A review by rainbowfairie
Alone by Barbara De Smedt

challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I read this book in about two days because I wanted to see what happened. It does a good job of keeping you on your toes and interested. I enjoyed the writing and dialogue. There was strong character development. I enjoyed that the book jumped between past and present timeline to give perspective and background. That being said, I feel the ending was rather abrupt compared to the pace of the rest of the book. The chapters toward the end when
the husband is grieving are very choppy and disjointed, which I believe was the author’s way of showing how dissociated and depressed he was.
I was most disappointed by the way the book ended.
Call me a romantic but I wanted some form of resolution to this sad ending. Ending with the antagonist stalking the daughter made me angry lol. I will say, I thought it was a nice twist of fate that the author wrote in the car accident and the fire to have been connected and that Oscar and Julie were perhaps destined to play out this tragedy as the Fates had irreversibly woven the strands of Oscar and Julie’s lives together in that night.
The abrupt ending made me immediately want to read the next book, which appears to only be available in Dutch. If it releases in English I am unsure if I will read it.
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