from the last year of Jo’s life. As the novel progresses the reader is inched closer to the day of the fall, until we’re finally able to learn what has happened. Reynolds presents the reader not only with an unreliable narrator, but a cast of unreliable secondary characters as well. The reader is never sure who to trust with the information they’re revealing to Jo about her life, as each person she talks to has individual motives to spin their stories in their best light. At the end of the novel Reynolds creates a masterful ending where each loose end is neatly tied and the reader is left feeling fulfilled. CLOSE TO ME is a slow-burn psychological thriller presented in a unique style with chapters containing both past and present, in which the reader is give a web of lies they must work to untangle while trusting the less than accurate mind of a woman suffering from partial amnesia.

A special thank you to Quercus USA and Amanda Reynolds for providing me a copy of CLOSE TO ME in exchange for my honest and unbiased review.

patriciajoan's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious medium-paced
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

theelliemo's review against another edition

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1.0

Jo lost the last 12 months of her memory after she regains consciousness at the bottom of the stairs. But did she fall, or was she pushed?

More importantly, does anyone care? I don’t know whether the author intended for lead character Jo to be such a dislikeable character, or whether she hasn’t yet developed the skill to draw her character better, but I never cared about Jo, nor any of the other characters.

It’s takes more skill as a writer than this author has to carry off a book with not a single likeable main character in it.

vicki_cosy_books's review against another edition

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4.0

Warning! Make sure you have a clear few hours when you begin this book. I don't know about other readers but I do this thing, between all the other stuff I need to do, where I'll say "I'll read 50 pages then I'll hoover the bedroom" or "30 pages then I'll make dinner". I wouldn't get anything else done otherwise if I didn't set these limits.

So, when starting Close To Me a few days ago, while having a break from attempting to tame my overgrown garden, I gave myself 50 pages. Well, when I checked to see how I was doing I was stunned to find I'd just devoured almost 100! Seriously, this book's pages turn themselves. Amanda Reynolds' writing just flows in a gripping and compelling stream, making for a very, very readable story.

The book is told in alternating chapters of the days following Jo's accident and the year leading up to it. It works so well, as the reader discovers what led to the breakdown of her family at the same time as Jo. You get to know Jo almost as she gets to know herself and I found I really connected to her and could relate to some of what she is experiencing in the early days before her fall. Jo is going through a time of change, her youngest child has just left home for university and she needs to redefine herself and purpose - something familiar to me as both my children begin to move on. But unlike myself, Jo is surrounded by manipulating people, taken advantage of by her husband, her kids and then others who sense her vulnerability. I loved the subtle development of her character right through the book, and by the end felt satisfied that this now strong and purposeful woman was going to be ok.

The subtle tension created in this book holds right through, with clever twists revealed at just the right moments, keeping me intrigued. Jo's memory loss ensures that the reader is kept guessing about what really lead to the night of the accident along with Jo herself, with clues and suggestions coming in flashbacks. But with sketchy memories and some confusion, how much can we believe of Jo herself? Is her husband Rob trying to protect her or manipulate her? I couldn't stop reading and had to know what was going on, frantically turning pages to fit in just a little bit more and ended up finishing it within a day.

Close To Me is not a heart pumping, edge of your seat thriller. The tension and twists are far more subtle than that. This is a dark story of a marriage and family gone stale, emotional abuse, manipulation and mistrust from those nearest. It's the story of a woman loosing herself even before she looses her memory and a journey of rediscovery and redefining as she finds the strength to gain control of her life . It is compulsive, one-more-chapter reading and I highly recommend it.

jackielaw's review against another edition

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3.0

Close To Me, by Amanda Reynolds, is a domestic thriller in which a woman suffers memory loss following a head injury. The protagonist is Jo Harding, an affluent stay-at-home wife and mother of two grown children. When the story opens she is lying at the bottom of a flight of stairs in their luxurious home. Her concerned husband hovers over her and medical assistance is on its way. Jo remembers little of what happened but is aware that she does not want her husband near.

The tale progresses along two timelines, the first starting from her fall, the second from a year ago. It is Jo’s memories of this year that she has lost. Gradually fragments return but she struggles to place them in context. She discovers that the settled family life she has relied upon, the life she still remembers, has fallen apart.

Jo’s husband, Rob, is reluctant to fully fill in her blanks. She finds his proximity and concern stifling. Their two children, Sash and Fin, are also reticent and more distant than she expects. Initially Jo feels too battered and exhausted to fight back against their secrecy. She also grows afraid of what she may discover when her memory returns. As her recovery progresses she sets about reclaiming her life.

There are the requisite twists and turns as the reader is fed suggestions of disagreements, infidelity and violence but must wait for the truths to be revealed. Jo volunteered at a drop-in centre where she befriended Rose and Nick whose existence Rob deleted from her digital records following her fall. Sash has an older boyfriend whose image triggers disturbing recollections. Fin appears estranged for reasons Jo cannot recall.

Jo is a needy mother, mourning the role she assigned herself in life now that her children have flown the nest. She is aspirational on their behalf, convinced that her offspring could have fabulous futures if they would only do as she says. Jo struggles to move on, to accept the decisions they make for themselves.

I read this book in a sitting; the writing throughout is taut and engaging. There were, however, aspects that grated. Jo and Rob played a ‘game’ where they discussed the method they would choose to kill each other, a conversation I found weird. Jo opines that “Rob’s love and loyalty are two things I never have to worry about” which came across as glib.

As a novel to provide escapism this is a well constructed thriller even if personally I prefer stories with more breadth and depth. For those looking for easy entertainment, with an added touch of the disturbing, this could be a good book to read.

My copy of this book was provided gratis by the publisher, Wildfire.
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