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A review by marik0n
The Reappearance of Rachel Price by Holly Jackson
1.0
-Spoiler free review-
I was so excited to finally pick up this book but I ended up hating it with a burning passion. I have read her other book A Good Girl's Guide to Murder and I remember that I liked it a lot. I am not sure what happened with this one and I find all these five-star reviews troubling.
1) FMC- Bel
There is not a single thing I could tolerate about Bel. Not even one. I found the whole ‘I hate my mom for disappearing’ very tiring right from the beginning, but this is a ya so I guess up to point I should expect it. I tried to look past it, but as the book progressed it got even worse and it certainly contributed to how much I disliked Bel. As for Bel herself, I hate this whole pretentious, wanna-be-edgy style of hers. I don’t like people that use their bad experiences as an excuse to treat others in a shitty way and that is what Bel is constantly doing. Towards the end of the book, I was almost screaming due to how much she annoyed me. I kept asking myself why could she possibly be so rude (‘Being nice is physically painful’, like girl, please). She is extremely self-absorbed and can’t even monitor her own words but wants to play detective. Moreover, I feel like the author tried too much to write Bel as a ‘cool girl’ and this shit is tiring, it’s 2024, please understand that we do not really care about the male gaze anymore.
2)Plot
At 27% I was already questioning my choice to read it, but I liked Ash. He was the only thing I liked about this book. At 39% I was tired of the constant speculating on Bel’s part. There was a lot of nagging not much progression in terms of plot. At 80% the plot finally started to get together. Truth to be told I didn’t see the plot twist coming, but I think that it was all extremely unbelievable and also the book was unnecessary long for that twist. It could have like half the length.
3)The rest of the characters
I can’t tell you much about them, because I didn’t really care. They were flat, unlikeable and they almost acted like caricatures.
Overall, even though the synopsis was promising, the book didn’t live up to it. The plot twist at the end was kind of interesting, even though it was extremely over the top and the book was unnecessary long and ultimately unbelievable to the point where it was almost funny. It was really difficult for me to get into it, since as early as 30% I still didn’t feel that enough things were happening to captivate my attention. I can’t say that I enjoyed this book, it surely didn’t do it for me. The only reason I kept going is spite, because I write my best reviews about books I dislike. So here we are. This is it.
P.S. I liked the little detail about the documentary in the beginning. This and Ash were actually the only things I liked.
I was so excited to finally pick up this book but I ended up hating it with a burning passion. I have read her other book A Good Girl's Guide to Murder and I remember that I liked it a lot. I am not sure what happened with this one and I find all these five-star reviews troubling.
1) FMC- Bel
There is not a single thing I could tolerate about Bel. Not even one. I found the whole ‘I hate my mom for disappearing’ very tiring right from the beginning, but this is a ya so I guess up to point I should expect it. I tried to look past it, but as the book progressed it got even worse and it certainly contributed to how much I disliked Bel. As for Bel herself, I hate this whole pretentious, wanna-be-edgy style of hers. I don’t like people that use their bad experiences as an excuse to treat others in a shitty way and that is what Bel is constantly doing. Towards the end of the book, I was almost screaming due to how much she annoyed me. I kept asking myself why could she possibly be so rude (‘Being nice is physically painful’, like girl, please). She is extremely self-absorbed and can’t even monitor her own words but wants to play detective. Moreover, I feel like the author tried too much to write Bel as a ‘cool girl’ and this shit is tiring, it’s 2024, please understand that we do not really care about the male gaze anymore.
2)Plot
At 27% I was already questioning my choice to read it, but I liked Ash. He was the only thing I liked about this book. At 39% I was tired of the constant speculating on Bel’s part. There was a lot of nagging not much progression in terms of plot. At 80% the plot finally started to get together. Truth to be told I didn’t see the plot twist coming, but I think that it was all extremely unbelievable and also the book was unnecessary long for that twist. It could have like half the length.
3)The rest of the characters
I can’t tell you much about them, because I didn’t really care. They were flat, unlikeable and they almost acted like caricatures.
Overall, even though the synopsis was promising, the book didn’t live up to it. The plot twist at the end was kind of interesting, even though it was extremely over the top and the book was unnecessary long and ultimately unbelievable to the point where it was almost funny. It was really difficult for me to get into it, since as early as 30% I still didn’t feel that enough things were happening to captivate my attention. I can’t say that I enjoyed this book, it surely didn’t do it for me. The only reason I kept going is spite, because I write my best reviews about books I dislike. So here we are. This is it.
P.S. I liked the little detail about the documentary in the beginning. This and Ash were actually the only things I liked.