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A review by okevamae
Dare to Know by James Kennedy
4.0
The narrator of Dare to Know is a down-on-his-luck salesman with an intriguing product to sell: he can mathematically predict the exact date and time of your death. The algorithm has never once been wrong – the method is foolproof. His competitors are less accurate, but cheaper, and can also predict the “how” of your death - and this innovation in the field is putting him out of business. In a desperate moment, he does the one thing people in his line of work are never supposed to do – he runs the numbers to find the moment of his own death. And what he finds is impossible: according to the math, he died twenty-three minutes ago.
I was expecting something a little more intrigue-y or action-y from this. The publisher’s blurb calls it an “adrenaline-fueled thriller,” but after reading the novel, I have to wonder whether they and I read the same book. Instead, this book follows along as the narrator’s life completely unravels - and his sanity with it, in a weird, trippy fashion that reminds me of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Most of the book is spent either in flashback, as we learn what brought the narrator to this point, or in weird hallucinatory insanity, the reason for which makes much more sense once you get to the end, which has a twist that was somehow both surprising and obvious.
I enjoyed this book, but I’m giving it 4 stars instead of 5 just because so much of the trippy stuff was hard to follow and didn’t keep my attention well. I kept wanting to skip ahead to a scene that made sense.
I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Tw: drug use, alcoholism, miscarriage
I was expecting something a little more intrigue-y or action-y from this. The publisher’s blurb calls it an “adrenaline-fueled thriller,” but after reading the novel, I have to wonder whether they and I read the same book. Instead, this book follows along as the narrator’s life completely unravels - and his sanity with it, in a weird, trippy fashion that reminds me of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Most of the book is spent either in flashback, as we learn what brought the narrator to this point, or in weird hallucinatory insanity, the reason for which makes much more sense once you get to the end, which has a twist that was somehow both surprising and obvious.
I enjoyed this book, but I’m giving it 4 stars instead of 5 just because so much of the trippy stuff was hard to follow and didn’t keep my attention well. I kept wanting to skip ahead to a scene that made sense.
I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Tw: drug use, alcoholism, miscarriage