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A review by haleypowell
Lost Among the Living by Simone St. James
2.0
Let me start by saying that I'm a Simone St. James fan through and through. The Haunting of Maddy Clare was one of the best books I read last year, and Silence for the Dead was up there too. I think it's because THoMC was so amazing that this book fell flat for me—I know what St. James is capable of and this was just not it. It's not an awful book by any means but I was so disappointed that such a good idea was not that well executed. The more I think about this book, the less I like it.
First issue: giving one of the two main twists away right in the book blurb. Hello? I imagine this is more of an issue with the publisher, but what? When I read that I assumed it would be a sort of ploy, but no, the spoiler was a true spoiler and the plot wasn't even much more complex than the spoiler. Because of this, the intrigue that the book is supposed to have for the entire first half is entirely missing.
Because of that, the book has to lean heavily on the ghost story, which is the second issue. In THoMC and SFtD, the ghost plot lines have their own momentum. You're intensely interested in the ghosts, in their deaths, and their appearances are bone-chilling. You don't even have to believe in ghosts in real life to be genuinely scared while reading a good SSJ book. But the ghost encounters in this book did not scare me a single time, and I really didn't care what happened. The "investigation" (in which the protagonist didn't try that hard, unlike other SSJ protagonists, and during which she kept making maddening decisions) was uninteresting.
Third issue: the killer was so obvious. Our protagonist concludes that the killer must have been someone familiar with the family who could lead the girl to her death. Gee, I wonder who it could be. The father, who confronted the protagonist in the woods and threatened her, perhaps? (An encounter she tells no one about????)
Fourth issue: I didn't give a flip about Alex. The book got worse after his grand, spoiled-in-the-blurb return. His character is all tell and no show. Where was the true groveling because he ditched his wife with no support for three years? Other SSJ protagonists are fairly complex and sometimes a little moody, but Alex just seems like a jerk. I was genuinely hoping he would die anyway and that Jo would somehow end up with Martin. Jo's character also becomes much more dull after Alex's return.
Fifth issue: not enough Martin! He had so much potential in the first third of the book and then he just fades into a background character. And he was so interesting! Why did we just throw him away?
I have apparently read the post-WWI-era SSJ books in order of quality. TL;DR: skip this and run, don't walk, to read The Haunting of Maddy Clare.
First issue: giving one of the two main twists away right in the book blurb. Hello? I imagine this is more of an issue with the publisher, but what? When I read that I assumed it would be a sort of ploy, but no, the spoiler was a true spoiler and the plot wasn't even much more complex than the spoiler. Because of this, the intrigue that the book is supposed to have for the entire first half is entirely missing.
Because of that, the book has to lean heavily on the ghost story, which is the second issue. In THoMC and SFtD, the ghost plot lines have their own momentum. You're intensely interested in the ghosts, in their deaths, and their appearances are bone-chilling. You don't even have to believe in ghosts in real life to be genuinely scared while reading a good SSJ book. But the ghost encounters in this book did not scare me a single time, and I really didn't care what happened. The "investigation" (in which the protagonist didn't try that hard, unlike other SSJ protagonists, and during which she kept making maddening decisions) was uninteresting.
Third issue: the killer was so obvious. Our protagonist concludes that the killer must have been someone familiar with the family who could lead the girl to her death. Gee, I wonder who it could be. The father, who confronted the protagonist in the woods and threatened her, perhaps? (An encounter she tells no one about????)
Fourth issue: I didn't give a flip about Alex. The book got worse after his grand, spoiled-in-the-blurb return. His character is all tell and no show. Where was the true groveling because he ditched his wife with no support for three years? Other SSJ protagonists are fairly complex and sometimes a little moody, but Alex just seems like a jerk. I was genuinely hoping he would die anyway and that Jo would somehow end up with Martin. Jo's character also becomes much more dull after Alex's return.
Fifth issue: not enough Martin! He had so much potential in the first third of the book and then he just fades into a background character. And he was so interesting! Why did we just throw him away?
I have apparently read the post-WWI-era SSJ books in order of quality. TL;DR: skip this and run, don't walk, to read The Haunting of Maddy Clare.