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3.48 AVERAGE
3.48 AVERAGE
Started off well but just lost its way halfway through
Wow
The events just have me thinking differently. I mean the people that's supposed to be there for you and love you is the ones that hurt you the most smh.
The events just have me thinking differently. I mean the people that's supposed to be there for you and love you is the ones that hurt you the most smh.
Page turning adrenaline rush
Even though the reviews I read said that people were blindsided by the revelation, I kept thinking “I know where this is going”. I was so very wrong. Because I was so excited and wanted to know what happened, I ended up skimming pages and having to go back and reread to get all the details I missed. Great page turner that kept me on the edge of my seat.
McGowan masterfully tackles the topic of rape and the aftermath (victim/survivor shaming, rationalizing actions, supporting the accused) and showing the duality of human nature—no one in this story is perfect as they seem.
Even though the reviews I read said that people were blindsided by the revelation, I kept thinking “I know where this is going”. I was so very wrong. Because I was so excited and wanted to know what happened, I ended up skimming pages and having to go back and reread to get all the details I missed. Great page turner that kept me on the edge of my seat.
McGowan masterfully tackles the topic of rape and the aftermath (victim/survivor shaming, rationalizing actions, supporting the accused) and showing the duality of human nature—no one in this story is perfect as they seem.
I only finished this one because it was a mystery so I felt compelled to, but honestly the narrating character is so deeply unlikable, shallow, and selfish that it taints the entire story. I know flawed main characters are done on purpose but this was just so excessive. Not to mention that every detail is repeated at least a dozen times like mysteries are meant to contain more nuance...
I enjoy this author's writing. I think she has an engaging style of writing. Fills out the characters so that they seem real, but not too much that it gets overwhelming.
In this book, Ali and her husband Mike are hosting a small reunion of their college friends . It's 25 years since they all met in college. Callum and Jodi are husband and wife, with Jodi pregnant with their first child. Bill, an ex crush of Ali's, just got out of a 20 year relationship with a Swiss model. And Karen with her 17-year-old son, Jake, who is a quasi sullen teen. She is a single mother and is Ali's best friend from her college years, having stayed close through the intervening years.
Wine and beer are flowing, and perhaps a little weed. Ali's feeling a little tremulous because her crush on Bill has clearly not gone away, based on the electricity and sparks she feels when they are alone together during the evening. She goes to bed and is then awakened by something. Walking into the kitchen she is met with screams from Karen who comes running in, exclaiming that she was just raped and that Mike raped her!
Ali is faced with an impossible choice and an impossible decision - to support her best friend or her husband? Compounding this choice is that Ali serves on a board of a local charity that takes care of women who are abused and assaulted so she has inclinations to support the women. But in this case, how can she go against her husband of more than 20 years? She finds him out in the yard, passed out cold from his drunken state. She wakes him and tells him what Karen has claimed happened and he is shocked, exclaiming his own innocence.
Relationships are fractured because of these events, with additional stress coming from her daughter, 15-year-old Cassie who is moving through her own relationship with her first boyfriend. She, too, was out in the yard during the time, having met her boyfriend in the nearby woods.
This was a sad story in a way, seeing how these long term friendships shatter and how each of the parties decides to move through the trauma.
This could have been a higher rating but I really grew tired of the shrieking nature of Ali, and her almost constant state of hyperactivity and hysteria. There are also dips back into the past, in 1996 during their college years when one of their college friends goes missing and found murdered. I didn't spend much time reading these sections, wanting instead to stay in the present and figure out how this story will end.
I do like this author's writing and recommend her books for those who like their domestic drama/adult/women's fiction with more realism and maturity than you will find in books in the same genre by different authors.
In this book, Ali and her husband Mike are hosting a small reunion of their college friends . It's 25 years since they all met in college. Callum and Jodi are husband and wife, with Jodi pregnant with their first child. Bill, an ex crush of Ali's, just got out of a 20 year relationship with a Swiss model. And Karen with her 17-year-old son, Jake, who is a quasi sullen teen. She is a single mother and is Ali's best friend from her college years, having stayed close through the intervening years.
Wine and beer are flowing, and perhaps a little weed. Ali's feeling a little tremulous because her crush on Bill has clearly not gone away, based on the electricity and sparks she feels when they are alone together during the evening. She goes to bed and is then awakened by something. Walking into the kitchen she is met with screams from Karen who comes running in, exclaiming that she was just raped and that Mike raped her!
Ali is faced with an impossible choice and an impossible decision - to support her best friend or her husband? Compounding this choice is that Ali serves on a board of a local charity that takes care of women who are abused and assaulted so she has inclinations to support the women. But in this case, how can she go against her husband of more than 20 years? She finds him out in the yard, passed out cold from his drunken state. She wakes him and tells him what Karen has claimed happened and he is shocked, exclaiming his own innocence.
Relationships are fractured because of these events, with additional stress coming from her daughter, 15-year-old Cassie who is moving through her own relationship with her first boyfriend. She, too, was out in the yard during the time, having met her boyfriend in the nearby woods.
This was a sad story in a way, seeing how these long term friendships shatter and how each of the parties decides to move through the trauma.
This could have been a higher rating but I really grew tired of the shrieking nature of Ali, and her almost constant state of hyperactivity and hysteria. There are also dips back into the past, in 1996 during their college years when one of their college friends goes missing and found murdered. I didn't spend much time reading these sections, wanting instead to stay in the present and figure out how this story will end.
I do like this author's writing and recommend her books for those who like their domestic drama/adult/women's fiction with more realism and maturity than you will find in books in the same genre by different authors.
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
emotional
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
The premise of this story was really interesting and I was looking forward to reading about how a rape & the subsequent accusation would impact a group of friends. However, I found it hard to be sympathetic to any of these characters because they’re just so annoying. This is a short book but it still felt too long - there feels like there’s so much dead space between the important events that the characters make one dumb decision after another. The only redeemable character disappears in the middle of the night when he realises how horrible his friends are. To me, it seemed like the plot could be summarised as what will these women do to protect their meal ticket, I mean boyfriend/husband, because it’s not tell the truth.
challenging
dark
emotional
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Gripping Read
A book that books you instantly and one that you can't put down. I really enjoyed, although the twist wasn't that much of a surprise! But very worth the read.
A book that books you instantly and one that you can't put down. I really enjoyed, although the twist wasn't that much of a surprise! But very worth the read.