A review by blurrypetals
Providence by Caroline Kepnes

4.0

Between this book, You, and Hidden Bodies, I've come to find that I really dig Caroline Kepnes's style.

She's the queen of stream of consciousness and inner monologues and it's evident here she's excellent at not only writing great inner monologues, but she's great at writing different, distinctive ones. If I were given the same events told through the eyes of each of our narrators here, Jon, Chloe, and Eggs, I would be able to distinguish each of them from one another quite easily, I'm sure, and that goes for Joe from You and Hidden Bodies, too.

With that said, the only reason this is a 4-star instead of a 5-star is because the narrative is a little aimless. We know Jon wants to fix what was done to him, we know Chloe wants to be with Jon and he wants to be with her, and we know Eggs wants to figure out what's causing all the coronaries, but we don't have much of a "how" in sight for all these goals and desires.

I really enjoyed this, though. Just like Kepnes's past work, it's engaging, strange, scarily relatable, and smart. I would have liked a little less Eggs and more Chloe and Jon, too, just to focus more on the emotional center with them, but other than that I have few complaints, especially with MacLeod Andrews and Emily Rankin narrating Jon's and Chloe's chapters, respectively. Definitely a breezy listen and an intriguing story.