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m1972c's review
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
The beginning is slow. and then the end kind of feels like the author throws everything together it feels to much. I love twists but although it was interesting. This was wrapped up way to quickly and didn't feel real enough.
isaacrm's review
4.0
4 stars to this one (meaning if you are into the genre, you should read this book).
This book caught me by surprise. I saw the reviews, and I decided to give it a shot. I didn't remember at the time that I've read another book from the author. This was a good thing because I didn't like the other book too much.
I'm glad I read it. The premise seemed interesting, but I wasn't expecting the result. The beginning of the book is a bit slow, but it helps building the characters and their relationships. Halfway through the book the story starts speeding up, and it takes you through several unexpected situations and resolutions. I, honestly, couldn't guess the ending, which is really what I love about mystery thrillers.
I highly recommend this book if you are into phycological thrillers.
This book caught me by surprise. I saw the reviews, and I decided to give it a shot. I didn't remember at the time that I've read another book from the author. This was a good thing because I didn't like the other book too much.
I'm glad I read it. The premise seemed interesting, but I wasn't expecting the result. The beginning of the book is a bit slow, but it helps building the characters and their relationships. Halfway through the book the story starts speeding up, and it takes you through several unexpected situations and resolutions. I, honestly, couldn't guess the ending, which is really what I love about mystery thrillers.
I highly recommend this book if you are into phycological thrillers.
captwinghead's review
3.0
What Natalie Barelli does best is write stories that make me feel like I’m watching a car crash. The unreliable narrators, the endless anxiety and secondhand embarrassment creeps in as you read about these characters trying to pull off these grand performances and they’re terrible actors. You know they’re seconds away from getting caught and their entire web of lies will unravel, but you can’t look away from it. This was no exception.
Anna is a greedy, self centered, jealous and incredibly poor liar. Things go badly for her partially because she just continues trying to put off all of her problems. She deletes emails that will hurt her career. She just ignores supposed threats to her reputation. She delays hearing about her husband’s affair because she just doesn’t want the confirmation. When everything comes to a head, you figure that’s the plot twist (Barelli’s books always seem to have one). However, I was surprised and a little put off by the twist in this one.
Something about the ending felt a little all over the place. The reveal that Luis was actually running around secretly killing people so they’d stay together didn’t make sense to me. Perhaps because of Anna’s view of his interest in her - maybe it was intended to look like he wasn’t in love with her any longer? I don’t know, he just didn’t seem that into her. Certainly not enough to murder Isabelle over her.
The ending with the notebooks was a little too nice and neat for me. I found it strange there was no record of the letter about him removing Anna’s name and that no one found her reluctance to show her work suspicious. The timing of everything should’ve raised red flags with Alex’s family and the police.
Anyway, it was an enjoyable read. Certainly better than the last thriller I read.
Anna is a greedy, self centered, jealous and incredibly poor liar. Things go badly for her partially because she just continues trying to put off all of her problems. She deletes emails that will hurt her career. She just ignores supposed threats to her reputation. She delays hearing about her husband’s affair because she just doesn’t want the confirmation. When everything comes to a head, you figure that’s the plot twist (Barelli’s books always seem to have one). However, I was surprised and a little put off by the twist in this one.
Something about the ending felt a little all over the place. The reveal that Luis was actually running around secretly killing people so they’d stay together didn’t make sense to me. Perhaps because of Anna’s view of his interest in her - maybe it was intended to look like he wasn’t in love with her any longer? I don’t know, he just didn’t seem that into her. Certainly not enough to murder Isabelle over her.
The ending with the notebooks was a little too nice and neat for me. I found it strange there was no record of the letter about him removing Anna’s name and that no one found her reluctance to show her work suspicious. The timing of everything should’ve raised red flags with Alex’s family and the police.
Anyway, it was an enjoyable read. Certainly better than the last thriller I read.
readsomemorekatie's review against another edition
3.0
This book gave me so much anxiety in the beginning that I stopped it for a while and listened to other things.
I kept thinking about the book though and couldn't pin point what was giving me the anxiety... the secrets? The lies? The cheating? I didn't think it was any of those things because I usually read REALLY dark books... like where none of the characters are the good guys but you love them anyway.
Finally, I pinpointed what it was that made me anxious. I HATED Anna. She just came off as so needy, sad and stupid. Her reactions were so unlike anything mine would be that it was making me riled up every time she made a decision NOT to do something.
Finally, I came back to this audio book while waiting for my Libby holds to be ready. Eh, the ending was okay. It definitely redeemed some of the book but I still wasn't really a fan of Anna. I felt that the ending of the book was a little rushed but by the time the big twist reveal happened, I was ready for it to all be over so I wasn't too disappointed. Middle of the road suspense with characters I wanted to like but really just didn't.
I kept thinking about the book though and couldn't pin point what was giving me the anxiety... the secrets? The lies? The cheating? I didn't think it was any of those things because I usually read REALLY dark books... like where none of the characters are the good guys but you love them anyway.
Finally, I pinpointed what it was that made me anxious. I HATED Anna. She just came off as so needy, sad and stupid. Her reactions were so unlike anything mine would be that it was making me riled up every time she made a decision NOT to do something.
Finally, I came back to this audio book while waiting for my Libby holds to be ready. Eh, the ending was okay. It definitely redeemed some of the book but I still wasn't really a fan of Anna. I felt that the ending of the book was a little rushed but by the time the big twist reveal happened, I was ready for it to all be over so I wasn't too disappointed. Middle of the road suspense with characters I wanted to like but really just didn't.
turtlesreads's review against another edition
4.0
Unfaithful by Natalie Barelli has borderline Verity vibes (with twists, turns, f'd upness, and a twisted ending).
The main character is a hot mess and irritated me at points but still a pretty good book and definitely worth checking out.
The main character is a hot mess and irritated me at points but still a pretty good book and definitely worth checking out.
meganlee3001's review against another edition
5.0
Our main character Anna arrives to her husband's art studio one day, distraught following the death of one her students. Anna finds a pair of wine glasses drying by the sink and it confirms her fears that her husband is having an affair. Instead of telling her husband her fears, Anna goes home, cooks the dinner and walks her dog, in other words life as normal.
That is until things take a turn for the worst, the police want to talk her, she's receiving threatening messages, things are not going well for Anna.
To be honest, no review I give this book will do it justice. It is such an intricately put together plot with so many plot twists and surprises along the way.
Firstly I loved how the characters were written. I won't say I liked them all because we had some questionable people but how they were described and how each character was developed was so interesting.
I also thought the pacing of the story was perfect. The book gets into the action straight away, but it never slows down, always there are mini twists, reveals and still I never guessed the ending.
Barelli does an amazing job of describing and conveying emotions, throughout this book I felt dread for Anna, hope for her family, fear and triumph.
This was definitely 5 stars for me, and made Natalie Barelli a must buy author just from this one book.
Thank you to NetGalley, Bookouture and Natalie Barelli for an eArc of this book in exchange for an honest review!
That is until things take a turn for the worst, the police want to talk her, she's receiving threatening messages, things are not going well for Anna.
To be honest, no review I give this book will do it justice. It is such an intricately put together plot with so many plot twists and surprises along the way.
Firstly I loved how the characters were written. I won't say I liked them all because we had some questionable people but how they were described and how each character was developed was so interesting.
I also thought the pacing of the story was perfect. The book gets into the action straight away, but it never slows down, always there are mini twists, reveals and still I never guessed the ending.
Barelli does an amazing job of describing and conveying emotions, throughout this book I felt dread for Anna, hope for her family, fear and triumph.
This was definitely 5 stars for me, and made Natalie Barelli a must buy author just from this one book.
Thank you to NetGalley, Bookouture and Natalie Barelli for an eArc of this book in exchange for an honest review!
marilynw's review against another edition
4.0
Unfaithful by Natalie Barelli
This book was fun, hooked me hard, and even though I tried to go to bed, I ended up staying up way too late to finish it. Anna is a humdinger of a character. She's an extremely unreliable narrator and will lie at the drop of a hat. She also drinks way too much and will verbally vomit embarrassing truths that she should never tell anyone...she'll start babbling to friend or stranger, alike. She also just might attempt to go for a roll in bed or on the floor, with some man or other, because she's drunk too much or because she's angry. She has anger issues and emotional damage from being raised by a cold mom and distant father. She makes spontaneous horrible decisions and some of those decisions had me laughing. Usually I can't stand characters like Anna but the author did a great job with her and the story and I could not put the book down.
When the story starts, you can almost hear the birds chirping in the background. Life is perfect, her family is perfect, her marriage is perfect (if only her husband would walk the dog and fix the leaky sink), she's pretty sure she's going to be made a tenured professor. And then Anna gets to work and things go wrong and then get worse and everything Anna does is the wrong thing but half the time she thinks she can ignore the problems and they'll just go away. Anna can't focus, talks and laughs way too much (often she'll stop laughing and talking to realize that everyone is staring at her). Really, Anna is a mess and for good reason. Oh, and Anna is extremely paranoid and that paranoia rubbed off on me, so much so that the only ones I trusted in this book was her 14 year old daughter, her 10 year old son, and her cute French bulldog. Overall, this story was good fun.
Pub November 27, 2020
Thank you to Bookouture and NetGalley for this ARC.
This book was fun, hooked me hard, and even though I tried to go to bed, I ended up staying up way too late to finish it. Anna is a humdinger of a character. She's an extremely unreliable narrator and will lie at the drop of a hat. She also drinks way too much and will verbally vomit embarrassing truths that she should never tell anyone...she'll start babbling to friend or stranger, alike. She also just might attempt to go for a roll in bed or on the floor, with some man or other, because she's drunk too much or because she's angry. She has anger issues and emotional damage from being raised by a cold mom and distant father. She makes spontaneous horrible decisions and some of those decisions had me laughing. Usually I can't stand characters like Anna but the author did a great job with her and the story and I could not put the book down.
When the story starts, you can almost hear the birds chirping in the background. Life is perfect, her family is perfect, her marriage is perfect (if only her husband would walk the dog and fix the leaky sink), she's pretty sure she's going to be made a tenured professor. And then Anna gets to work and things go wrong and then get worse and everything Anna does is the wrong thing but half the time she thinks she can ignore the problems and they'll just go away. Anna can't focus, talks and laughs way too much (often she'll stop laughing and talking to realize that everyone is staring at her). Really, Anna is a mess and for good reason. Oh, and Anna is extremely paranoid and that paranoia rubbed off on me, so much so that the only ones I trusted in this book was her 14 year old daughter, her 10 year old son, and her cute French bulldog. Overall, this story was good fun.
Pub November 27, 2020
Thank you to Bookouture and NetGalley for this ARC.
coolcatbookreader's review against another edition
4.0
This book was a solid 3 stars for me until the end. I had anxiety through about 95% of it. There was a lot of unbelievable parts – and I didn’t care for the main character, Anna. I did like the ending and I also liked June, so I am upgrading it to a 4. Even at the end, I don’t know how I felt about Anna.
Emily Rankin is a terrific narrator.
Emily Rankin is a terrific narrator.
ayesharh1's review against another edition
5.0
Why doesn't this book have much more reads? It was amazing, unputdownable, and just great. I did not see the twist(s) coming. Oh my word. I started as an audiobook but I couldn't resist waiting for 9 hours so I conti used with an ebook instead. Best desicion ever. Love this book.