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A review by strawberrymivvy
Did I Say You Could Go by Melanie Gideon
challenging
dark
emotional
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
This was a real page turner, despite all of the main characters being frankly pretty unpleasant.
This is a tale of toxic friendships, but also fairly toxic mother-daughter relationships, nobody comes out of this story particularly well.
A friendship develops between two single moms and their kindergarten-aged daughters, but they drift apart when one starts to feel smothered. A decade later and they reconnect again and we see Ruth, a wealthy divorcee, throwing money at Gemma in an effort to win friends and fit in. Gemma meets a guy and tries to shave out time for him, but Ruth is not happy. The teenagers are also struggling with peer group dynamics and have their own issues.
I found the WhatsApp group chat frankly ridiculous, there is no way that with so few people in each group, and them sharing the information that they did, that the Moms wouldn't have been able to work out who was who, but the author must have felt this was the way to bring everything to a head.
An author to look out for again
This is a tale of toxic friendships, but also fairly toxic mother-daughter relationships, nobody comes out of this story particularly well.
A friendship develops between two single moms and their kindergarten-aged daughters, but they drift apart when one starts to feel smothered. A decade later and they reconnect again and we see Ruth, a wealthy divorcee, throwing money at Gemma in an effort to win friends and fit in. Gemma meets a guy and tries to shave out time for him, but Ruth is not happy. The teenagers are also struggling with peer group dynamics and have their own issues.
I found the WhatsApp group chat frankly ridiculous, there is no way that with so few people in each group, and them sharing the information that they did, that the Moms wouldn't have been able to work out who was who, but the author must have felt this was the way to bring everything to a head.
An author to look out for again
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicide attempt and Emotional abuse