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A review by emrodav
Blood Sisters by Jane Corry
2.0
Do you ever read a book and when you're done and reading reviews, you have to ask yourself if you read the same book as everyone else? This was one of those experiences for me. I just can't understand how this book got so many high ratings.
I have three really big issues with this book: the writing style, the pacing, and the ridiculous coincidences.
Starting off, the writing style is just kind of bizarre. I understand that there's a distinct difference between Kitty's perspective and Alison's. That makes sense. But even when we're in Alison's perspective, things just flow in a weird way. For instance, at the Christmas party, in one sentence Alison is sitting next to Clive and in the next she's telling us that she just spilled a drink we didn't even know she had? It was so much telling and no showing.
This book also falls into a pitfall that tons of mystery/thriller books do: the incredibly long exposition. Very little happens in the first 150 pages or so. We just see Alison getting stressed about her job and the mysterious things that are happening (but not doing anything about it) and some vague information about Kitty. But then after one major revelation, things suddenly happen wayyyy too quickly. For example,
And while I know it's usually necessary to suspend some disbelief for books like this, there were just way too many ridiculous coincidences. Just a few are:
I'm just kind of baffled at how many people seemed to enjoy this book. I only finished it because I wanted to see if there were any more random twists (and that's why this book gets 2 stars instead of 1). To each their own I guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
I have three really big issues with this book: the writing style, the pacing, and the ridiculous coincidences.
Starting off, the writing style is just kind of bizarre. I understand that there's a distinct difference between Kitty's perspective and Alison's. That makes sense. But even when we're in Alison's perspective, things just flow in a weird way. For instance, at the Christmas party, in one sentence Alison is sitting next to Clive and in the next she's telling us that she just spilled a drink we didn't even know she had? It was so much telling and no showing.
This book also falls into a pitfall that tons of mystery/thriller books do: the incredibly long exposition. Very little happens in the first 150 pages or so. We just see Alison getting stressed about her job and the mysterious things that are happening (but not doing anything about it) and some vague information about Kitty. But then after one major revelation, things suddenly happen wayyyy too quickly. For example,
Spoiler
within like 50 pages, Stefan is murdered, Crispin is revealed, Alison gets arrested and goes to trial, and gets sent to prison. It gave me whiplash!And while I know it's usually necessary to suspend some disbelief for books like this, there were just way too many ridiculous coincidences. Just a few are:
Spoiler
Stefan is really Alison's dad and he was at the same prison as Alison, that another guard in the prison was smuggling stuff in and explained away the issue with the cabinet, that Angela ended up at the same women's prison as Alison, etc, etc. And while some of this can be explained away as part of Crispin's elaborate plot for revenge, it was still just too much.I'm just kind of baffled at how many people seemed to enjoy this book. I only finished it because I wanted to see if there were any more random twists (and that's why this book gets 2 stars instead of 1). To each their own I guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.