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melanytries's review
4.0
This was one of my favorite books that I first read as it was my first suspense book. I actually enjoyed it, though the suspects and characters were limited to a few, it kept me turning the pages while being a bit intense and not wanting to do so at the same time. Though, i did read this in my early 20s, i still believe it was good and worth a quick read!
srussell94's review
2.0
So this book was a pretty short and easy read, but I was bored to tears nearly the whole way through... I will admit, I didn't quite manage to 100% guess who the killer was, but...there were only like three possible people that it could have been, so...not a super shocker at the end, you know?
I think what I hated most about this book is that we were stuck in the POV of a housewife who was...pretty obviously written by a man. (I mean, okay, to be fair, I guess a woman writer could, conceivably, have written this book, but like...*would* they, though?)
The POV character, Frances, is utterly...senseless. She's pining over some guy she dated for a couple of weeks when she was in high school--and like, yes, I too would be concerned and likely would wonder for years and years what happened to the guy I had dated who just...disappeared, but... to meet him and be like "soulmate, yes, let's wreck my marriage"?? I mean...you dated him for a couple of weeks, he's been AWOL for *decades* and you somehow believe that he's still this perfect, exact replica of who he was in high school--no, wait, I'm sorry, a *better,* *more mature,* replica of his high school self? Who thinks like that??
Frances is so paranoid and--I'm not sure how best to phrase it, but like, self-doubting?? She's practically gaslighting herself throughout the whole novel? She has ZERO self confidence, and I don't mean that in terms of her opinion on her own appearance but just the simple fact that she doesn't trust a single factor of her own life or even a thought that crosses her mind.
Her husband is a dickbag, which is obvious from the beginning, but then, you know, it's also obvious that the author is setting him up to be a suspect--which makes the fact ---SPOILER OBVS---that he's the killer just like, IDK, shrug, okay, moving on, because..again, there were only three suspects (if we're counting the sister as a suspect, which, we honestly shouldn't, but we'll get there in a minute) and the husband was a dick from the get go, so like, him being the killer was only surprising because it was made so obvious from the beginning that most readers would dismiss him as a red herring. I mean, the back cover of the book implicates him. When, in the whole history of thriller novels, has the POV character's main suspect, the person named on the back of the book as "Could X REALLY be the killer???", ever ACTUALLY turned out to be the killer??
Here, apparently.
Moving on to suspect number three...honestly, this plot line COULD have worked for me, especially once Peggy was such a bitch to Frances in the bar, but...the fact that Frances was immediately like "HER! She's sleeping with my husband and I bet she killed her missing husband AND is helping murder those women!" Like, at that point, I as a reader didn't take that thought seriously AT ALL (and that's not to say that that's how it SHOULD have ended because it definitely would not have worked in this novel) but like, tension in movies is never built up by the actor loudly saying, as they walk up the darkened steps to their house at midnight, "Geez, I was out so late tonight, and I'm drunk so I couldn't possibly protect myself if some murderer were hiding just inside my doorway!!" No! You'd focus the camera on the dark shadows lining the walkway, the way they fumble their keys and giggle drunkenly, the camera panning out *just* enough to give a glimpse of the empty sidewalk, where the audience waits for a shadowed figure to appear suddenly... etc, etc.
Truthfully, that was the problem with the way the novel was written, and honestly it was likely a good 75% of the reason why the book doesn't work as a psychological thriller. Having the scenery/background notes hint and push at the idea that this person or that person might be the killer works, but when your main character is pointing the finger at everyone--and not just anyone, mind you, but her own husband and sister (and son?? lmao) just makes the main character seem paranoid. I mean, again, she thought her own--how old?? two year old??--son was staring at her knowingly?? HE'S TWO. He doesn't even have a great sense of object permanence yet. JFC.
AND ANOTHER THING (I had...a lot of issues with this book).
I have a really, really hard time believing that Frances & LoverBoy moved halfway across the country and somehow never looked up news about Hubby's supposed death. For gods sake, go to a local library and pull up the paper?? (Is this set before the internet was a thing, maybe??) I don't know, I just have a hard time believing that whole run-away-live-for-months-run-away-again-go-home-hubby's-alive-we're-all-good-hugs-and-kisses nonsense.
If we're being totally honest here, the MOST crazy character in this novel is actually Terrence, who...I mean, wtf. Literally his ONLY motivation for anything in the novel is to be with paranoid-Frances, who apparently was just SO angelic in high school--HIGH SCHOOL--that he was willing to be the "other man" and uproot his entire life for a woman who he believed murdered her husband in a fit of extreme paranoia--but not so infatuated, BTW, that he would bother to write to her AT ALL after he disappeared in high school. So. Take that as you will.
And lastly, of course, I have to complain about the reveal, because, again, WTF. Hubby has a body stashed in the crawlspace...and doesn't seem at all motivated to, IDK, move it once it starts decomposing?? You don't think someone, like, IDK, your wife, might try to to figure out what smells like a dead body in your crawlspace? (Also, just FYI, the whole 'lemme take my two year old son down into this random crawlspace to play while I "check the insulation" down here' was just, like, wow.)
My point is that, the husband has evaded law enforcement for months and killed several women and was never even a suspect, and then he...sloppily leaves a dead body in the crawl space of his own home? Breaks his pattern of leaving his victims in open fields and hides this one for some reason?
I mean, come on.
I think what I hated most about this book is that we were stuck in the POV of a housewife who was...pretty obviously written by a man. (I mean, okay, to be fair, I guess a woman writer could, conceivably, have written this book, but like...*would* they, though?)
The POV character, Frances, is utterly...senseless. She's pining over some guy she dated for a couple of weeks when she was in high school--and like, yes, I too would be concerned and likely would wonder for years and years what happened to the guy I had dated who just...disappeared, but... to meet him and be like "soulmate, yes, let's wreck my marriage"?? I mean...you dated him for a couple of weeks, he's been AWOL for *decades* and you somehow believe that he's still this perfect, exact replica of who he was in high school--no, wait, I'm sorry, a *better,* *more mature,* replica of his high school self? Who thinks like that??
Frances is so paranoid and--I'm not sure how best to phrase it, but like, self-doubting?? She's practically gaslighting herself throughout the whole novel? She has ZERO self confidence, and I don't mean that in terms of her opinion on her own appearance but just the simple fact that she doesn't trust a single factor of her own life or even a thought that crosses her mind.
Her husband is a dickbag, which is obvious from the beginning, but then, you know, it's also obvious that the author is setting him up to be a suspect--which makes the fact ---SPOILER OBVS---that he's the killer just like, IDK, shrug, okay, moving on, because..again, there were only three suspects (if we're counting the sister as a suspect, which, we honestly shouldn't, but we'll get there in a minute) and the husband was a dick from the get go, so like, him being the killer was only surprising because it was made so obvious from the beginning that most readers would dismiss him as a red herring. I mean, the back cover of the book implicates him. When, in the whole history of thriller novels, has the POV character's main suspect, the person named on the back of the book as "Could X REALLY be the killer???", ever ACTUALLY turned out to be the killer??
Here, apparently.
Moving on to suspect number three...honestly, this plot line COULD have worked for me, especially once Peggy was such a bitch to Frances in the bar, but...the fact that Frances was immediately like "HER! She's sleeping with my husband and I bet she killed her missing husband AND is helping murder those women!" Like, at that point, I as a reader didn't take that thought seriously AT ALL (and that's not to say that that's how it SHOULD have ended because it definitely would not have worked in this novel) but like, tension in movies is never built up by the actor loudly saying, as they walk up the darkened steps to their house at midnight, "Geez, I was out so late tonight, and I'm drunk so I couldn't possibly protect myself if some murderer were hiding just inside my doorway!!" No! You'd focus the camera on the dark shadows lining the walkway, the way they fumble their keys and giggle drunkenly, the camera panning out *just* enough to give a glimpse of the empty sidewalk, where the audience waits for a shadowed figure to appear suddenly... etc, etc.
Truthfully, that was the problem with the way the novel was written, and honestly it was likely a good 75% of the reason why the book doesn't work as a psychological thriller. Having the scenery/background notes hint and push at the idea that this person or that person might be the killer works, but when your main character is pointing the finger at everyone--and not just anyone, mind you, but her own husband and sister (and son?? lmao) just makes the main character seem paranoid. I mean, again, she thought her own--how old?? two year old??--son was staring at her knowingly?? HE'S TWO. He doesn't even have a great sense of object permanence yet. JFC.
AND ANOTHER THING (I had...a lot of issues with this book).
I have a really, really hard time believing that Frances & LoverBoy moved halfway across the country and somehow never looked up news about Hubby's supposed death. For gods sake, go to a local library and pull up the paper?? (Is this set before the internet was a thing, maybe??) I don't know, I just have a hard time believing that whole run-away-live-for-months-run-away-again-go-home-hubby's-alive-we're-all-good-hugs-and-kisses nonsense.
If we're being totally honest here, the MOST crazy character in this novel is actually Terrence, who...I mean, wtf. Literally his ONLY motivation for anything in the novel is to be with paranoid-Frances, who apparently was just SO angelic in high school--HIGH SCHOOL--that he was willing to be the "other man" and uproot his entire life for a woman who he believed murdered her husband in a fit of extreme paranoia--but not so infatuated, BTW, that he would bother to write to her AT ALL after he disappeared in high school. So. Take that as you will.
And lastly, of course, I have to complain about the reveal, because, again, WTF. Hubby has a body stashed in the crawlspace...and doesn't seem at all motivated to, IDK, move it once it starts decomposing?? You don't think someone, like, IDK, your wife, might try to to figure out what smells like a dead body in your crawlspace? (Also, just FYI, the whole 'lemme take my two year old son down into this random crawlspace to play while I "check the insulation" down here' was just, like, wow.)
My point is that, the husband has evaded law enforcement for months and killed several women and was never even a suspect, and then he...sloppily leaves a dead body in the crawl space of his own home? Breaks his pattern of leaving his victims in open fields and hides this one for some reason?
I mean, come on.
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