A review by liseyp
I Know What You've Done by Dorothy Koomson

dark mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Thank you to the author, publisher Headline Review, and online book club The Pigeonhole for the chance to read this. This is an honest and voluntary review. 
 
How well do you know your neighbours? When Priscilla at number 21 Acacia Villas turns up on neighbour Rae’s doorstep, confused and injured, she hands Rae her book of secrets letting her in on all the dirt Priscilla has uncovered about their fellow residents.
 
Everyone has secrets, and in Acacia Villas those secrets are largely of the criminal variety. We switch perspectives throughout gathering insights into a variety of potential suspects. All of whom, for varying reasons, could have motive to shut Priscilla up for good.
 
I enjoyed most of the characterisation. It’s a well-written story that had me wanting to find out what really happened. But, the jumps between perspectives did damage the drama in some ways. As we got to the end and some of the reveals, these were written as shocking, despite us having found them out via other characters earlier in the story to the point that I felt they were already established facts. When this happened it made me doubt my memory of the story. When I have to go back and trace exactly how I found something out and double check it’s not the author’s mistake that a character doesn't know it already that disrupts the flow and my enjoyment of the book.
 
That and two of the characters (Lilly and Grayson) became so over-the-top in their behaviour and self-justifications that a chapter being from Lilly’s perspective or Grayson’s wife Bryony’s made me groan the second I saw their name at the start of a chapter. Characters who are so wholly self-serving and delusional have no nuance, no sense of sympathy which might see me conflicted over disliking them.
 
Definitely the best book where a crime is used as the hook to then reveal that everyone on a street has secrets that I’ve read this year, but not as good as it could have been.