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A review by linnaboobooks
Off the Deep End by Lucinda Berry
3.0
Content warnings for car accident, loss of a child, grief, grooming, suicide attempt, school shooting.
Lucinda Berry's novels need to stop being only marketed as psychological thrillers. The more recent ones I've read might fall under the requirements to that subgenre of thrillers somewhat, but they more so focus on psychological and cerebral aspects with touches of a criminal case. This can skew expectations versus when reading the synopsis. Personally, I find this to fall into the psychological suspense category, the same way some of Sally Hepworth's works do.
After an accident that left her only child dead, Jules forms a strong connection with a former friend of his in her unstable mental state. After a series of uncomfortable incidents, Isaac's parents step in with a restraining order and not long after Isaac goes missing. Now she's in a group home, under the observation of a therapist.
Believed to be taken by a midwestern serial killer, it's hard to swallow that the teenager who has already been through one tragedy is going through another. And during this time Isaac's mother's Amber believes Jules is behind why her son's missing, and that it has nothing to do with the serial killer.
The suspense of Isaac being missing kept me speeding through this with a few different theories, I wasn't as invested in Jules's plot but the psychology of it interested me enough and disturbed by how unstable she became since the death of Gabe.
Lucinda Berry's novels need to stop being only marketed as psychological thrillers. The more recent ones I've read might fall under the requirements to that subgenre of thrillers somewhat, but they more so focus on psychological and cerebral aspects with touches of a criminal case. This can skew expectations versus when reading the synopsis. Personally, I find this to fall into the psychological suspense category, the same way some of Sally Hepworth's works do.
After an accident that left her only child dead, Jules forms a strong connection with a former friend of his in her unstable mental state. After a series of uncomfortable incidents, Isaac's parents step in with a restraining order and not long after Isaac goes missing. Now she's in a group home, under the observation of a therapist.
Believed to be taken by a midwestern serial killer, it's hard to swallow that the teenager who has already been through one tragedy is going through another. And during this time Isaac's mother's Amber believes Jules is behind why her son's missing, and that it has nothing to do with the serial killer.
The suspense of Isaac being missing kept me speeding through this with a few different theories, I wasn't as invested in Jules's plot but the psychology of it interested me enough and disturbed by how unstable she became since the death of Gabe.