mlehouse 's review for:

A Talent for Murder by Peter Swanson

1.0

dark mysterious slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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This book is one of the shorter audiobooks I’ve listened to this year, but it dragged on and on. I didn’t realize that this was part of a series until partway through the book when the main character alluded to a past with another character that wasn’t fully fleshed out. The premise of this story is immediately flawed. The “clues” that cause Martha to think her husband is a serial killer are ridiculous. The leaps that martha and Lily take are wild, and the characters alternate between being really dumb and being way too specifically smart when it suits the plot. The fact that Martha’s so ready to believe the literal worst of her husband indicates major flaws in the relationship so I didn’t even feel invested in their story.

But then when she calls Lily (whom she hasn’t spoken to in a decade!) and Lily eventually suggests that an old boyfriend was framing Martha’s husband, I actually scoffed at how ridiculous this sounded. But then that turned out to be true!! From that point on, I couldn’t care about the story anymore.

I hated the format of the book. The switches in POV were so frequent and unnecessary, and listening to the audiobook was confusing because they weren’t clear. I hated going back and re-experiencing events from a different character’s perspective with no real value added.

And I’m so sick of the “everyone’s actually a bad person/killer” twist that I keep coming across in thrillers lately. What ever happened to having a good character that I actually want to root for?? Too many killers in this story, not enough thought put into the plot.

don’t even get me started on the art and literature…