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A review by meelmeman
The Better Sister by Alafair Burke
3.0
This was one of my first courtroom thrillers and I enjoyed it. I’m not really a Law and Order kind of person, so the courtroom maneuvering was more lukewarm drama than true tension builder, but even so—I wasn’t bored. And for real, I did not KNOW how this was going to end. Like any thriller reader, you’re collecting clues and making your own opinions about who did what… but for the life of me, I didn’t know who the murderer was nor how the whole story would end.
The plot and suspense is totally centered on the unreliability of the narrator which feels annoying at times when, as the reader, you want to be the detective. That said, discovering new things all the way toward the last parts of the book was exciting.
Finally, I did not anticipate that DV/IPV would play such a major role in the story but it really does. It’s done relatively respectfully but it is also a fulcrum upon which the story turns. Using DV for dramatic reveal and momentum building device feels like an oversimplification.
The plot and suspense is totally centered on the unreliability of the narrator which feels annoying at times when, as the reader, you want to be the detective. That said, discovering new things all the way toward the last parts of the book was exciting.
Finally, I did not anticipate that DV/IPV would play such a major role in the story but it really does. It’s done relatively respectfully but it is also a fulcrum upon which the story turns. Using DV for dramatic reveal and momentum building device feels like an oversimplification.