A review by squids_can_read
Please See Us by Caitlin Mullen

adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

People go to Atlantic City to escape somethings. A bad marriage, an abusive family, high expectations, and even themselves. But Atlantic City isn't the place of new opportunities that it once was. It's run down, filled with prostitutes and gamblers. So when women start to go missing no one blinks an eye until Clara has a vision. 

This book is not a thriller. I think that's the most important thing that I can say. Do not go into this book thinking that this is going to be a thriller because it's not. Instead I think this book could be better classified as a social commentary on women's role in a run-down society. This book really focuses on how each woman who finds herself in Atlantic City wants to be part of something bigger and is instead made into something small by society. Eventually these women are able to break the belief that they have to follow what role society has set out for them. 

As such, the characters and their stories were pretty interesting. The only thing that I didn't totally love was how slowly it started. This book is about 330 pages but it didn't really start getting interesting until about maybe page 100. Which is really long for a book that only about 300 pages. But otherwise I really enjoyed this book. 

If you want a book that has social commentary about what society views to be women's place and women defying that along with an interesting changing of point-of-views, this book is for you.