A review by smittenforfiction
Your Life Is Mine by Nathan Ripley

5.0

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Hello fellow book lovers! I'm back with an impressive book for you to check out this summer. Your Life Is Mine by Canadian author Nathan Ripley comes out June 4th and I tell ya, this was a wild ride. I received an ARC from Netgalley and I can't wait to tell you why I'm SMITTEN with this fierce novel.

About The Book 📚

Title: Your Life Is Mine
Author: Nathan Ripley
Publication Date: June 4, 2019
Genre: Mystery/Thriller
Format/Pages: e-book ARC 304 pages

Goodreads Link

Pre-Order on Amazon.com

Pre-Order on Chapters Indigo

I gave Ripley's début novel, Find You In the Dark, 3 stars. It was pretty good, but the pace was sluggish and I found the characters a little stale. Neither is the case for his second novel, Your Life Is Mine. I LOVED this book so much, and Ripley has solidified his spot on my auto-read list.

› Setting
August 17, 1966, Stilford, California, Cult leader Chuck Varner brings his seven-year-old daughter to a mall and has her watch him go on a killing spree, then turned the gun on himself.

"Before a shooter is a shooter, he's just a man in a room."

› Plot & Characters
• Blanche: 20 years after her father went on a killing spree, Blanche is in New Orleans, shooting a historical true crime documentary. As a child, she experienced a horrifying event that changed her forever. As a young woman, she's left her mother and dark history behind. She finds out her mother was murdered and returns to her hometown to find out what happened. She's convinced that her father's cult is going strong and another killing spree will happen again soon.

• Jaya: as a teen, Blanche moved in with Jaya and her parents. Jaya and Blanche are a tight-knit team, they are best friends and work together making documentaries.

• Emil: shows up just as Blanche, Jaya, and their crew is wrapping production. He tells Blanche that he knows who she really is, and is blackmailing her to hear what he has to say or he's going to spill the beans to the press.

• Chuck Varner: Blanche's biological father, cult leader, murderer. He believed chaos and violence were natural.

• Crissy Varner: adored and supported Blanche's father, Chuck. She continued to believe in his vision, even after he took his own life, until she's found murdered.

• The Boy: he's referred to as the one who would come after, he teamed up with Crissy and believes in Chuck's vision for violence and chaos.

"We followed his code. The code he called Your Life Is Mine."

› Writing Style
• I love Ripley's writing style, in particular the way Blanche's childhood trauma is told in flashbacks throughout the story.

• The morally gray characters are complicated, baffling, riveting and realistic. No person is simply good or evil, we all make our choices in that moment, for that situation. Do you like morally grey characters? Here's a list of books you might like: https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/morally-grey-characters



• LGBT rep? I'm not 100% sure, but did anyone else get the feeling that Jaya and Blanche have had, or could have a romantic relationship?

› Themes
• Your Life Is Mine drives home the value of information, and how that knowledge can be used to dig up the truth. This is a story about a young girl who overcame the odds to become a successful woman, but who isn't done growing until she can deal with her guilt and trauma.

› Likes 😻
• When I learned what this book was about I was incredibly worried that it would glorify mass murderers, but I'm glad to report it does not do that. Instead, this story shows the impact that a shooting spree has, not just on the victims and their families, but also the lasting negative impact on the family of the shooter.

› Final Thoughts
• Your Life Is Mine is an engaging, intense, creepy novel that is one of the best thrillers I've ever read.

Thank you to Netgalley and publisher for the complimentary copy in exchange for my honest review.

*Quotes taken from an ARC copy and subject to change*

"Nathan Ripley is the pseudonym of Toronto resident and Journey Prize winner Naben Ruthnum. Find You in the Dark, Ripley’s first thriller, was an instant bestseller and an Arthur Ellis Awards finalist for Best First Novel. As Naben Ruthnum, he is the author of Curry: Eating, Reading, and Race. Follow him on Twitter @NabenRuthnum."
https://www.simonandschuster.ca/authors/Nathan-Ripley/2141394714

https://twitter.com/nabenruthnum/

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