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ktalbano's review
adventurous
dark
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
okay i thought i had it all figured out… i was mostly wrong lol
but seriously couldn’t stop thinking about this book while i was doing literally anything else. and i really thought i had it down!! to be fair to me i was definitely connecting some dots but the dots that needed to be connected were completely different lol
in my opinion, i don’t feel like we were given enough evidence to figure out who the correct killer was, especially since a lot of the damning proofs came towards the very end of the story.
anyways loved it love a mystery always
but seriously couldn’t stop thinking about this book while i was doing literally anything else. and i really thought i had it down!! to be fair to me i was definitely connecting some dots but the dots that needed to be connected were completely different lol
in my opinion, i don’t feel like we were given enough evidence to figure out who the correct killer was, especially since a lot of the damning proofs came towards the very end of the story.
anyways loved it love a mystery always
Content Warnings
Graphic: Toxic friendship, Child death, Toxic relationship, Domestic abuse, Suicide attempt, Rape, Animal cruelty, Adult/minor relationship, Murder, Violence, and Alcoholism
emerald_moon's review
I DNF’d the book at about 1/3 of the way through because quite honestly…what the fuck??
I read this book as it was the month’s pick for a book club I am a part of. Initially I was intrigued because I thought the premise was interesting—a novel told by both POVs of a murder? Sounds good!
…That’s pretty much where it ended.
The story centers around Anna and Jack. Anna is a TV news reporter who has worked her way up to the top of the journalism latter, only to have her dream job taken away once the journalist who originally had Anna’s current job returns from maternity leave. Not wanting to return to her old, boring job, Anna takes the opportunity to return to her childhood hometown and report on an uncovering murder story. Jack is the detective in charge of the murder investigation.
Both Anna and Jack seem shells of people, effected by traumatic events that happened in their past. It is later revealed they have shared trauma in that once-upon-a-time they were married for 10 years and during that time, began falling out of love with one another but decided to have a child in hopes it would help to mend their relationship. Their daughter was both what brought their relationship back together and ended it as she died 3 months later and Anna and Jack split. When Anna returns to her hometown, she is reunited with Jack and all their old wounds begin to reopen.
More salt in only added to these wounds as the murder victim is discovered to be Anna’s childhood friend Rachel.
The novel flips between the current murder investigation and Anna’s childhood, uncovering the traumatic scars she tries to hide in the present. However, Anna isn’t the only one with secrets to hide. Jack was having an affair with Rachel and saw her right before she was murdered. He decides to hide is relationship from his peers, but this becomes increasingly hard because the murder victim is trying to frame Jack, leaving personal belongings of Rachel’s in his possession.
Throughout the book, the murderer’s POV is shared alongside Anna and Jack’s. The pieces of info they share points the blame on each character as to whom committed the crime, skewing the reader’s ability to truly determine who the murder might be.
I decided to DNF the book after the chapter that discussed what Rachel did to Catherine and then what Rachel did to Anna. It just all left me feeling utterly disgusted.
Prior to this point in the novel, I began losing interest in the story as the writing seemed to become more juvenile and began feeling as if it was the author’s debut novel. For example, Feeney incorporates intriguing quotes like “sometimes I think I am the unreliable narrator of my own life” and “anxiety often screams louder than logic, and when you spend too long imagining the worst, you can make it come true,” at first I thought quotes such as these to be poetic, but they began to feel repetitive and became a majority of the characters’ dialogues. I can see adding these unique thought processes to make the characters more appealing, however, their continued use created the exact opposite effect.
Touching on the characters themselves, I don’t think Feeney created any strong characters, especially Anna and Jack. I found them personally uninteresting. Yes, the mystery surrounding their pasts is intriguing, but that doesn’t make up for them in the present time. They just feel like chess pieces being moved around to solve a murder.
If you know me as a reader, you know I hate predictability, especially in genres like thrillers where I want to be kept guessing and this novel just let me down. It couldn’t have been made more obvious that Anna and Jack had been married so it wasn’t a big shock when they “dropped the bomb” about their relationship. And Catherine wanting to seek revenge? Yeah I could’ve guessed she would to the minute she was described as being bullied.
And now back to the spot that made me DNF the book: Rachel SA Anna. Why was this necessary??? This felt so forced, like Feeney added trauma just for the sake of having Anna go through a traumatic experience. Or should I say another traumatic experience? Adding this just felt so forced. This was the point I decided to look up some one star reviews to see if others shared my thoughts and I could have not stated it better than one reviewer who said “I don’t know how a book can feel like a cliché and also completely unbelievable at the same time?” As I stated before, the book began to lose its appeal the more I read. Thrillers can often be a genre that’s hard to write about just because the same plots get used over and over and if you are not a strong writer you ultimately will not be able to carry out one of these plots. The writing in this book slowly deteriorated making the story just feel more absurd as time went on.
Another reviewer made a good point in that Feeney is creating a poor image of queer women by insinuating that queer women “cannot have friends or meaningful relationships and that queer women are predators.” I think this is why the first scene in which Rachel commits SA was the icing on the cake for me because it felt like such a slap in the face as a queer woman.
After reading these reviews, I ultimately decided to just read a summary of the remainder of the book and I’m glad I did because what the fuck? Continual SA and a gang rape???????? I just have no words.
I refuse to read any other Alice Feeney novels.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Murder, Alcoholism, Bullying, Rape, Alcohol, Dementia, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Child abuse, Toxic relationship, Toxic friendship, and Lesbophobia
boba_n_books's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Holy plot twists, Batman! Good mysteries and thrillers keep you guessing, and that's exactly what Alice Feeney did with His & Hers.
As the name suggests, we get the both the POV of two people who used to be married: "his" and "hers." He is Jack--a detective who used to live in London but is now working the cases of the small country town he grew up in. She is Anna--a newscaster living in London who was assigned to cover a murder in the small town where her ex-husband is living. Jack and Anna discover that the victim was a woman they went to school with, and they both have a heavy history with her. Over the next few days, more people are murdered, and no one knows who they can trust.
Every time I thought I had something figured out, I was nowhere near the truth. This is decidedly one of my favorite Alice Feeney books to date and one that I'd recommend to all mystery and thriller lovers.
As the name suggests, we get the both the POV of two people who used to be married: "his" and "hers." He is Jack--a detective who used to live in London but is now working the cases of the small country town he grew up in. She is Anna--a newscaster living in London who was assigned to cover a murder in the small town where her ex-husband is living. Jack and Anna discover that the victim was a woman they went to school with, and they both have a heavy history with her. Over the next few days, more people are murdered, and no one knows who they can trust.
Every time I thought I had something figured out, I was nowhere near the truth. This is decidedly one of my favorite Alice Feeney books to date and one that I'd recommend to all mystery and thriller lovers.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcoholism, Sexual harassment, Rape, Toxic friendship, Suicidal thoughts, Child death, Toxic relationship, Death, Death of parent, Murder, Grief, and Sexual assault
Moderate: Gun violence, Domestic abuse, Infidelity, Alcohol, and Cursing
Minor: Cancer and Animal cruelty
jneverland's review
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Torture, Toxic friendship, Body horror, Murder, Stalking, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Eating disorder, Suicidal thoughts, Child death, Violence, Animal cruelty, Alcoholism, Domestic abuse, Bullying, Sexual violence, Cancer, Death, Pregnancy, Sexual assault, Grief, Suicide attempt, Blood, Terminal illness, Gore, and Rape
depmythmoon's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
I had a great time reading this book, and it’s closer to a 4.5. Right from the beginning, it had me questioning the credibility of every main character that popped up. All of the characters are so shady and suspicious in their own ways, so it was easy to be led astray. Some of the things these characters were doing are still weird, even after finishing it, and I’m still wondering if everything was as it seemed. They are either guilty or chronically shady.
I tried to predict the twists and turns before the ending as I was reading, but nothing prepared me for the plot twist at the end, with the killer. I didn’t have a large reaction to seeing it, but maybe that was just the shock of it all because I was truly surprised. Even with the big reveal, I’m finding it hard to believe that certain characters didn’t have anything to do with what goes down. They lie too much and have too many secrets that they’re supposedly clinging on to for them to be innocent. I enjoyed throwing out wild accusations to the very end, though… almost. At the end, I was too locked in to be asking too many questions.
The author had so many amazing quotes in this book, it was insane. They started to feel a little performative at times, but I was eating them up regardless. I’m including a couple below:
“We were children masquerading as adults and now we are adults acting like children.”
“A smile doesn’t mean someone is happy, just like tears don’t always mean someone is sad. Our faces lie just as often as our words do.”
Alice Feeney does a wonderful job at setting the tone of the novel, and it got me into a headspace that led to many of my wild accusations. She also invokes suspense and unease incredibly well, especially near the end. I got chills at one point, and I love how it made me feel.
Well, there was one scene that made me SUPER uncomfortable, so I would recommend looking at the trigger warnings for the book before reading. It touches on some heavy topics. I appreciate that it touches on the negative effects of peer pressure, bullying, and popularity on young children. Catherine’s story is just so terrible, and she didn’t deserve anything that happened. Richard was also a surprise; that’s all I’ll say.
When they say that the first person who was killed was a terrible person, please believe it. This person is so twisted and evil that it’s hard to be too upset by their fate.
Overall, it is a book that I would definitely recommend (after giving TWs to anyone who picks it up). It left me wondering how much people lie on a daily basis and wondering the motives for it, and it’s something that’ll stick with me after reading.
I tried to predict the twists and turns before the ending as I was reading, but nothing prepared me for the plot twist at the end, with the killer. I didn’t have a large reaction to seeing it, but maybe that was just the shock of it all because I was truly surprised. Even with the big reveal, I’m finding it hard to believe that certain characters didn’t have anything to do with what goes down. They lie too much and have too many secrets that they’re supposedly clinging on to for them to be innocent. I enjoyed throwing out wild accusations to the very end, though… almost. At the end, I was too locked in to be asking too many questions.
The author had so many amazing quotes in this book, it was insane. They started to feel a little performative at times, but I was eating them up regardless. I’m including a couple below:
“We were children masquerading as adults and now we are adults acting like children.”
“A smile doesn’t mean someone is happy, just like tears don’t always mean someone is sad. Our faces lie just as often as our words do.”
Alice Feeney does a wonderful job at setting the tone of the novel, and it got me into a headspace that led to many of my wild accusations. She also invokes suspense and unease incredibly well, especially near the end. I got chills at one point, and I love how it made me feel.
Well, there was one scene that made me SUPER uncomfortable, so I would recommend looking at the trigger warnings for the book before reading. It touches on some heavy topics. I appreciate that it touches on the negative effects of peer pressure, bullying, and popularity on young children. Catherine’s story is just so terrible, and she didn’t deserve anything that happened. Richard was also a surprise; that’s all I’ll say.
When they say that the first person who was killed was a terrible person, please believe it. This person is so twisted and evil that it’s hard to be too upset by their fate.
Overall, it is a book that I would definitely recommend (after giving TWs to anyone who picks it up). It left me wondering how much people lie on a daily basis and wondering the motives for it, and it’s something that’ll stick with me after reading.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Blood, Toxic friendship, Death, Toxic relationship, and Murder
Moderate: Suicide attempt and Child death
greatexpectations77's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
This one just kept me on the edge of my seat, and it creeped me out real bad. Did not see the end coming, and I was really wondering until the last second who I should feel most afraid of. Alice Feeney writes good shit.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Toxic friendship, Bullying, Alcoholism, Blood, Death, Murder, and Toxic relationship
Moderate: Rape, Animal death, Alcohol, Animal cruelty, Sexual violence, Abandonment, Adult/minor relationship, Body horror, Chronic illness, Infidelity, Suicide attempt, Dementia, Sexual assault, Self harm, Stalking, Grief, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Medical content, Pregnancy, Gore, Gun violence, and Emotional abuse
enlamont's review
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcohol, Child death, Addiction, Murder, and Grief
Moderate: Animal death, Sexual assault, Bullying, Toxic relationship, Rape, Physical abuse, Pedophilia, Body shaming, Toxic friendship, Fatphobia, Domestic abuse, Animal cruelty, Sexual violence, Dementia, Infidelity, Emotional abuse, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Cancer and Suicidal thoughts
dremmavendetta's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
Loved the plot twists which again were a result of strategic literary device. Could have gone without the graphic sexual assault description.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Toxic relationship, Rape, Emotional abuse, Sexual assault, Murder, Sexual violence, Child death, Animal cruelty, Toxic friendship, Dementia, and Suicide attempt
stephs_cozycorner's review against another edition
3.0
"𝙏𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚 𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙩𝙬𝙤 𝙨𝙞𝙙𝙚𝙨 𝙩𝙤 𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙮 𝙨𝙩𝙤𝙧𝙮: 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧𝙨 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙢𝙞𝙣𝙚, 𝙤𝙪𝙧𝙨 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙞𝙧𝙨, 𝙃𝙞𝙨 & 𝙃𝙚𝙧𝙨. 𝙒𝙝𝙞𝙘𝙝 𝙢𝙚𝙖𝙣𝙨 𝙨𝙤𝙢𝙚𝙤𝙣𝙚 𝙞𝙨 𝙖𝙡𝙬𝙖𝙮𝙨 𝙡𝙮𝙞𝙣𝙜."
When a women is murdered in a British village, news reporter Anna Andrews is reluctant to return home and cover the case. Detective Jack Harper is suspicious of her involvement, until he becomes a suspect himself in his own murder investigation.
I wanted to love this one, but I just liked it. I didn’t find there to be much suspense or build up to the murders and characters. It also felt quite repetitive in the way things unfolded.
I was quite shocked in the end with the final twist, but to be honest, I actually didn’t like this final twist, and would have been content with what we thought was the ending before that final reveal.
I rotated between print and audio and I think the audio saved me from disliking this book more to be honest.
Sadly it was a miss for me, but I enjoy her books and will continue to pick them up.
⚠️ Murder. Sexual assault. Animal cruelty. Dementia. Bullying. Cancer (mentioned). Alcoholism. Toxic relationship.
When a women is murdered in a British village, news reporter Anna Andrews is reluctant to return home and cover the case. Detective Jack Harper is suspicious of her involvement, until he becomes a suspect himself in his own murder investigation.
I wanted to love this one, but I just liked it. I didn’t find there to be much suspense or build up to the murders and characters. It also felt quite repetitive in the way things unfolded.
I was quite shocked in the end with the final twist, but to be honest, I actually didn’t like this final twist, and would have been content with what we thought was the ending before that final reveal.
I rotated between print and audio and I think the audio saved me from disliking this book more to be honest.
Sadly it was a miss for me, but I enjoy her books and will continue to pick them up.
⚠️ Murder. Sexual assault. Animal cruelty. Dementia. Bullying. Cancer (mentioned). Alcoholism. Toxic relationship.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Bullying, Sexual assault, Alcoholism, Murder, Animal cruelty, Dementia, and Toxic relationship
Moderate: Cancer
sizzlesteaks's review
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Abandonment, Addiction, Gore, Murder, Sexual violence, Suicide, Alcoholism, Blood, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Child death, Death of parent, Fatphobia, Grief, Infidelity, Torture, Toxic friendship, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Stalking, Violence, Bullying, Domestic abuse, Sexual assault, Suicide attempt, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, Animal cruelty, Body shaming, Cancer, Classism, Death, and Dementia