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A review by thelizabeth
Broken Harbor by Tana French
5.0
Unintended Goodreads vacation!
So I read this a while back. And I am sheepish about this rating. But I'm sticking to it! I made the decision, it's mine.
In a way, this book (#4!) is the reason I picked up this series at all, because long ago I read Moira's fantastic review/comment thread/spoiler therapy status update, and I felt like, wow, that is such a great reaction to a book, and I never woulda thought.
Something about this one just works on me. This is the recipe with which to treat Lizzes with slightly silly genre fiction. Just hit me with it, I love it.
This one… is creepy. It's creepy as hell. And it surprises me that this is the nameable quality that describes what I liked most here, because I'm not a creepy-stories person. Actually, probably that's why it worked on me so well. But there are just enough… things, from the initial crime scene alone, to make my hair tingle a little bit and make me need to know more and also not take the book to bed.
Everything works, as far as I'm concerned. The red herrings are great? Some of the best ones I've ever seen? Because they're impactful and weird and flabbergasting all on their own, so then when you realize the explanations are slipping through your fingers, your brain has something else to work on entirely.
AND THE ATTIC. The attic. Everything about the attic and the walls. What gets me, at the murder scene, is not just this terribly sad family that's been killed, and the nightmarish epic battle scene in the kitchen, and the eerie empty neighborhood, it's the holes punched in the walls, all over the house. With baby monitors pointing inside. WHY. THAT IS SO CREEPY. THAT IS CREEPY! Their poor little goddamned unfinished housing development in the middle of nowhere, utterly stranded by the economic bust. The failure of their dream home, and the Spain family's messed up identity crisis when they have to go on a freaking budget — I want to say it's too pat to be thematically effective, but that isn't true. It hangs together, it does.
Most important, though, was that for me this slam-dunked as a mystery, because I did not know a damn thing, and every lame thing I expected was happening was not it. This felt so nice! I love this feeling! More than being predictable (which is not really what they are, for me), the caveat I have with most mystery stories is that I don't actually care very much about who did it. I tend to enjoy the whole mechanism of the thing better than I like the exposition. But this was not true here — I wanted answers! And when they got there I was flipping giddy. Freaky, freaky, not okay answers.
And here okay here's the major spoiler gotta talk about it shakedown:
I have written all this stuff about this book and so far not mentioned the main character at all. The detective Kennedy, and his backstory, are of course the real Tana Frenchiest elements, for good and for bad. It is inarguably silly-seeming that, once again, here we are with a detective who's got a tragic past from decades back, nestled right at the scene of the crime! "But I had put it all behind me/but I need to work this case/but it's going to ruin me!" Etc.! But hey, listen. Kennedy worked for me — better, I think, than any of the others (possibly except Cassie). He takes us down that Tana Frenchy existential spiral harder than anyone else, and that's rough to watch. His drama with his young partner is all kinds of tragic. His crazy sister Dina was a little hard to buy, but she and her descriptions of her madness allowed one of my favorite scenes to happen: And we don't even get to see it really happen, we just know it will. It will. They're in it, at the end, together.
I am writing this review in the dark in the middle of the night. Actually. I can't sleep, my back hurts. I am listening carefully to the dark while I type so loudly, but I don't have an attic and that helps allay the creepers at this particular time. Honestly one of the things I like about apartments is that there are few empty rooms to creep my easily creeped nature. When I was a kid, scary things were everywhere. There was room to feel alone in a house with my family. But I can hear you, apartment! Even you, .5 of a bedroom!
What am I talking about. Oh: I would recommend this book.
Now that I've read them all, I know I wouldn't have minded if I'd read this one first, like I sort of wanted to. They really are successful as standalones. So just, if you're interested, pick the one whose flap copy makes your hair tingle the most. Because, you will probably like it.
So I read this a while back. And I am sheepish about this rating. But I'm sticking to it! I made the decision, it's mine.
In a way, this book (#4!) is the reason I picked up this series at all, because long ago I read Moira's fantastic review/comment thread/spoiler therapy status update, and I felt like, wow, that is such a great reaction to a book, and I never woulda thought.
Something about this one just works on me. This is the recipe with which to treat Lizzes with slightly silly genre fiction. Just hit me with it, I love it.
This one… is creepy. It's creepy as hell. And it surprises me that this is the nameable quality that describes what I liked most here, because I'm not a creepy-stories person. Actually, probably that's why it worked on me so well. But there are just enough… things, from the initial crime scene alone, to make my hair tingle a little bit and make me need to know more and also not take the book to bed.
Everything works, as far as I'm concerned. The red herrings are great? Some of the best ones I've ever seen? Because they're impactful and weird and flabbergasting all on their own, so then when you realize the explanations are slipping through your fingers, your brain has something else to work on entirely.
Spoiler
The entire existence of Colin, and what he is doing, is so wrong and fascinating and nuts. The fact that he's nearly pointless to the plot is crazy to me. He's so important!AND THE ATTIC. The attic. Everything about the attic and the walls. What gets me, at the murder scene, is not just this terribly sad family that's been killed, and the nightmarish epic battle scene in the kitchen, and the eerie empty neighborhood, it's the holes punched in the walls, all over the house. With baby monitors pointing inside. WHY. THAT IS SO CREEPY. THAT IS CREEPY! Their poor little goddamned unfinished housing development in the middle of nowhere, utterly stranded by the economic bust. The failure of their dream home, and the Spain family's messed up identity crisis when they have to go on a freaking budget — I want to say it's too pat to be thematically effective, but that isn't true. It hangs together, it does.
Most important, though, was that for me this slam-dunked as a mystery, because I did not know a damn thing, and every lame thing I expected was happening was not it. This felt so nice! I love this feeling! More than being predictable (which is not really what they are, for me), the caveat I have with most mystery stories is that I don't actually care very much about who did it. I tend to enjoy the whole mechanism of the thing better than I like the exposition. But this was not true here — I wanted answers! And when they got there I was flipping giddy. Freaky, freaky, not okay answers.
And here okay here's the major spoiler gotta talk about it shakedown:
Spoiler
Jenny, Jenny, EVERYTHING about Jenny's goddamn meltdown, is perfect, I love it, I love it. It works, it works. And okay I can see that it could all look very silly? This couple in this house slowly becoming unhinged in the ways that they are? But I loved them. I believed it. Lord. Pat's gradual unemployment-fueled breakdown over the attic is awesome (THOSE MESSAGE BOARD POSTS!), but it's not exactly a normal problem to have. But Jenny, and her very specific stressed-out mommy tether-snap, this feels very very real to me, the autopilot of routine eventually getting too far ahead of you and making you forget if you washed your own hair an hour ago, eventually making you sort of question the very fabric of reality and if you exist and do actual things. For pretty much most mommies, I'm gonna guess that this accurately describes the very very worst days. But Jenny keeps having them, every day is this day, things keep pushing her (and Pat and freaking Colin push plenty) and she's done, she's tearing that reality fabric clean through, she wants out. She's on the other side. The way she describes the moment she snaps. Walking up the stairs. The light. So freaky. So freaky.I have written all this stuff about this book and so far not mentioned the main character at all. The detective Kennedy, and his backstory, are of course the real Tana Frenchiest elements, for good and for bad. It is inarguably silly-seeming that, once again, here we are with a detective who's got a tragic past from decades back, nestled right at the scene of the crime! "But I had put it all behind me/but I need to work this case/but it's going to ruin me!" Etc.! But hey, listen. Kennedy worked for me — better, I think, than any of the others (possibly except Cassie). He takes us down that Tana Frenchy existential spiral harder than anyone else, and that's rough to watch. His drama with his young partner is all kinds of tragic. His crazy sister Dina was a little hard to buy, but she and her descriptions of her madness allowed one of my favorite scenes to happen:
Spoiler
when Kennedy wakes up, hearing the roaring noise that doesn't exist, the crashing sea. Looking for it in his kitchen. I loved that because it was so so brief and small but oh, man, oh man. We know it is not a dream. He is cracking through, right along Dina's faultline.I am writing this review in the dark in the middle of the night. Actually. I can't sleep, my back hurts. I am listening carefully to the dark while I type so loudly, but I don't have an attic and that helps allay the creepers at this particular time. Honestly one of the things I like about apartments is that there are few empty rooms to creep my easily creeped nature. When I was a kid, scary things were everywhere. There was room to feel alone in a house with my family. But I can hear you, apartment! Even you, .5 of a bedroom!
What am I talking about. Oh: I would recommend this book.
Now that I've read them all, I know I wouldn't have minded if I'd read this one first, like I sort of wanted to. They really are successful as standalones. So just, if you're interested, pick the one whose flap copy makes your hair tingle the most. Because, you will probably like it.