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A review by jcm
The Bridesmaid by Ruth Rendell
1.0
I am reading through Rendell’s stand alone novels, and most have been pretty good. This was not, it was utterly terrible. The characters were so under-developed that I couldn’t bring myself to care about any of them. For real: what was the point of Cheryl’s story-line? The big thunder-clap there is that she’s a disaffected youth who steals things to fund her slot machine addiction.
I didn’t buy into the whole love at first site trope. It only seemed Philip cared about the sex, because they literally did nothing else. No dates, no real conversations, just a mentally unstable young woman lying over and over telling him he needed to kill someone to prove his love. Even IF I could believe it, there is no amount of suspension of disbelief in the world to make me believe that someone you’ve basically just met says you need to prove to me you love me by killing someone. The someone in this case REALLY doesn’t like death and dead bodies (um, who does besides pathologists and psychopaths?)That point was ludicrous, Rendell tells us Philip’s got a so-called phobia, yet his reactions throughout the book say otherwise. I have a phobia of snakes, I feel actually sick to my stomach even mentioning it. A tremor down my spine, and now worry I will dream about them tonight. If someone kept telling me I needed to handle a snake I would flip out and peace out.
The point of even mentioning Philip’s job was what? Why even bother with the mean woman who kept finding fault with her bathroom fixtures? The only bit of those boring pages that was useful to whatever the plot was, was to let Philip find a statue which he has a really weird fixation with.
I am truly baffled by the amount of 4 and 5 star ratings here. Or that people call it a thriller. Who could possibly think that this crazy liar wasn’t stashing a body in that disgusting house? The only surprise to me is that there weren’t more bodies stacked up.
I didn’t buy into the whole love at first site trope. It only seemed Philip cared about the sex, because they literally did nothing else. No dates, no real conversations, just a mentally unstable young woman lying over and over telling him he needed to kill someone to prove his love. Even IF I could believe it, there is no amount of suspension of disbelief in the world to make me believe that someone you’ve basically just met says you need to prove to me you love me by killing someone. The someone in this case REALLY doesn’t like death and dead bodies (um, who does besides pathologists and psychopaths?)That point was ludicrous, Rendell tells us Philip’s got a so-called phobia, yet his reactions throughout the book say otherwise. I have a phobia of snakes, I feel actually sick to my stomach even mentioning it. A tremor down my spine, and now worry I will dream about them tonight. If someone kept telling me I needed to handle a snake I would flip out and peace out.
The point of even mentioning Philip’s job was what? Why even bother with the mean woman who kept finding fault with her bathroom fixtures? The only bit of those boring pages that was useful to whatever the plot was, was to let Philip find a statue which he has a really weird fixation with.
I am truly baffled by the amount of 4 and 5 star ratings here. Or that people call it a thriller. Who could possibly think that this crazy liar wasn’t stashing a body in that disgusting house? The only surprise to me is that there weren’t more bodies stacked up.