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A review by carolpk
Swerve by Vicki Pettersson
2.0
The Hook - Swerve is a thriller promising a heck of a ride.
The Line – ”But that’s long past, and besides, everyone has something in their history that makes them flinch.”
The Sinker – I wonder how a psychologist would analyze Swerve but I’m just a reader trying to make sense of this experience? Several of my GoodReads friends gave Swerve high marks and I was really looking forward to a good fast-paced thriller by an author I had never read. All started out well. Kristine Rush and her finance Daniel head out across the Mojave Desert to visit Daniel’s family in Vegas for the 4th of July. Though Kristine is not looking forward to seeing Daniel’s mother, she is proud to be with her husband-to-be. Their enjoyable outing goes south when they are brutally attacked in a rest stop and Daniel is kidnapped. The kidnapper, clearly a madman, gives Kristine 24 hours to meet his terms by navigating a road trip with a map he has provided. If she fails, well, you get the picture. On the first stretch of the journey, something happens that opens my eyes. This was a good thing. I liked it and thought, hey; this is going to be great. I was holding my breath, quickly turning pages, waiting to see what was next. Then things started to go sour for me. I knew who the psychopath was. That would have been fine but then this nutcase ramped up the violence in ways that seemed gratuitous to me and didn’t really make the story any better. These devices were the author’s choice but I didn’t have to like them. I lost interest in the psychological play of cat and mouse and just wanted the story to ride out to its expected conclusion. Perhaps I’m getting old. Man can find many ways to inflict pain and suffering on each other in real life and I’ve lost some tolerance to read the gory details, particularly when they are extremely savage.
I did finish Swerve. It was a fast read. What really disappointed me in the end and is no fault of the author is that I purchased this for our library. It now bears a plate with my name. Now, how about that?
The Line – ”But that’s long past, and besides, everyone has something in their history that makes them flinch.”
The Sinker – I wonder how a psychologist would analyze Swerve but I’m just a reader trying to make sense of this experience? Several of my GoodReads friends gave Swerve high marks and I was really looking forward to a good fast-paced thriller by an author I had never read. All started out well. Kristine Rush and her finance Daniel head out across the Mojave Desert to visit Daniel’s family in Vegas for the 4th of July. Though Kristine is not looking forward to seeing Daniel’s mother, she is proud to be with her husband-to-be. Their enjoyable outing goes south when they are brutally attacked in a rest stop and Daniel is kidnapped. The kidnapper, clearly a madman, gives Kristine 24 hours to meet his terms by navigating a road trip with a map he has provided. If she fails, well, you get the picture. On the first stretch of the journey, something happens that opens my eyes. This was a good thing. I liked it and thought, hey; this is going to be great. I was holding my breath, quickly turning pages, waiting to see what was next. Then things started to go sour for me. I knew who the psychopath was. That would have been fine but then this nutcase ramped up the violence in ways that seemed gratuitous to me and didn’t really make the story any better. These devices were the author’s choice but I didn’t have to like them. I lost interest in the psychological play of cat and mouse and just wanted the story to ride out to its expected conclusion. Perhaps I’m getting old. Man can find many ways to inflict pain and suffering on each other in real life and I’ve lost some tolerance to read the gory details, particularly when they are extremely savage.
I did finish Swerve. It was a fast read. What really disappointed me in the end and is no fault of the author is that I purchased this for our library. It now bears a plate with my name. Now, how about that?