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dunneniamh 's review for:
The Night Before
by Wendy Walker
Oh dear god.
So, I have many, many issues with this book. It's not quite as bad as 'An Anonymous Girl', but brother it is on its way there. The premise- which feels like it was lifted from The Lovely Wife (was it just me that got that vibe?) - takes a while to get going and when it does, it's so, so boring. So let's get into it, shall we?
Let's begin with biggest dislike that made me nearly stop reading altogether: the rape and sexual assault of multiple women used in order to further the plot line. AUTHORS. PLEASE STOP. Thriller writers especially- we can have dark, twisted stories without having to fall back on a woman getting raped to give someone a motivation or prove that the villain is bad. Seriously. This book is very cavalier about the fact that two women were assaulted by this guy and are probably recovering from the trauma of being with him. One woman literally spent her entire time describing it as 'ugh, men are such tools, he did all this nasty shit and now I hate men.' Stop.
Why are we perpetuating an idea seemingly celebrated by male writers that we have to traumatise women in order to make them interesting?
There is way too much going on here. Not only do we have the story of the mysterious sister, who has returned to town after being accused of a heinous crime, but we also follow her family trying to unravel the mystery of 'who is this guy she went on a date on', the sister's relationship with past therapists and her obsession with getting people to love her, and whether or not she's been abducted. That's too much! One of those plot lines should give you ample enough content to write a book about. Altogether, it makes for a garbled, chaotic mess that starts to read like a soap opera if you stick around long enough.
Which brings me nicely on to my next issue: the writing. It. is. bad. So bad that I honestly wondered if this book had been edited at all. When the characters speak, it doesn't flow like dialogue. Every sentence is stilted, dripping with unnecessary exposition or postulating emotion. The happily married sister has two emotions: hysterical or concerned. That's it. Perhaps it was the acting of the audiobook narrator, but it honestly felt like I was watching a terrible play unfold before my eyes. I just kept cringing at how blatantly stiff everything felt. Real dialogue- authentic dialogue- should flow naturally and mimic human interaction. This was robotic.
Perhaps this book's brief saving grace is the main character, Laura, and that's only for about a micro-second. The interactions with her therapist are interesting, but as soon as she's painted as the 'love-obsessed' woman who jumps to conclusions and revolves her entire life around getting a man to love her, I checked out completely.
There are better thrillers, people, there really are.
I'm losing hope in this genre.
So, I have many, many issues with this book. It's not quite as bad as 'An Anonymous Girl', but brother it is on its way there. The premise- which feels like it was lifted from The Lovely Wife (was it just me that got that vibe?) - takes a while to get going and when it does, it's so, so boring. So let's get into it, shall we?
Let's begin with biggest dislike that made me nearly stop reading altogether: the rape and sexual assault of multiple women used in order to further the plot line. AUTHORS. PLEASE STOP. Thriller writers especially- we can have dark, twisted stories without having to fall back on a woman getting raped to give someone a motivation or prove that the villain is bad. Seriously. This book is very cavalier about the fact that two women were assaulted by this guy and are probably recovering from the trauma of being with him. One woman literally spent her entire time describing it as 'ugh, men are such tools, he did all this nasty shit and now I hate men.' Stop.
Why are we perpetuating an idea seemingly celebrated by male writers that we have to traumatise women in order to make them interesting?
There is way too much going on here. Not only do we have the story of the mysterious sister, who has returned to town after being accused of a heinous crime, but we also follow her family trying to unravel the mystery of 'who is this guy she went on a date on', the sister's relationship with past therapists and her obsession with getting people to love her, and whether or not she's been abducted. That's too much! One of those plot lines should give you ample enough content to write a book about. Altogether, it makes for a garbled, chaotic mess that starts to read like a soap opera if you stick around long enough.
Which brings me nicely on to my next issue: the writing. It. is. bad. So bad that I honestly wondered if this book had been edited at all. When the characters speak, it doesn't flow like dialogue. Every sentence is stilted, dripping with unnecessary exposition or postulating emotion. The happily married sister has two emotions: hysterical or concerned. That's it. Perhaps it was the acting of the audiobook narrator, but it honestly felt like I was watching a terrible play unfold before my eyes. I just kept cringing at how blatantly stiff everything felt. Real dialogue- authentic dialogue- should flow naturally and mimic human interaction. This was robotic.
Perhaps this book's brief saving grace is the main character, Laura, and that's only for about a micro-second. The interactions with her therapist are interesting, but as soon as she's painted as the 'love-obsessed' woman who jumps to conclusions and revolves her entire life around getting a man to love her, I checked out completely.
There are better thrillers, people, there really are.
I'm losing hope in this genre.