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407 reviews for:

The Favor

Nora Murphy

3.7 AVERAGE

dark emotional informative sad tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: No

It was an OK book to read.  Not that bad,  but but the greatest. The author gives a lot of useful information in the authors note.  

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

McKenna and Leah live in neighboring developments and Leah notices McKenna in a local liquor store and thinks she likes a lot like her and decides to follow her home to see what her life is like. Leah's life in full of alcohol and sadness. She finds that McKenna's life parallels hers in many more ways than their resemblance. These two women are both victims of husbands who are abusive. They are trapped and they do not see any way out of their marriages. Their husbands are respected professionals and no on would believe their stories of abuse. One night Leah does a "favor" for McKenna without knowing that she's changed both of their lives moving forward. These two women are not friends, never actually have a real conversation but both are aware of the other. It's a story really brings marital abuse into the forefront and shows how trapped a woman can feel in what seems like the best marriage that women would be envious of.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ really enjoyed this - definitely one of the best books I’ve read this year. It’s heavy - it’s about two women both trapped in abusive marriages. I think it’d be easy for some to criticize this book because the women stayed in these bad relationships and you’re yelling “I would never stand for this! Leave him!” as you read about their suffering…but you’d be completely missing the point. Highly recommend this one.

This would have been a 4.5 star book for me if it hadn't been for the point of view of the detective. Maybe the audiobook narrator's voice added to this but he sounded so clichéd that it almost seemed like a parody at times. His chapters were very frustrating for me to get through because I just didn't care that much. I really liked the female protagonists and felt like that added perspective wasn't really necessary. It would have been more intriguing for the characters to slowly figure out what he knew, instead of it being spelled out like that.

Overall, I still liked it and would definitely read another book by this author.

Read about Karen's Pick of the Week on our blog, Shelf Life: https://shelflife.cooklib.org/2022/06/14/karens-book-of-the-week-the-favor-by-nora-murphy/

Check our catalog: https://encore.cooklib.org/iii/encore/search/C__Sthe%20favor%20nora%20murphy__Orightresult__U?lang=eng&suite=gold

I honestly picked this up on a whim at the airport. I also wasn’t expecting to be so enthralled by it. Such a good story with great characters which kept me sucked in till the end.
dark tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes
dark emotional tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated
dark medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

I feel really conflicted about this one.

The story isn't great. Everything you expect to happen does and not a single thing more. There isn't even a twist so I'm not sure why it's being referred to as a thriller. It doesn't feel like a suspense novel either as the blurb and title tell the entire plot. It's not a mystery either, as the reader knows exactly what is going on. There is so much passive language I became irritated reading some chapters. Just set these chapters in the past - other chapters were set up to a year ago. The similarity of the two main characters meant that I felt as though I was having to read every chapter twice over, which was not fun in the slightest. I did appreciate the last chapter and a few from the beginning which is why I'm giving this two stars. But a large chunk of the middle was completely unnecessary, given that absolutely nothing happened for the majority of the book.

The lead detective is one of the most incompetent and clueless detectives I've ever read. Despite his partner being in a coma after responding to a domestic violence case turned lethal and him visiting her constantly in hospital to think out loud about cases he is working, the thought of domestic violence does not once cross his mind as being relevant in these cases. He talks about how the only murders that have happened in his county are the result of domestic violence, yet when he is presented with violent cases he doesn't consider this to be a possibility until the very end. I was never in suspense about whether or not the murderer would be caught due to his subpar detective work.

I appreciate Murphy trying to shed light on domestic violence between higher income professional couples. At the same time, I do not appreciate the sameness of the two main characters and their partnerships. Both are pretty blonde white women married to rich men they met during law/medical school. The entire plot hinges on one character's ability to see themselves in the other woman, which is certainly easy when they see they live in the same neighbourhood, have the same life, the same hair, the same skin, and the same abusive marriage. If the characters can only empathise with people who look like them, that's not empathy. I would have loved to see representation of domestic violence between other people to spread more awareness on a larger scale: eg. LGBT+ couples, family violence perpetrated against non-marriage partners, couples of other races, female abuser and male victim, etc. Showing domestic abuse between de-facto or unmarried couples may have strengthened Murphy's message as well. Showing that these people are not legally bound to their partner and still cannot leave could have better explained the reality of these relationships as I am sure some readers will still have the opinion that victims should "just leave" which is not always easy to do.