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A review by mepresley
Like This, For Ever by Sharon Bolton
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
I devoured this book. First, what I enjoyed about it: I’m glad that we saw Lacey struggling in real ways rather than bouncing back after the Ripper and Cambridge cases back to back; it felt realistic: the anxiety, the withdrawal from work and social life, the compulsive exercise, even her manipulation of her therapist. Lacey wasn’t ready to talk about anything real. She can be a very closed and guarded person, and it would have been out of character to throw herself into the vulnerability of therapy. Even her conflicting feelings about Mark, while incredibly frustrating, rang true to Lacey as a character. I like that she seemed to feel an irrational sense of guilt and shame because that is something she has carried from book 1, and makes so much sense for someone who led the extremely difficult life that she has. I enjoyed seeing her interact with her sister at the prison.
I love that the gang’s yard was described in such detail at the start of the book, including the crocodile with the time piece. The Peter Pan stuff was there right from the beginning. And that tiny detail of Barney noticing that one fewer windows of that house was boarded up than before, which happens so early in the novel. Cool setting for the climactic face off, too.
Of the three books, this one did the best job of presenting a variety of plausible suspects. Though Barney’s dad was much too obvious as a suspect, I came around to suspect him for real for a brief time—it would have been shocking in its own way. I also suspected Barney’s teacher and his coach and Barney himself, once Lacey had come around to the conclusion. His repressed memory of finding his dead mother in the bath, his missing chunks of time, and his dad being gone on T/R, which meant he, too, could have been elsewhere. When Lacey ran in to Jorge outside the community center, I pretty much immediately knew it was him, but was still led into a brief suspicion that it was his mother, whom Dana had seen fleeing from the riverbank one evening.
Onto my complaints. The repeated plot of Lacey being suspected was irritating as was the insistence on the will they/ won’t they with Lacey and Mark (cmon, it’s been three books!), however realistic. I’m tired of the build there and want some payoff. The main reason I can see to have Dana suspect Lacey is that keeping her separate from the case in that way and making her feel an unwelcome outsider led to the case dragging out and explained Lacey’s decision to sort of run her own investigation once it was impossible for her to stay out of it. This lends some credibility to her extremely irritating and dangerous choices at the end, as does the fact that Mark’s son was the next victim. Nonetheless, I wanted to scream at her for not alerting anyone about the community center or the crumbling victorian. The reasons given were … not incorrect, really, but also not particularly justified. I appreciated the little detail of her own phone being confiscated because of the anonymous text message about the dead body, and how that led to her having Huck Joesbury’s phone so that Mark could show up to save the day.
I love that the gang’s yard was described in such detail at the start of the book, including the crocodile with the time piece. The Peter Pan stuff was there right from the beginning. And that tiny detail of Barney noticing that one fewer windows of that house was boarded up than before, which happens so early in the novel. Cool setting for the climactic face off, too.
Of the three books, this one did the best job of presenting a variety of plausible suspects. Though Barney’s dad was much too obvious as a suspect, I came around to suspect him for real for a brief time—it would have been shocking in its own way. I also suspected Barney’s teacher and his coach and Barney himself, once Lacey had come around to the conclusion. His repressed memory of finding his dead mother in the bath, his missing chunks of time, and his dad being gone on T/R, which meant he, too, could have been elsewhere. When Lacey ran in to Jorge outside the community center, I pretty much immediately knew it was him, but was still led into a brief suspicion that it was his mother, whom Dana had seen fleeing from the riverbank one evening.
Onto my complaints. The repeated plot of Lacey being suspected was irritating as was the insistence on the will they/ won’t they with Lacey and Mark (cmon, it’s been three books!), however realistic. I’m tired of the build there and want some payoff. The main reason I can see to have Dana suspect Lacey is that keeping her separate from the case in that way and making her feel an unwelcome outsider led to the case dragging out and explained Lacey’s decision to sort of run her own investigation once it was impossible for her to stay out of it. This lends some credibility to her extremely irritating and dangerous choices at the end, as does the fact that Mark’s son was the next victim. Nonetheless, I wanted to scream at her for not alerting anyone about the community center or the crumbling victorian. The reasons given were … not incorrect, really, but also not particularly justified. I appreciated the little detail of her own phone being confiscated because of the anonymous text message about the dead body, and how that led to her having Huck Joesbury’s phone so that Mark could show up to save the day.