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anovelbookworm's review
2.0
What did I just read?! I'm not sure what to make of this book... To be honest, I think it's a bit messed up. I found the protagonist, Geniver, incredibly annoying. I can't even begin to imagine how awful it would be to have a child that is stillborn.. Yet I find her obsessive nature very irritating.
I felt like certain characters were completely irrelevant to the plot, except to be another suspect. But there is nothing convincing about these characters to make you believe they are actually the culprit.
Once I got half way through the book it did make me want to keep reading. I just couldn't get my head around what was going on, and once I did I still wanted to know the reasons why. When everything falls into place I was just shocked, granted it wasn't what I expected at all. The end of the last chapter is slightly terrifying. Overall it's a interesting book... but I'm not sure I can say I 'enjoyed' reading it.
I felt like certain characters were completely irrelevant to the plot, except to be another suspect. But there is nothing convincing about these characters to make you believe they are actually the culprit.
Once I got half way through the book it did make me want to keep reading. I just couldn't get my head around what was going on, and once I did I still wanted to know the reasons why. When everything falls into place I was just shocked, granted it wasn't what I expected at all. The end of the last chapter is slightly terrifying. Overall it's a interesting book... but I'm not sure I can say I 'enjoyed' reading it.
cadiemaas's review
2.0
Meh. The main character, Geniver, was not especially likeable and despite her very sad story, it was hard to connect to her. Actually, all of the characters seemed flat. The twist at the end was ridiculous.
cassy's review
3.0
I listened to the audio version of this book via Scribd. It was a bit predictable, but there were a few red herrings dispersed throughout so I gave it 1 more star than I would have otherwise. I'm just not a fan of foolish or gullible female protagonists, or else I may have given it 4 stars. I just couldn't stand behind Gen.
amythebookbat's review
3.0
The book started kind of slow, but picked up quite a bit. Toward the end, I didn't want to stop listening. The main character was kind of whiny. I understand that she was upset about losing her baby, but she was still whining about it after 8 years. I guess some people never recover from something like that. Having been through 2 miscarriages myself, I felt sympathy for her loss but irritation about her mentioning it over and over. Anyway, I thought the overall storyline was interesting and engaging. I had figured out the who but not the why before the big reveal. It was somewhat surprising/shocking. Anyway, I'm thinking this book is 3.5 stars.
aundie27's review
2.0
I fast forwarded through most of this audio book--shocked that this was 11 discs, and I was bored after #3. I'm sure that losing a baby is hard, but the woman was just so dull that I got tired of her whining.
expendablemudge's review
4.0
Rating: 4* of five
The Publisher Says: When Geniver Loxley lost her daughter at birth eight years ago, her world stopped… and never fully started again. Mothers with strollers still make her flinch; her love of writing has turned into a half-hearted teaching career; and she and her husband, Art, have slipped into the kind of rut that seems inescapable.
But then a stranger shows up on their doorstep, telling Gen the very thing she’s always wanted to hear: that her daughter Beth was not stillborn, but was taken away as a healthy infant and is still out there, somewhere, waiting to be found. It’s insane, unbelievable. But why would anyone make that up? A fissure suddenly opens up in Gen’s carefully reconstructed life, letting in a flood of unanswerable questions. Where is Beth now? Why is Art so reluctant to get involved? To save his wife from further hurt? Or is it something more sinister? And who can she trust to help her?
Ignoring the warnings of her husband and friends, Gen begins to delve into the dark corners of her past, hopeful she’ll find a clue to her daughter’s whereabouts. But hope quickly turns into fear and paranoia, as she realizes that finding the answers might open the door to something even worse than not knowing. A truth that could steal everything she holds close – even her own life.
My Review: I won this book in an email giveaway from St. Martin's/Minotaur Books' e-newsletter, Criminal Element. Whee! Thanks guys!
Sophie McKenzie is one to watch out for. She can tell a story that, when you realize the underlying conceit of it, only makes the story she's crafted more interesting, sharpens the poignancy of it, and makes the ending both inevitable and sharply, horribly shocking.
Oh dear. That doesn't sound like something one would necessarily want to read, does it.
Um.
You see, there is a layer of the story that I, Mr. Get-Over-It about spoilers, don't want to give away in advance. The dawning realization about the underpinning of the story McKenzie is telling you is one of the most satisfying pleasures of the novel. There's really no Big Reveal, no Moment of Truth, in this realization. It's a dawning awareness of a resonance, a few details that catch on a thorn of memory, unraveling a strand in the plot that..."OH! I get it now!" And that wonderful moment is what I don't want to deprive you of.
So! How's the weather where you are? I can't review the book too closely, you'll get it and that'll just blow it all. I had curry-toast with sharp cheddar for lunch today. We're out of chutney, though, darn it. I had some olives, luckily, and they were tasty with the curry-cheddar spicytart flavors. Much like the novel I'm not discussing. The narrative's complexity of savor is there, just needs to be experienced.
Hell's bells. Buy the darn thing and read it. Suspense novel readers won't see new ground broken, but a very good and carefully crafted story is a generous reward for your eyeblinks. Even if the underpinning of the story isn't obvious to you until the last page, the reward is a solid, suspenseful story of one woman's path out of the featureless gray fog of depression. Like any journey, it has antagonists and it has guides and it's not always clear who is what to whom.
And that, my friends, is the fun of reading a suspense novel, isn't it? Savor. Enjoy. Smile knowingly early on or slap your forehead and shout "of course!" at the end...no matter, you're in for a treat.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
First posted at Expendable Mudge Muses Aloud.
The Publisher Says: When Geniver Loxley lost her daughter at birth eight years ago, her world stopped… and never fully started again. Mothers with strollers still make her flinch; her love of writing has turned into a half-hearted teaching career; and she and her husband, Art, have slipped into the kind of rut that seems inescapable.
But then a stranger shows up on their doorstep, telling Gen the very thing she’s always wanted to hear: that her daughter Beth was not stillborn, but was taken away as a healthy infant and is still out there, somewhere, waiting to be found. It’s insane, unbelievable. But why would anyone make that up? A fissure suddenly opens up in Gen’s carefully reconstructed life, letting in a flood of unanswerable questions. Where is Beth now? Why is Art so reluctant to get involved? To save his wife from further hurt? Or is it something more sinister? And who can she trust to help her?
Ignoring the warnings of her husband and friends, Gen begins to delve into the dark corners of her past, hopeful she’ll find a clue to her daughter’s whereabouts. But hope quickly turns into fear and paranoia, as she realizes that finding the answers might open the door to something even worse than not knowing. A truth that could steal everything she holds close – even her own life.
My Review: I won this book in an email giveaway from St. Martin's/Minotaur Books' e-newsletter, Criminal Element. Whee! Thanks guys!
Sophie McKenzie is one to watch out for. She can tell a story that, when you realize the underlying conceit of it, only makes the story she's crafted more interesting, sharpens the poignancy of it, and makes the ending both inevitable and sharply, horribly shocking.
Oh dear. That doesn't sound like something one would necessarily want to read, does it.
Um.
You see, there is a layer of the story that I, Mr. Get-Over-It about spoilers, don't want to give away in advance. The dawning realization about the underpinning of the story McKenzie is telling you is one of the most satisfying pleasures of the novel. There's really no Big Reveal, no Moment of Truth, in this realization. It's a dawning awareness of a resonance, a few details that catch on a thorn of memory, unraveling a strand in the plot that..."OH! I get it now!" And that wonderful moment is what I don't want to deprive you of.
So! How's the weather where you are? I can't review the book too closely, you'll get it and that'll just blow it all. I had curry-toast with sharp cheddar for lunch today. We're out of chutney, though, darn it. I had some olives, luckily, and they were tasty with the curry-cheddar spicytart flavors. Much like the novel I'm not discussing. The narrative's complexity of savor is there, just needs to be experienced.
Hell's bells. Buy the darn thing and read it. Suspense novel readers won't see new ground broken, but a very good and carefully crafted story is a generous reward for your eyeblinks. Even if the underpinning of the story isn't obvious to you until the last page, the reward is a solid, suspenseful story of one woman's path out of the featureless gray fog of depression. Like any journey, it has antagonists and it has guides and it's not always clear who is what to whom.
And that, my friends, is the fun of reading a suspense novel, isn't it? Savor. Enjoy. Smile knowingly early on or slap your forehead and shout "of course!" at the end...no matter, you're in for a treat.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
First posted at Expendable Mudge Muses Aloud.
pgchuis's review
3.0
Geniver and Art's baby, Beth, was stillborn eight years ago, but one day a woman comes to the door and tells Gen that her sister was the nurse who assisted at the C-section and, before dying, she confided that the baby had been born alive and that Art knew this to be the case. I enjoyed the first half of this book very much, although it was a little slow to get going. While Gen is trying to work out how much to believe and does some amateur sleuthing with Lorcan, the story was a page-turner, but the last few chapters covering the last few hours and containing the "big reveal" were all a bit much. The body count alone was ridiculous, and don't get me started on the whole incestuous relationship/abortion/infertility storyline.
The fact that it was Morgan who had the missing child I worked out just before it was revealed (always a good feeling!) but Art's motivations were unconvincing. The author left them intentionally murky, or perhaps mixed, but they never seemed compelling enough to me. Art's character was a mystery to me - his lies took Gen in so completely for so many years, when she questioned him about her growing suspicions he remained calm and maintained the story, and yet we are told that he loved Gen so much that he did all this for her to protect her from Morgan...? I could not work out where his allegiances truly lay. I also had issues with the basic premises - did Ed's school believe Morgan and Art to be his parents? I know the idea was that Morgan believed money could get you anything, but they must have some major document-forger criminal associates.
The final pages from Ed's perspective were chilling and actually a lot more realistic than Gen's seeming belief that she can be a mother to him and that everything will be OK in the end.
The fact that it was Morgan who had the missing child I worked out just before it was revealed (always a good feeling!) but Art's motivations were unconvincing. The author left them intentionally murky, or perhaps mixed, but they never seemed compelling enough to me. Art's character was a mystery to me - his lies took Gen in so completely for so many years, when she questioned him about her growing suspicions he remained calm and maintained the story, and yet we are told that he loved Gen so much that he did all this for her to protect her from Morgan...? I could not work out where his allegiances truly lay. I also had issues with the basic premises - did Ed's school believe Morgan and Art to be his parents? I know the idea was that Morgan believed money could get you anything, but they must have some major document-forger criminal associates.
The final pages from Ed's perspective were chilling and actually a lot more realistic than Gen's seeming belief that she can be a mother to him and that everything will be OK in the end.
veebutts's review
4.0
Eight years ago Gen Loxley gave birth to a stillborn daughter, Beth. Since then she’s found it impossible to move on, floundering whilst her charismatic husband, Art, flourishes. Then, one day a stranger arrives at her door with news she could only dream of- Beth is alive.
Initially distrustful of this stranger, Gen quickly finds herself sucked into a sinkhole of unanswered questions and suspicious behaviour. Why is her best friend Hen having secret conversations with Art, why can she not find anybody who was present at the stillbirth to corroborate that her baby was dead on delivery, who was Art transferring money to just a few days after the birth?
In her first adult novel Sophie McKenzie weaves a tale full of confusion and doubt which keeps the reader guessing to the very end. Gen is portrayed as a very sensitive and vulnerable person and this makes her whole narrative uncertain. Should the reader be on her side, or is she suffering from paranoid delusions caused by her grief? The underlying tension between Gen and Art, and indeed Gen and most of her family and friends means the reader is constantly switching sides. Every new piece of information that is uncovered is marred by the unreliable perceptions of the characters. You find yourself certain that you know what is coming next, only to question the source of the information that led you to this assumption.
The child’s narrative that intersperses throughout the story remains a mystery to the end of the story. I found myself getting sucked into the story and every time I had decided that Gen was paranoid I’d reach another page written from this mystery child’s point of view and be completely thrown off the scent again.
Ultimately I did guess the ending of the novel, whether this was because I am particularly good at sleuthing or because I had a lucky guess I don’t know! However, guessing the ending didn’t spoil my enjoyment of the story at all. At times I was wriggling in my chair, so eager was I to reach an explanation. Even when the answers do start arriving they are drip fed to the reader and this infuriated me and delighted me in equal measure!
I did find a few red herring plots a little bland, but then novels such as this need many different possible avenues in order to avoid the real ending being guessed. Additionally, I found that the end dragged on a little too long for my liking and some of the action could have been cut out and tidied up to keep to the climatic pace I felt I had been built up for.
Finally, the last page of this book was possibly one of the most chilling things I have ever read. If you’re one of those people who like to sneak a peek at the end books before they start reading- do not do it with Close my Eyes. The ending is worth waiting for!
This review first appeared on Nudge-books.com 24th April 2017.
Initially distrustful of this stranger, Gen quickly finds herself sucked into a sinkhole of unanswered questions and suspicious behaviour. Why is her best friend Hen having secret conversations with Art, why can she not find anybody who was present at the stillbirth to corroborate that her baby was dead on delivery, who was Art transferring money to just a few days after the birth?
In her first adult novel Sophie McKenzie weaves a tale full of confusion and doubt which keeps the reader guessing to the very end. Gen is portrayed as a very sensitive and vulnerable person and this makes her whole narrative uncertain. Should the reader be on her side, or is she suffering from paranoid delusions caused by her grief? The underlying tension between Gen and Art, and indeed Gen and most of her family and friends means the reader is constantly switching sides. Every new piece of information that is uncovered is marred by the unreliable perceptions of the characters. You find yourself certain that you know what is coming next, only to question the source of the information that led you to this assumption.
The child’s narrative that intersperses throughout the story remains a mystery to the end of the story. I found myself getting sucked into the story and every time I had decided that Gen was paranoid I’d reach another page written from this mystery child’s point of view and be completely thrown off the scent again.
Ultimately I did guess the ending of the novel, whether this was because I am particularly good at sleuthing or because I had a lucky guess I don’t know! However, guessing the ending didn’t spoil my enjoyment of the story at all. At times I was wriggling in my chair, so eager was I to reach an explanation. Even when the answers do start arriving they are drip fed to the reader and this infuriated me and delighted me in equal measure!
I did find a few red herring plots a little bland, but then novels such as this need many different possible avenues in order to avoid the real ending being guessed. Additionally, I found that the end dragged on a little too long for my liking and some of the action could have been cut out and tidied up to keep to the climatic pace I felt I had been built up for.
Finally, the last page of this book was possibly one of the most chilling things I have ever read. If you’re one of those people who like to sneak a peek at the end books before they start reading- do not do it with Close my Eyes. The ending is worth waiting for!
This review first appeared on Nudge-books.com 24th April 2017.
simplykendra_reads's review
2.0
2.5 ★
There were a few aspects of the book I liked. It has taken me so long to finally finish this book. The plot kept me intrigued enough, but it was so far fetched. Gen got on my nerves at times. I didn’t like the insta love aspect. There were so many grammatical errors. I guessed one of the big plot twists of it being Morgan. I hated the ending. The book as a whole is just messed up. This book was not what I expected and it was a lot to take in.
There were a few aspects of the book I liked. It has taken me so long to finally finish this book. The plot kept me intrigued enough, but it was so far fetched. Gen got on my nerves at times. I didn’t like the insta love aspect. There were so many grammatical errors. I guessed one of the big plot twists of it being Morgan. I hated the ending. The book as a whole is just messed up. This book was not what I expected and it was a lot to take in.
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