A review by yvo_about_books
It's One of Us: A Suspense Novel by J.T. Ellison

2.0

 Finished reading: February 6th 2023


"Infertility is fascinating to those who seek to break its back. The doctors and the therapists who get rich at the expense of those desperate to procreate. Oh, they care. But they're still rolling in it."

*** A copy of this book was kindly provided to me by Netgalley and MIRA in exchange for an honest review. Thank you! ***

WARNING: Guess what? It's unpopular opinion time again!

I've read and enjoyed one of J.T. Ellison's books in the past, and I've been meaning to try more of her work. I always love a good thriller with a DNA angle, and the blurb of It's One Of Us sounded absolutely fascinating with main character Park being a sperm donor years ago and one of his children now being a suspect in a murder investigation. Talk about a premise that hooks you immediately! Sadly, the actual story didn't live up to expectations for me, and I ended up struggling considerably with it.

Like I said before, It's One Of Us has such a fascinating premise and the DNA angle was probably the highlight of the story for me. This along with the murder investigation itself and references to other cases in the past... Unfortunately, this doesn't seem the main focus of the story though, and instead It's One Of Us mostly reads like a domestic thriller. Nothing wrong with that, but not my favorite subgenre and not something I expected. What I also didn't expect was for the whole infertility/miscarriage element to be so in-your-face and extremely present during the whole plot. I can imagine how triggering this can be for people, and the very first chapter literally starts with a miscarriage scene. The constant repetition and references to infertility was just too present and it kind of had the opposite effect on me... Instead of feeling for the main characters, I just started to resent them.

As for the characters in general... I really couldn't stand most of them. I felt like they lacked fleshing out, and especially Olivia and Park were extremely unlikeable. This was made even worse when the story started to unfold and some of their secrets and behavior were revealed... And then I'm not even talking about the especially awkward and disgusting love triangle and cheating element. I don't want to give away spoilers, but seriously, what was Olivia thinking making those choices?!?! It's One Of Us uses a multiple POV structure, and this way we also get perspectives including the detectives, one of the donor children, her mother and the murderer himself. Scarlet was probably the only character that was likeable, but even her character didn't feel rounded enough for me.

I also struggled with the writing style itself. The prologue was plain torture for me, and while things did improve later on, the often short, stunted sentences bothered me. I also wasn't a fan of the POV names (the wife, the husband, the murderer, the daughter etc); what's wrong with simply putting the actual names of the characters? I'm not sure why, but that really annoyed me. The plot twists themselves weren't really all that successful for me either. Sure, there were some things I didn't see coming, but the twists didn't feel realistic and quite over the top especially towards the ending.

All in all It's One Of Us unfortunately turned out to be a total dud for me. Between the constant focus on infertility instead of the murder investigation and DNA angle, the unlikeable characters, love triangle and over the top final part, this story just wasn't for me... I do know I seem to be in the minority though, and a lot of people seem to enjoy this story better. 
Expand filter menu Content Warnings