kikireadsstuff 's review for:

Day One by Abigail Dean

2.75

challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-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: Complicated

---

I have such mixed feelings about this one, much as I did her first novel. I can’t decide if I really enjoyed it or if I was bored. So I’m going middle ground and I’ll explain why. 

The plot was based around a primary school shooting - very tough topic. It was dealt with sensitively and I do think the aspects surrounding its impact were well done. But I think the opposite side to the story, the conspiracy theorists, just didn’t work for me. I don’t think I even understood why they felt so strongly that it hadn’t happened. 

Some parts I was so into, the speed picked up and so did the intrigue. But then would come another lull and I was just a bit like why? I’m not sure if it was because of how disjointed it all was. 

The story is told from a lot of different POV’s, which can work but for the purpose of this one, I don’t think it did. But I think that lends to the amount of different timelines we were working on. Just felt like a lot of being thrown around from this person, in this time to that person in that time - over and over. 

Although I was interested to finally work out what had really happened. Especially as I felt it ramped up towards the end. I have to say I was a little dissatisfied with the ending. I felt it was coming with a bang and it fizzled out before we get there. 

The book is really well written, it was interesting and definitely made me want to keep reading. But something got lost along the way for me. Perhaps great idea just not executed as well as it could be.