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A review by captwinghead
Unfaithful by Natalie Barelli
3.0
What Natalie Barelli does best is write stories that make me feel like I’m watching a car crash. The unreliable narrators, the endless anxiety and secondhand embarrassment creeps in as you read about these characters trying to pull off these grand performances and they’re terrible actors. You know they’re seconds away from getting caught and their entire web of lies will unravel, but you can’t look away from it. This was no exception.
Anna is a greedy, self centered, jealous and incredibly poor liar. Things go badly for her partially because she just continues trying to put off all of her problems. She deletes emails that will hurt her career. She just ignores supposed threats to her reputation. She delays hearing about her husband’s affair because she just doesn’t want the confirmation. When everything comes to a head, you figure that’s the plot twist (Barelli’s books always seem to have one). However, I was surprised and a little put off by the twist in this one.
Something about the ending felt a little all over the place. The reveal that Luis was actually running around secretly killing people so they’d stay together didn’t make sense to me. Perhaps because of Anna’s view of his interest in her - maybe it was intended to look like he wasn’t in love with her any longer? I don’t know, he just didn’t seem that into her. Certainly not enough to murder Isabelle over her.
The ending with the notebooks was a little too nice and neat for me. I found it strange there was no record of the letter about him removing Anna’s name and that no one found her reluctance to show her work suspicious. The timing of everything should’ve raised red flags with Alex’s family and the police.
Anyway, it was an enjoyable read. Certainly better than the last thriller I read.
Anna is a greedy, self centered, jealous and incredibly poor liar. Things go badly for her partially because she just continues trying to put off all of her problems. She deletes emails that will hurt her career. She just ignores supposed threats to her reputation. She delays hearing about her husband’s affair because she just doesn’t want the confirmation. When everything comes to a head, you figure that’s the plot twist (Barelli’s books always seem to have one). However, I was surprised and a little put off by the twist in this one.
Something about the ending felt a little all over the place. The reveal that Luis was actually running around secretly killing people so they’d stay together didn’t make sense to me. Perhaps because of Anna’s view of his interest in her - maybe it was intended to look like he wasn’t in love with her any longer? I don’t know, he just didn’t seem that into her. Certainly not enough to murder Isabelle over her.
The ending with the notebooks was a little too nice and neat for me. I found it strange there was no record of the letter about him removing Anna’s name and that no one found her reluctance to show her work suspicious. The timing of everything should’ve raised red flags with Alex’s family and the police.
Anyway, it was an enjoyable read. Certainly better than the last thriller I read.