A review by joyceheinen
Don't Let Her Stay by Nicola Sanders

dark mysterious tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

 Joanne and her husband Richard are living a great life, with their baby daughter Evie. Everything seems perfect. Until Richard’s twenty-year-old daughter decides to show up. Richard is of course over the moon about it, having not spoken to her in two years. And Joanne is happy for her husband and really could use some help with Evie. But Chloe acts strange around Joanne and something is off with her. And she is the only one that seems to see that.
 
The book starts a bit slow, but eventually the pace picks up and you go through it fairly fast. It’s very clear from the get go, that Chloe is bad news. She is insufferable, annoying, strange, spoiled and just highly unlikeable. The things Chloe says and does are just unacceptable and I never understand how Joanne lets her get away with all this. Richard isn’t helpful either, since he always picks Chloe’s side. Which I can understand at first. He’s his daughter and Richard is glad to have her back in his life. But both Chloe and Joanne accuse each other of the most outrages things and he seems to believe only Chloe. When she is the unreliable one in the story.
 
The book has some twists at the end. Totally not credible and because of this, some of the events happening up until this reveal make absolutely no sense whatsoever. It makes Richard’s rhyme and reason even dumber then I initially thought.
 
Everyone in this book is suspicious from the get go (everyone but the dog Oscar, loved him), but the most obvious scenarios that you might think of while reading the book, are the ones turning out to be the truth. You’re led to believe certain things, but you already know where it is going. And they throw in a final twist, like it is a big shocker. It wasn’t.
 
It’s a very easy read, enjoyable enough to finish, but those final twists really ruined it for me.