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bbitzan 's review for:
Bath Haus: A Thriller
by P.J. Vernon
I love a genuinely good thriller. I complained to my roommate, who has already read this book, that it was like "gay Gone Girl" on account of how unlikeable the characters are, and honestly, I'll stand by that.
It's so hard to find thrillers that actually manage to toe the line between dropping enough hints that there's a possibility of a careful reader picking up on what's being put down and making it TOO obvious. So many authors either drop zero hints, thereby making the "twist" have no power or just absolutely tank the tension of the book by being too heavy-handed. I feel like Bath Haus manages to balance on the precipice beautifully. And I think it wouldn't be able to do that if it weren't for how deeply unlikeable all the characters are. Between Oliver as an unreliable narrator of sorts, Nathan as the "straight-man" (for lack of a better descriptor), and all of the other characters like Kathy, Tom, Hector, and Kristian being varying levels of villainous or gross it gives you genuine reasons to not just suspect everyone but also to think maybe they aren't the villain after all.
This is probably more like a 4.5☆ for me based purely on how much Oliver's narration and stupidity made me want to pull my own hair out
It's so hard to find thrillers that actually manage to toe the line between dropping enough hints that there's a possibility of a careful reader picking up on what's being put down and making it TOO obvious. So many authors either drop zero hints, thereby making the "twist" have no power or just absolutely tank the tension of the book by being too heavy-handed. I feel like Bath Haus manages to balance on the precipice beautifully. And I think it wouldn't be able to do that if it weren't for how deeply unlikeable all the characters are. Between Oliver as an unreliable narrator of sorts, Nathan as the "straight-man" (for lack of a better descriptor), and all of the other characters like Kathy, Tom, Hector, and Kristian being varying levels of villainous or gross it gives you genuine reasons to not just suspect everyone but also to think maybe they aren't the villain after all.
This is probably more like a 4.5☆ for me based purely on how much Oliver's narration and stupidity made me want to pull my own hair out