A review by lisa_butler79
Magpie by Elizabeth Day

dark mysterious reflective slow-paced

3.0

I read this book for a book with a bird in the title challenge.

This book is hard to review without giving away a spoiler.

If I'm honest, I nearly quit this book. It was a slow burner, and it was hard to know what the story was going to be about.  The book then switches narratives with a different account of the same events with a twist that I was not expecting. It was this twist that kept me reading.

Magpie is a story of a perfect couple whose life slowly starts to unravel when the new lodger, Kate, shows up. Just what does she want with Marisa and Jake’s new life, and why does she seem to be so nosy and overly interested in their life? Is Marisa going crazy because of the pregnancy hormones or is Kate a genuine threat?

The book was a bit of a rollercoaster of a journey of both female characters and sensitively discusses hard topics of infertility and mental health in a powerful and positive way.

The character development and the layers of this book once the twist took place was real and intriguing. It was the character development that kept me reading this book as I wanted to know how this book would end. Although this book was an easy read and I was never bored the ending just felt a bit flat. 

Overall I enjoyed the book but was also left feeling is that it? What was the overall point of the story. It just felt a but like a psychological thriller that went nowhere and a normal fiction book that wanted to deliver a message but didn't quite achieve it.