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A review by pagesplotsandpints
The Woman on the Ledge by Ruth Mancini
3.0
Read Completed 2/13/24 | 3 stars
This book started off SO well -- highly interesting, twisty, full of interesting details that uncovered more of the truth. I was very intrigued as to what was happening and the more we got to know, the more one clue led to another to an intricate web of lies & deceit.
Until it wasn't.
The second half of this book was kind of a flop for me. The turn it took was not one I liked and I wouldn't have picked this book up had I known it would go that way. A few trigger warnings in spoiler tags, as they aren't triggers for me but definitely give away some plot twists.Grooming, pedophilia, sexually taking advantage of minors -- along with other triggers such as cancer and suicide. It wasn't even necessarily the trigger/twist itself but how much time was spent on it as well as how it dictated the rest of the book. The twisty tone completely changed and it was a sort of info dump from then on, losing all of the suspense and turning to drama. People seemed to really love it, along with the revenge/justice that went with it, but it just wasn't for me. I would have much preferred that it all got revealed in the end as another twist instead of halfway, maybe not spending so much time making all of those characters relive it.
Mostly, though, the ending just didn't make sense to me at all. And this will have significant plot spoilers and tell you how it ended: Tate, her friend Helen, and Tate's boss's wife Maddie conspire to set up the CEO of the company where Tate and Dan (the husband) work. He took advantage of Tate and Helen when they were 14 and he was 24, and Tate suspects him of grooming Maddie's daughter Emily, currently. Maddie found out she has a brain tumor that's incurable and ** doesn't want to tell Emily **. While all of this is going on, Tate ends up working with Maddie to bring the CEO down. Their plan is for Maddie to kill herself by throwing herself off the roof with an elaborate plan to pin it all on Jeff since they wouldn't be able to press charges for anything that happened to Tate or Helen due to statute of limitations and he may only get sentenced to 5 years and serve 2.5 if they follow through with pressing charges against him for what he's doing to Emily -- and Maddie won't even be alive when he would get out of jail.
Okay, first of all, this plot isn't the worst plot but I hated the way it was executed. They had to get Tate to take the fall for suspicion of Maddie's murder in order to have her autopsy done and have the CEO be none the wiser, thinking nothing could happen to him and it would all go away... but that wasn't realistic. They planted evidence but that's a LOT of faith that things will go exactly the way you planned it and that Tate doesn't go away for murder.
Second of all, HELLO??? Why did anything think it was better for Maddie to be the victim of a murder -- in her husband's and her daughter's eyes -- than letting her daughter know she was dying of cancer?!? That's just plain terrible. Emily is going to think it's her fault that her mother was murdered because she was involved with this man and her husband is going to have some guilt too. Who knows how these people will go on with life after this scheme. That's traumatic AF! Your loved one dying of cancer is pretty horrible too, but at least she could have let Emily know she was dying and spent more time with her, or made amends, or something. They were on the outs and Emily was acting out a lot, in a big way because of her relationship with an adult, but I think they'd be more likely to talk if she told her she was dying. I can't imagine pretending to be the victim of a murder was a better solution. That's horrific. I just absolutely hated this and I'm kind of surprise this hasn't bothered more people.
Anyway. It started off so interesting and the ending just really ruined everything. If I hadn't enjoyed the beginning so much, I would have been much angrier at the book.
This book started off SO well -- highly interesting, twisty, full of interesting details that uncovered more of the truth. I was very intrigued as to what was happening and the more we got to know, the more one clue led to another to an intricate web of lies & deceit.
Until it wasn't.
The second half of this book was kind of a flop for me. The turn it took was not one I liked and I wouldn't have picked this book up had I known it would go that way. A few trigger warnings in spoiler tags, as they aren't triggers for me but definitely give away some plot twists.
Mostly, though, the ending just didn't make sense to me at all. And this will have significant plot spoilers and tell you how it ended: Tate, her friend Helen, and Tate's boss's wife Maddie conspire to set up the CEO of the company where Tate and Dan (the husband) work. He took advantage of Tate and Helen when they were 14 and he was 24, and Tate suspects him of grooming Maddie's daughter Emily, currently. Maddie found out she has a brain tumor that's incurable and ** doesn't want to tell Emily **. While all of this is going on, Tate ends up working with Maddie to bring the CEO down. Their plan is for Maddie to kill herself by throwing herself off the roof with an elaborate plan to pin it all on Jeff since they wouldn't be able to press charges for anything that happened to Tate or Helen due to statute of limitations and he may only get sentenced to 5 years and serve 2.5 if they follow through with pressing charges against him for what he's doing to Emily -- and Maddie won't even be alive when he would get out of jail.
Okay, first of all, this plot isn't the worst plot but I hated the way it was executed. They had to get Tate to take the fall for suspicion of Maddie's murder in order to have her autopsy done and have the CEO be none the wiser, thinking nothing could happen to him and it would all go away... but that wasn't realistic. They planted evidence but that's a LOT of faith that things will go exactly the way you planned it and that Tate doesn't go away for murder.
Second of all, HELLO??? Why did anything think it was better for Maddie to be the victim of a murder -- in her husband's and her daughter's eyes -- than letting her daughter know she was dying of cancer?!? That's just plain terrible. Emily is going to think it's her fault that her mother was murdered because she was involved with this man and her husband is going to have some guilt too. Who knows how these people will go on with life after this scheme. That's traumatic AF! Your loved one dying of cancer is pretty horrible too, but at least she could have let Emily know she was dying and spent more time with her, or made amends, or something. They were on the outs and Emily was acting out a lot, in a big way because of her relationship with an adult, but I think they'd be more likely to talk if she told her she was dying. I can't imagine pretending to be the victim of a murder was a better solution. That's horrific. I just absolutely hated this and I'm kind of surprise this hasn't bothered more people.
Anyway. It started off so interesting and the ending just really ruined everything. If I hadn't enjoyed the beginning so much, I would have been much angrier at the book.