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shelfreflectionofficial's reviews
815 reviews
Darling Girls by Sally Hepworth
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
“The fact remained, there was more to what happened to them when they were children than even they knew.”
This book had a different kind of domestic-thriller vibe than the other books I’ve read by Sally Hepworth.
She tackled some hard-to-read topics like child abuse and the foster care system. It made the stakes feel a little higher and the ending more important.
Even though I had the twists figured out pretty early on, it was still a really compelling and hard-to-put-down book. I was deeply invested in the pursuit of justice and getting the ‘bad guy’ held accountable.
The main reason a person would not want to read this book would be if they were triggered by child abuse or their own experiences in foster care. I can see how this might not be a good fit for that.
The basic premise is that three sisters (not biologically, but bound by their shared trauma) spent a few years together in the foster home— Wild Meadows— under the care of Miss Fairchild who was anything but fair to children.
They eventually found a way to get out from her abusive hand.
Now, 25 years later, they’re forced to relive their trauma as old human remains have been found under the foster home. They have to confront their past, their fears, and their trauma, as they are both witnesses and suspects in the new investigation.
“Her testimony is compelling… You three had troubled childhoods and Norah has well-documented issues with violence. We’ve also seen enough to know that the three of you would do just about anything to protect each other. A lovely trait among sisters— but also a pretty powerful motivation to lie.”
Hepworth did a good job of creating three distinct personalities for the sisters and the ways they coped with their childhood.
We had:
Jessica: She lived with Miss Fairchild the longest and had experienced more of her narcissistic behvavior and manipulation. As an adult she is a home organizer which pairs well with her OCD. She battles her OCD with taking Valium, often from her clients’ houses… because most of them apparently need them too.
“No one repressed more toxic emotions than she did… All that repressed anger and nothing to show for it. She’d been repressing anger about it ever since.”
“Panic was her constant state of being, as familiar to her as breathing.”
Then there’s:
Norah: She was second to arrive at Wild Meadow having come from a mixed-bag of foster homes prior; she had learned to use violence to both protect herself and cope with her trauma. Her adult job is ‘helping’ people pass psychometric screening tests for employment by cheating and doing it for them. She also dates, not for relationship, but transactional sex that results in handyman chores done around her house.
“If there was one thing Norah had learned from growing up in foster care, it was how to take care of things. Her methods were a little unorthodox, perhaps, but they had to be.”
“One of the things that Alicia had always admired about Norah was the fact that she was a committed liar. Not to be confused with a good liar; Norah’s gift was the ability to come up with a lie on the spur of the moment and remain committed to it against all logic and reason.”
And lastly:
Alicia: Meant to be there only while her grandma was in the hospital, worse came to worse and her grandma died, forcing her into foster care for the duration. As an adult Alicia is a social worker, seeking to care for foster kids better than she was.
“Alicia wasn’t known for her wise, well-thought-out decisions. She was the one who threw caution to the wind, who took risks, who acted first and thought of the consequences later.”
“If there was one thing foster kids needed, it was fight.”
Jessica takes charge, Norah was the fight, and Alicia was the heart.
It was heartbreaking to read about their stories— what led them there— and what happened to them after.
Hearing four-year-old Jessica think that her mother died of sadness and worrying that she might too if she was too sad just wrenches you.
“Jessica didn’t know you could die from being sad. She remembered being very careful not to cry about her mother in case she died too.”
Even though I don’t share Norah’s love of dogs or care for some of her decisions, when you read a story like this you really love a character like Norah. Her strength and her fight is essential and it bolsters the reader and gives us hope that she won’t let her or her sisters be taken down. You cheer for her fight, for her resilience, for her spirit.
I love how Hepworth shows how even in trauma, relationships matter so much. Their sisterhood was what got them through. They had each other. Resilience is a really interesting and inspiring thing to study in real life when you hear people’s stories and how they came out of it.
The chapters of the book go back and forth between present and ‘before’ and change between the three sisters’ POVs. Hepworth did a good job of writing distinct voices for each character.
We also have these ‘mysterious’ chapters of a woman speaking with a therapist about her childhood. We aren’t told right away who it is, and even after we find that out, there is suspicion to be cast on the verity of what we are reading.
[I have a spoiler comment about that at the very end of this review.]
I don’t know much about the foster care system and how it differs (or not) from the US to Australia, but I think Hepworth did a good job in her portrayal. Obviously the story revolved around the hellish side of foster care, but she also shows Alicia as a social worker and really caring about the kids and wanting to sincerely help them.
I know several families who do foster care. In the healthy and right way. Hepworth acknowledges the ‘heroes’ of the foster care system in her acknowledgements at the back of the book which I think is important. It’s not all bad. And there are lots of people who are diligently fighting for these kids and for making the system better that we can’t forget about that side too.
It was really poignant to ponder how the social workers had told the girls they were ‘lucky’ to find that home with Miss Fairchild.
Jessica contemplates it: “If you were lucky, it implied that your good fortune hadn’t been earned. You couldn’t question it, or take it for granted. You had to be grateful. Because what had been given to you could just as easily be taken away.”
I like how Alicia is honest about it with the kids she works with: “Trish is a wonderful foster mother, and it’s very generous of her to keep you on [after you turn 18]. but you’re not lucky. You lost your parents. You lost your grandmother. You’ve spent the last few years living in uncertainty. Having a stable home until you finish school is actually a lot less than you deserve.”
“Love and security were the most basic of rights. Forcing these kids to believe they were lucky to have that was even more damaging than what some of them experienced in care.”
It really puts things into perspective, doesn’t it?
It reminds me of my significant role as a mother and the job and privilege I have to be the adult in my home to provide a safe, secure, and loving environment for my kids. Being a parent is much more than that but it can’t be less. And the significance of that is monumental. My heart aches for the children, young and old, who have been robbed of those basic needs.
Whether tragedy or parental neglect and selfishness, so many kids have been led to believe that they are not worthy of love. That they have to earn it and that it can easily be taken away.
More than anything I pray those kids find Jesus. He is the only one who will never disappoint and the hope he brings more than makes up for the losses they’ve endured. In him they find unconditional love, joy, grace, peace, mercy, comfort, patience, kindness, and gentleness. And his hope is secure- it can’t be taken and it can’t even be earned. It’s only a gift to be received. An eternal home for them to belong and be cherished.
To know how much I’ve found in Jesus, I can’t imagine how freeing and life-changing that would be for someone who never even knew a shadow of that love and security!
The Bible even uses the language of adoption when it comes to being part of his family. Each of us is grafted in, adopted as sons and daughters! (Romans 8:14-19; Ephesians 1:5; Galatians 4:5-7; Psalm 27:10)
At the very least, I hope if you read this book it can cause you to pray for the foster kids and families in your community.
Recommendation
This is a heavier book than some of her others and at times hard to read. But if these topics aren’t triggers for you, I would recommend this book.
It’s a fast-paced story with characters that will have you investing in either their triumph or their demise.
It reminded me a little bit of Ashley Audrain’s The Push.
Hepworth, of course, has her signature ‘gasp-inducing’ last chapter, but I feel satisfied with the ending and my spoiler comment below will explain why.
[Content Advisory: 24 f-words, 18 s-words; a little bit of sexual content in the form of a brief sex scene and a character sexting; two characters are in a lesbian relationship and it’s a somewhat prominent part of the book]
SPOILER COMMENT
......
......
.....
.....
[ Okay so let me just talk about Dr. Warren for a sec. At first blush he is a terrible therapist and we eventually find out that Fairchild is playing him and manipulating him to better her defense at trial because he’s a sadistic pervert. BUT… I have a different theory.
And this is where I’ve landed because I think it’s plausible, but also because this kind of story requires justice in a big way and for me to end the book thinking Fairchild is getting off is just not going to work.
So here’s the deal… Dr. Warren isn’t incompetent.. he’s actually brilliant and devious. He knows what she is and he knows how to get her to talk. HE is playing HER. She thinks she has pulled one over on him, but I picture her experiencing a rude awakening when he’s actually gotten her to confess something in her sessions that he is able to help the prosecutor use to put her away for a long time. She was arrogant and thought she could get away with it, but nope. She dug her own grave.
Dr. Warren was pretending because he could see through her; he wasn’t pervertly drawn into her antics. Somehow he has trapped her in her own game. And justice is served.
Hepworth leaves this up to the imagination and this is what I’ve come up with. Feel free to adopt this theory as well.
.......
........
......
SPOILER OVER
This book had a different kind of domestic-thriller vibe than the other books I’ve read by Sally Hepworth.
She tackled some hard-to-read topics like child abuse and the foster care system. It made the stakes feel a little higher and the ending more important.
Even though I had the twists figured out pretty early on, it was still a really compelling and hard-to-put-down book. I was deeply invested in the pursuit of justice and getting the ‘bad guy’ held accountable.
The main reason a person would not want to read this book would be if they were triggered by child abuse or their own experiences in foster care. I can see how this might not be a good fit for that.
The basic premise is that three sisters (not biologically, but bound by their shared trauma) spent a few years together in the foster home— Wild Meadows— under the care of Miss Fairchild who was anything but fair to children.
They eventually found a way to get out from her abusive hand.
Now, 25 years later, they’re forced to relive their trauma as old human remains have been found under the foster home. They have to confront their past, their fears, and their trauma, as they are both witnesses and suspects in the new investigation.
“Her testimony is compelling… You three had troubled childhoods and Norah has well-documented issues with violence. We’ve also seen enough to know that the three of you would do just about anything to protect each other. A lovely trait among sisters— but also a pretty powerful motivation to lie.”
Hepworth did a good job of creating three distinct personalities for the sisters and the ways they coped with their childhood.
We had:
Jessica: She lived with Miss Fairchild the longest and had experienced more of her narcissistic behvavior and manipulation. As an adult she is a home organizer which pairs well with her OCD. She battles her OCD with taking Valium, often from her clients’ houses… because most of them apparently need them too.
“No one repressed more toxic emotions than she did… All that repressed anger and nothing to show for it. She’d been repressing anger about it ever since.”
“Panic was her constant state of being, as familiar to her as breathing.”
Then there’s:
Norah: She was second to arrive at Wild Meadow having come from a mixed-bag of foster homes prior; she had learned to use violence to both protect herself and cope with her trauma. Her adult job is ‘helping’ people pass psychometric screening tests for employment by cheating and doing it for them. She also dates, not for relationship, but transactional sex that results in handyman chores done around her house.
“If there was one thing Norah had learned from growing up in foster care, it was how to take care of things. Her methods were a little unorthodox, perhaps, but they had to be.”
“One of the things that Alicia had always admired about Norah was the fact that she was a committed liar. Not to be confused with a good liar; Norah’s gift was the ability to come up with a lie on the spur of the moment and remain committed to it against all logic and reason.”
And lastly:
Alicia: Meant to be there only while her grandma was in the hospital, worse came to worse and her grandma died, forcing her into foster care for the duration. As an adult Alicia is a social worker, seeking to care for foster kids better than she was.
“Alicia wasn’t known for her wise, well-thought-out decisions. She was the one who threw caution to the wind, who took risks, who acted first and thought of the consequences later.”
“If there was one thing foster kids needed, it was fight.”
Jessica takes charge, Norah was the fight, and Alicia was the heart.
It was heartbreaking to read about their stories— what led them there— and what happened to them after.
Hearing four-year-old Jessica think that her mother died of sadness and worrying that she might too if she was too sad just wrenches you.
“Jessica didn’t know you could die from being sad. She remembered being very careful not to cry about her mother in case she died too.”
Even though I don’t share Norah’s love of dogs or care for some of her decisions, when you read a story like this you really love a character like Norah. Her strength and her fight is essential and it bolsters the reader and gives us hope that she won’t let her or her sisters be taken down. You cheer for her fight, for her resilience, for her spirit.
I love how Hepworth shows how even in trauma, relationships matter so much. Their sisterhood was what got them through. They had each other. Resilience is a really interesting and inspiring thing to study in real life when you hear people’s stories and how they came out of it.
The chapters of the book go back and forth between present and ‘before’ and change between the three sisters’ POVs. Hepworth did a good job of writing distinct voices for each character.
We also have these ‘mysterious’ chapters of a woman speaking with a therapist about her childhood. We aren’t told right away who it is, and even after we find that out, there is suspicion to be cast on the verity of what we are reading.
[I have a spoiler comment about that at the very end of this review.]
I don’t know much about the foster care system and how it differs (or not) from the US to Australia, but I think Hepworth did a good job in her portrayal. Obviously the story revolved around the hellish side of foster care, but she also shows Alicia as a social worker and really caring about the kids and wanting to sincerely help them.
I know several families who do foster care. In the healthy and right way. Hepworth acknowledges the ‘heroes’ of the foster care system in her acknowledgements at the back of the book which I think is important. It’s not all bad. And there are lots of people who are diligently fighting for these kids and for making the system better that we can’t forget about that side too.
It was really poignant to ponder how the social workers had told the girls they were ‘lucky’ to find that home with Miss Fairchild.
Jessica contemplates it: “If you were lucky, it implied that your good fortune hadn’t been earned. You couldn’t question it, or take it for granted. You had to be grateful. Because what had been given to you could just as easily be taken away.”
I like how Alicia is honest about it with the kids she works with: “Trish is a wonderful foster mother, and it’s very generous of her to keep you on [after you turn 18]. but you’re not lucky. You lost your parents. You lost your grandmother. You’ve spent the last few years living in uncertainty. Having a stable home until you finish school is actually a lot less than you deserve.”
“Love and security were the most basic of rights. Forcing these kids to believe they were lucky to have that was even more damaging than what some of them experienced in care.”
It really puts things into perspective, doesn’t it?
It reminds me of my significant role as a mother and the job and privilege I have to be the adult in my home to provide a safe, secure, and loving environment for my kids. Being a parent is much more than that but it can’t be less. And the significance of that is monumental. My heart aches for the children, young and old, who have been robbed of those basic needs.
Whether tragedy or parental neglect and selfishness, so many kids have been led to believe that they are not worthy of love. That they have to earn it and that it can easily be taken away.
More than anything I pray those kids find Jesus. He is the only one who will never disappoint and the hope he brings more than makes up for the losses they’ve endured. In him they find unconditional love, joy, grace, peace, mercy, comfort, patience, kindness, and gentleness. And his hope is secure- it can’t be taken and it can’t even be earned. It’s only a gift to be received. An eternal home for them to belong and be cherished.
To know how much I’ve found in Jesus, I can’t imagine how freeing and life-changing that would be for someone who never even knew a shadow of that love and security!
The Bible even uses the language of adoption when it comes to being part of his family. Each of us is grafted in, adopted as sons and daughters! (Romans 8:14-19; Ephesians 1:5; Galatians 4:5-7; Psalm 27:10)
At the very least, I hope if you read this book it can cause you to pray for the foster kids and families in your community.
Recommendation
This is a heavier book than some of her others and at times hard to read. But if these topics aren’t triggers for you, I would recommend this book.
It’s a fast-paced story with characters that will have you investing in either their triumph or their demise.
It reminded me a little bit of Ashley Audrain’s The Push.
Hepworth, of course, has her signature ‘gasp-inducing’ last chapter, but I feel satisfied with the ending and my spoiler comment below will explain why.
[Content Advisory: 24 f-words, 18 s-words; a little bit of sexual content in the form of a brief sex scene and a character sexting; two characters are in a lesbian relationship and it’s a somewhat prominent part of the book]
SPOILER COMMENT
......
......
.....
.....
[ Okay so let me just talk about Dr. Warren for a sec. At first blush he is a terrible therapist and we eventually find out that Fairchild is playing him and manipulating him to better her defense at trial because he’s a sadistic pervert. BUT… I have a different theory.
And this is where I’ve landed because I think it’s plausible, but also because this kind of story requires justice in a big way and for me to end the book thinking Fairchild is getting off is just not going to work.
So here’s the deal… Dr. Warren isn’t incompetent.. he’s actually brilliant and devious. He knows what she is and he knows how to get her to talk. HE is playing HER. She thinks she has pulled one over on him, but I picture her experiencing a rude awakening when he’s actually gotten her to confess something in her sessions that he is able to help the prosecutor use to put her away for a long time. She was arrogant and thought she could get away with it, but nope. She dug her own grave.
Dr. Warren was pretending because he could see through her; he wasn’t pervertly drawn into her antics. Somehow he has trapped her in her own game. And justice is served.
Hepworth leaves this up to the imagination and this is what I’ve come up with. Feel free to adopt this theory as well.
.......
........
......
SPOILER OVER
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse
Moderate: Addiction and Cursing
Minor: Child death and Suicide
Fatal Domain by Steven James
adventurous
mysterious
reflective
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
5.0
“There is always a cost to doing what’s right. Sometimes it costs you everything you have. But it should not cost you everything you are.”
“‘If you want peace, prepare for war.’”
This book takes place about a month after book one—Broker of Lies. It can probably be read as a stand alone but I would recommend reading the first book first for background and context. He reminds us about part of what happened but I think it will be more cohesive for you to have all the information.
It was a great sequel that leaves you on a cliffhanger so I’m ready for book three to be out!
Similar to Broker of Lies, there are a lot of characters and there is some complexity to the plot. Hopefully my review can help you keep it straight (or myself when I go to read the third one and can’t remember what was going on.)
[There was a fun Easter egg referencing Patrick Bowers and if you haven’t read Steven James’ Patrick Bowers series and you enjoy serial killer thrillers, definitely check that one out!]
Plot Basics
Our main character is Travis Brock, redactor with a photographic memory who works at the Pentagon. After stopping the Pruninghooks Collective from detonating a bomb in Knoxville, TN last book he and his team are still chasing the woman behind it— Janice Daniels.
His team is made up of Adira (former secret service and executive protection at Homeland Security) who is also a love interest for Travis, and Gunnar (military and private security consultant who also happens to be writing a romance novel).
Their boss is Clarke and they’re running a somewhat off-books operation running down leads on Daniels and what she is planning next.
Turns out she’s after the Project Symphony device which is focused on “surreptitious ways of exfiltrating data from air-gapped computers to obtain administration privileges, record keystrokes, detect or hash passwords, upload files, discover log-in credentials, or obtain access to closely guarded root system files.”
Pretty powerful. Obviously very bad to get into the wrong hands.
Pretty early on in the first book I suspected that Travis’s wife, Sienna, didn’t really die in the house fire 18 months ago. By the end of that book (SPOILER- she didn’t) we find Sienna speaking to Janice saying she was “preparing for what’s next. With Ivan.”
In Fatal Domain, Travis discovers this hard truth. That if Sienna didn’t die in the fire, she lied to him and she very well could be his enemy.
Not only do we have Janice, Sienna, and Ivan as players, we are introduced to a man named Soren who Daniels blackmails into doing some of her dirty work. He was probably the most disorienting part of the book because I wasn’t sure how he was going to connect with everything. I also wasn’t sure if I felt like the circumstances around his blackmailing made sense to lead to that point. I don’t know why he wouldn’t have just called the police and said he wasn’t sure what he hit and couldn’t find it. At least there would be a record of him trying to help. I guess I don’t know if you can still get prison time for that. But anyway, his chapters were the most disconnected until the end. I don’t know what his deal was. I guess James was taking a character and showing us in real time the progression from ‘normal’ to a choice to descend into darkness.
“When we play God, there are always unintended consequences that make it clear we’re not up to the task. He creates life in his own image. We create monsters in ours.”
We also have Maia Odongo, a doctor researching cognitive function and memory at a humanitarian refugee camp in Uganda.
“Ever since she agreed to do the procedures she’d been struggling to convince herself that she was making choices that were aligned with what she believed in, with what was right.”
Maia is the counter to Soren, someone who has made the descent, though with good intentions, and seeking to come back to the light knowing the destruction darkness causes and knowing it’s not the right path.
From South Carolina to Wisconsin, all paths eventually collide in Washington D.C..
I will say, it felt a bit strange that Janice was invested in anti-nuclear escapades in the first book but here in the second book she is also invested in tech and pharmaceutical industries. I guess she can have diverse interests and can shift between them so fluidly while she is being hunted by the DOD…
I thought it was interesting how we don’t really know what Janice Daniels is up to until the end. We have the pieces but we’re not entirely sure what the endgame is. So it was hard to tell how close Brock and his team were to thwarting her plans.
Sienna’s part was also vague. It seemed like Sienna and Ivan had other plans with the device than Janice. They were working together for the moment, but Sienna had a different ultimate plan. We never do find that out in this book. I suspect that we are gearing up for an ultimate showdown between Travis and Sienna, husband and wife, lovers to enemies? There is not much closure for her here so there has to be something more on the horizon.
There is also more to happen between Travis and Adira. Now that Sienna is still alive, that puts a pause on their romance. So the showdown with Sienna will also be the indicator of what direction Travis goes.
Deeper Thoughts
I love that Steven James always wrestles with deeper questions when he writes his thrillers. This one is no different.
In Fatal Domain, one of the characters ponders the difference between humans and animals. The traits we don’t share with animals: worship, prayer, guilt, culture, art, regret. I think this is really interesting to think about. Especially for evolutionists. These traits don’t jive with that. There is something special about humanity that points to a Creator God who desires relationship with us. Those things are important to our nature.
Another character reflects on the verse that says “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more…” (Rev 21:4). He points out, “If God wipes away our tears in heaven, it means some people will arrive there with tears still in their eyes, that maybe their lives were so full of pain that some of their tears spilled over into paradise.” I don’t know how theologically accurate this thought it, but it is interesting to think about.
James also explores what we are willing to sacrifice for the good of others.
“Sometimes we keep secrets to protect interests greater than our own, and sometimes we have to carry the burden of our secrets as the price for extending compassion to others.”
This isn’t an obscure moral dilemma and is explored in many books. It is a tricky one because every life is precious. It’s easy to see how the ends justify the means and how we draw lines around what we are willing to do or allow to reach those ends.
I also think it’s different from an individual perspective vs a governmental perspective. What a country must do to protect its citizens is different than what an individual should do. God gave governments the sword of justice to wield— rewarding good and punishing bad— that is not right for us as individuals to undertake on our own.
There is also the tricky aspect of accountability vs national security. What can we do to keep our powerful government accountable without divulging secret information that puts our country at risk? This book also explores that a little bit. Morals and ethics are complex when it comes to things like that and I’m not sure where I stand. I like seeing different scenarios with this at play to think about how I view it.
Lastly there is a big theme of forgiveness. What does it mean to forgive? Especially when someone has done something so egregious and repeatedly.
“Revenge is being honest about the action but not loving toward the person. On the other hand, if you just excuse their behavior you might be showing them love, but you’re not being honest about the pain they caused. Denial has no place in forgiveness.”
“… it’s about freeing yourself.”
I have just come off of reading Homecoming by Kate Morton where I did not like how she handled the concept of forgiveness. To me it felt like excusing the behavior which like this quote says, feels dishonest. I really like how James makes this distinction and writes this complexity into his characters where they can wrestle with knowing forgiveness is the way but also dealing with the real and deep hurt that person caused.
It’s less about letting the person off the hook as much as allowing yourself to be free from the “cage of unforgiveness.”
Learning Corner
When you read a Steven James novel, you can tell that he does his research. I would love to meet some of his sources!
So here are some of the interesting things I learned while reading this book!
The NSA has a National Crytoplogic Museum in D.C. and it’s now on my list of places to visit. If this part is true there is an Enigma machine there where you can enter and create your own code. Sign me up!
Apparently it’s a thing for people to soak magazines in drugs and dry them up and send them to inmates in prison to either ingest or smoke or use as currency. Some prisons test for this.
If you Google the word Illuminati backwards the NSA website comes up. I’m not sure what the significance of this is but I’m sure there’s some people that could get some mileage out of that information.
There was a blurb about dark matter in this book which is interesting because I just recently read the book Dark Matter. In Fatal Domain he talks about the scientists who are researching dark matter. This is done by building a chamber a mile underground to block out cosmic rays. It also requires a lot of Xenon. “Whoever controls the Xenon controls the future of this type of research.” I’m still not entirely sure if I need to care about this kind of information or what I think about this mysterious substance, but I’ll keep an eye on it.
I had no idea that coffins were put in burial vaults— cement vaults to protect the coffin from the pressure of the ground and machinery above them. I’m wondering how common these are.
There is a riddle in the book: “What is the only word in the English language that starts with what we desire most and ends with what we want to avoid becoming.” You’ll get the answer if you read the book but if you want to know ahead of time, share any review from my website to your social media and message me a screenshot of it and I’ll give you the answer to the riddle! :)
Recommendation
Fatal domain is “the dominion of darkness and death and self-imposed chains.” This book continues the suspenseful saga of Travis Brock and how his team fights against this fatal domain, saving people and understanding humanity in deeper ways.
It’s a little more complex than your average thriller but still one I would definitely recommend to any reader!
The main characters are loveable, the stakes are high, the opponent formidable, the pursuit of justice and compassion on every page.
Steven James is one of my favorite authors and I will always recommend his work because he is a fantastic storyteller that can weave in deeper concepts into a thrilling story without any language or sexual content. Can’t beat that!
“‘If you want peace, prepare for war.’”
This book takes place about a month after book one—Broker of Lies. It can probably be read as a stand alone but I would recommend reading the first book first for background and context. He reminds us about part of what happened but I think it will be more cohesive for you to have all the information.
It was a great sequel that leaves you on a cliffhanger so I’m ready for book three to be out!
Similar to Broker of Lies, there are a lot of characters and there is some complexity to the plot. Hopefully my review can help you keep it straight (or myself when I go to read the third one and can’t remember what was going on.)
[There was a fun Easter egg referencing Patrick Bowers and if you haven’t read Steven James’ Patrick Bowers series and you enjoy serial killer thrillers, definitely check that one out!]
Plot Basics
Our main character is Travis Brock, redactor with a photographic memory who works at the Pentagon. After stopping the Pruninghooks Collective from detonating a bomb in Knoxville, TN last book he and his team are still chasing the woman behind it— Janice Daniels.
His team is made up of Adira (former secret service and executive protection at Homeland Security) who is also a love interest for Travis, and Gunnar (military and private security consultant who also happens to be writing a romance novel).
Their boss is Clarke and they’re running a somewhat off-books operation running down leads on Daniels and what she is planning next.
Turns out she’s after the Project Symphony device which is focused on “surreptitious ways of exfiltrating data from air-gapped computers to obtain administration privileges, record keystrokes, detect or hash passwords, upload files, discover log-in credentials, or obtain access to closely guarded root system files.”
Pretty powerful. Obviously very bad to get into the wrong hands.
Pretty early on in the first book I suspected that Travis’s wife, Sienna, didn’t really die in the house fire 18 months ago. By the end of that book (SPOILER- she didn’t) we find Sienna speaking to Janice saying she was “preparing for what’s next. With Ivan.”
In Fatal Domain, Travis discovers this hard truth. That if Sienna didn’t die in the fire, she lied to him and she very well could be his enemy.
Not only do we have Janice, Sienna, and Ivan as players, we are introduced to a man named Soren who Daniels blackmails into doing some of her dirty work. He was probably the most disorienting part of the book because I wasn’t sure how he was going to connect with everything. I also wasn’t sure if I felt like the circumstances around his blackmailing made sense to lead to that point. I don’t know why he wouldn’t have just called the police and said he wasn’t sure what he hit and couldn’t find it. At least there would be a record of him trying to help. I guess I don’t know if you can still get prison time for that. But anyway, his chapters were the most disconnected until the end. I don’t know what his deal was. I guess James was taking a character and showing us in real time the progression from ‘normal’ to a choice to descend into darkness.
“When we play God, there are always unintended consequences that make it clear we’re not up to the task. He creates life in his own image. We create monsters in ours.”
We also have Maia Odongo, a doctor researching cognitive function and memory at a humanitarian refugee camp in Uganda.
“Ever since she agreed to do the procedures she’d been struggling to convince herself that she was making choices that were aligned with what she believed in, with what was right.”
Maia is the counter to Soren, someone who has made the descent, though with good intentions, and seeking to come back to the light knowing the destruction darkness causes and knowing it’s not the right path.
From South Carolina to Wisconsin, all paths eventually collide in Washington D.C..
I will say, it felt a bit strange that Janice was invested in anti-nuclear escapades in the first book but here in the second book she is also invested in tech and pharmaceutical industries. I guess she can have diverse interests and can shift between them so fluidly while she is being hunted by the DOD…
I thought it was interesting how we don’t really know what Janice Daniels is up to until the end. We have the pieces but we’re not entirely sure what the endgame is. So it was hard to tell how close Brock and his team were to thwarting her plans.
Sienna’s part was also vague. It seemed like Sienna and Ivan had other plans with the device than Janice. They were working together for the moment, but Sienna had a different ultimate plan. We never do find that out in this book. I suspect that we are gearing up for an ultimate showdown between Travis and Sienna, husband and wife, lovers to enemies? There is not much closure for her here so there has to be something more on the horizon.
There is also more to happen between Travis and Adira. Now that Sienna is still alive, that puts a pause on their romance. So the showdown with Sienna will also be the indicator of what direction Travis goes.
Deeper Thoughts
I love that Steven James always wrestles with deeper questions when he writes his thrillers. This one is no different.
In Fatal Domain, one of the characters ponders the difference between humans and animals. The traits we don’t share with animals: worship, prayer, guilt, culture, art, regret. I think this is really interesting to think about. Especially for evolutionists. These traits don’t jive with that. There is something special about humanity that points to a Creator God who desires relationship with us. Those things are important to our nature.
Another character reflects on the verse that says “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more…” (Rev 21:4). He points out, “If God wipes away our tears in heaven, it means some people will arrive there with tears still in their eyes, that maybe their lives were so full of pain that some of their tears spilled over into paradise.” I don’t know how theologically accurate this thought it, but it is interesting to think about.
James also explores what we are willing to sacrifice for the good of others.
“Sometimes we keep secrets to protect interests greater than our own, and sometimes we have to carry the burden of our secrets as the price for extending compassion to others.”
This isn’t an obscure moral dilemma and is explored in many books. It is a tricky one because every life is precious. It’s easy to see how the ends justify the means and how we draw lines around what we are willing to do or allow to reach those ends.
I also think it’s different from an individual perspective vs a governmental perspective. What a country must do to protect its citizens is different than what an individual should do. God gave governments the sword of justice to wield— rewarding good and punishing bad— that is not right for us as individuals to undertake on our own.
There is also the tricky aspect of accountability vs national security. What can we do to keep our powerful government accountable without divulging secret information that puts our country at risk? This book also explores that a little bit. Morals and ethics are complex when it comes to things like that and I’m not sure where I stand. I like seeing different scenarios with this at play to think about how I view it.
Lastly there is a big theme of forgiveness. What does it mean to forgive? Especially when someone has done something so egregious and repeatedly.
“Revenge is being honest about the action but not loving toward the person. On the other hand, if you just excuse their behavior you might be showing them love, but you’re not being honest about the pain they caused. Denial has no place in forgiveness.”
“… it’s about freeing yourself.”
I have just come off of reading Homecoming by Kate Morton where I did not like how she handled the concept of forgiveness. To me it felt like excusing the behavior which like this quote says, feels dishonest. I really like how James makes this distinction and writes this complexity into his characters where they can wrestle with knowing forgiveness is the way but also dealing with the real and deep hurt that person caused.
It’s less about letting the person off the hook as much as allowing yourself to be free from the “cage of unforgiveness.”
Learning Corner
When you read a Steven James novel, you can tell that he does his research. I would love to meet some of his sources!
So here are some of the interesting things I learned while reading this book!
The NSA has a National Crytoplogic Museum in D.C. and it’s now on my list of places to visit. If this part is true there is an Enigma machine there where you can enter and create your own code. Sign me up!
Apparently it’s a thing for people to soak magazines in drugs and dry them up and send them to inmates in prison to either ingest or smoke or use as currency. Some prisons test for this.
If you Google the word Illuminati backwards the NSA website comes up. I’m not sure what the significance of this is but I’m sure there’s some people that could get some mileage out of that information.
There was a blurb about dark matter in this book which is interesting because I just recently read the book Dark Matter. In Fatal Domain he talks about the scientists who are researching dark matter. This is done by building a chamber a mile underground to block out cosmic rays. It also requires a lot of Xenon. “Whoever controls the Xenon controls the future of this type of research.” I’m still not entirely sure if I need to care about this kind of information or what I think about this mysterious substance, but I’ll keep an eye on it.
I had no idea that coffins were put in burial vaults— cement vaults to protect the coffin from the pressure of the ground and machinery above them. I’m wondering how common these are.
There is a riddle in the book: “What is the only word in the English language that starts with what we desire most and ends with what we want to avoid becoming.” You’ll get the answer if you read the book but if you want to know ahead of time, share any review from my website to your social media and message me a screenshot of it and I’ll give you the answer to the riddle! :)
Recommendation
Fatal domain is “the dominion of darkness and death and self-imposed chains.” This book continues the suspenseful saga of Travis Brock and how his team fights against this fatal domain, saving people and understanding humanity in deeper ways.
It’s a little more complex than your average thriller but still one I would definitely recommend to any reader!
The main characters are loveable, the stakes are high, the opponent formidable, the pursuit of justice and compassion on every page.
Steven James is one of my favorite authors and I will always recommend his work because he is a fantastic storyteller that can weave in deeper concepts into a thrilling story without any language or sexual content. Can’t beat that!
Homecoming by Kate Morton
mysterious
sad
slow-paced
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
“There were times when she felt terror at her own desolation, the gnawing sensation of having lost something she could not name and therefore could not hope to find.”
“Home is where the heart is, and the heart could be a dark and damaged place.”
Tragic.
That’s how I would describe this book.
Homecoming is a dual-timeline family drama that takes place in Australia. It’s a book about loss, motherhood, mother-daughter relationships, and what it means to come home.
I’ve only read one other Kate Morton book— The Clockmaker’s Daughter— back in 2018, and I don’t remember a single thing about that one, but my review of it says I probably wouldn’t read Morton again because it was basically too long, too slow, too descriptive, and not worth the work.
I don’t feel all that much different about Homecoming, though it wasn’t as hard to keep the characters or timelines straight.
The writing style and descriptions didn’t really bother me this time around. I’m actually really interested in visiting Adelaide Hills now as she drew me into the setting! I didn’t realize Australia had green hills and trees that change color. I only think about the bush and the poisonous snakes:
“This continent was one where beauty and terror were inexplicably linked. People died here from thirst if they took a wrong turn. A single spark of fire could grow to consume an entire town.”
I think what I didn’t really like about this book is that even though there was somewhat of a happy ending, it still just fell all so…. tragic. I can’t really think of a better word for it. I’ll explain some more in my spoiler comments below. It’s hard to articulate it without giving part of the story away.
Like a lot of other reviewers, I thought the last 100 pages were the best of the book so I’m glad it picked up in the end.
The dual timelines are 1959 and 2018.
In 1959 a man named Percy stumbles upon a mother and her four children, seemingly asleep at a picnic, but are actually dead. And then they discover the baby was missing. The small community reels with the knowledge that their deaths may not have been an accident and someone might have taken the baby.
In 2018 we have Jess, a journalist who is forced to return to Australia after her grandmother, Nora, who raised her, takes a severe fall and is in the hospital with very serious injuries. The return brings up a lot of emotions about her mother who abandoned her when she was ten. When Jess visits Nora in the hospital Nora mumbles some nonsense about someone “taking her away from me!” The circumstances around her fall are also suspicious and Jess takes it upon herself to find out what had made Nora so upset.
Intermixed with these timelines are newspaper articles and large sections from a book called ‘As If They Were Asleep.’ The book is a true-crime novel Jess finds in Nora’s house that was written about the Turner Family Tragedy of 1959. These chapters detail the investigation and the lives of the people during that time.
The book within the book feels odd to read because it tells thoughts, motives, and is written in a way that feels unbelievable that an outside person could write. Jess questions this as well but the answer she gets about it felt unsatisfying to me.
Really, I guess it’s better it was written that way because it made it more interesting to read for sure. With how long the book was I think we needed it to be that way, but I think I would have preferred learning that information organically as it played out rather than from a book. But that would have made the book even longer.
I did figure out the reveal pretty early on, but as more information was revealed I still wasn’t entirely sure how they got to that point so I was still invested in reading.
It’s definitely a book you have to settle in for. It’s not a quick read and it’s meant to be atmospheric and drawn out.
I like the concept of exploring what it means to ‘come home.’
She says:
“When someone said, ‘I want to go home,’ what they really meant was that they didn’t want to feel lonely anymore.”
I think that’s true. Home is less about a physical place but more of a community. A person or group of people that gives your life purpose or meaning. They know you and understand you.
When I go back to my home town I like the nostalgia of the school or the church or the main street, but what feels good about being there is the people. And I get that feeling coming back to my people where I am now. Home can be in more than one place.
I think this book took the direction of this exploration in a different direction than I was expecting given the secrets Jess discovers. It felt more like it should have been- ‘how do you cope when what you thought was home is ripped away from you?’
I also think ‘home’ takes on new meaning as a Christian. Belonging is a human need. But really, earth and its inhabitants are broken and ‘belonging’ fluctuates. Sometimes it’s full but sometimes it’s disappointing. But as a Christian I always belong in God’s family. My meaning and purpose is found in him.
God created us for relationships. That’s why loneliness is so devastating. To our core we are meant to be in community with people. But even if we are alone, we are still in relationship and belonging with Christ. A home that is never far away. A home that is unchanging and fills you up rather than takes from you.
The ‘homecoming’ we experience here is but a glimpse of what we will feel when we go to heaven to be in the presence of the Lord.
So as tragic as this book is, it reminds me that I never have to fear the tragedy of loneliness because my belonging is secure.
Spoiler Comments
Okay these are major spoiler comments so scroll past if you don’t want to know stuff.
[ Well first I will say that I’m glad the deaths of the family wasn’t just an accident or a misunderstanding. That sounds bad. I don’t love murder. But I also don’t like when I read a long book about a mystery with suspects and whatnot only to find out it was some fluke accident or a miscommunication. That makes me feel jilted.
For some reason I don’t want to read about people’s innocent mistakes, I would rather read about someone’s purposeful evil and then the finding of the killer and the bringing of justice. Because books are fiction. In real life I would rather not have rampant wicked everywhere but I’m reading over 500 pages. An accidental poisoning just isn’t going to cut it.
So I’m glad that there was a legitimate mystery here.
The thing I hated the most about this book was that it felt like Nora got a pass for what she did. She was manipulative and narcissistic and her choices hurt a lot of people, but in the end she dies without ever having to own up to them. I also think Polly and Jess somehow decide to just forgive her and move past it. Which is probably best for their actual lives, but as a reader I wanted to see more of their anger and hurt about it.
Even if Nora acted out of grief and in love, that doesn’t excuse what she did; it doesn’t make it okay.
Jess reflects that “Nora’s firm ideas were never firmer than when describing what it meant to be a good parent: the sacrifices required, the elevation of one’s child’s needs above one’s own.”
Which is ironic because it’s clear that Nora made her choices to benefit herself. I can’t believe she gaslights Polly into believing she’s a fragile person and a bad mom and teaches Jess that same narrative. If Nora really wanted to be a mother so bad and would do anything for her kids than why did she push Polly away like that and take Jess’s mom from her?
And knowing what Meg did to Nora’s family is awful— why would Nora keep such a secret? She probably would have gotten custody of the baby anyway because she was family. Telling the truth in the moment would have been hard, but the destruction and heartache it caused down the road is just not worth it.
Speaking of Meg— her behavior with the baby didn’t really jive with her knowing it was the product of her husband’s affair.
With all the people who knew parts of the tragedy it seems nonsensical and unbelievable that they could have all kept it a secret for so long. The damage it caused to so many people and the community is again—- tragic.
Even though Jess and Polly find each other again by the end, so much time has been lost. So much distrust had been sown by Nora that it feels hard to be that happy for them. You still just feel sad that Nora did that to them.
“Life doesn’t always work out the way we plan, but it does work out in the end.”
I guess it’s true it didn’t work out the way we would have liked, but I’m not sure it ‘worked out’ in the end after all.
The ‘homecoming’ of this novel seems a bit romanticized. They maybe got to a place of belonging and I’m glad they found each other, but overall I think love requires honesty and if we’re going to go down the path of romanticized homecoming, I’d rather it be with honesty or sincere regret and forgiveness about the effects of their dishonesty. Nora dying brought Polly and Jess together but without full disclosure or a solid ground to stand on. (hide spoiler)]
Recommendation
I’ve only read two of Kate Morton’s books so I have limited information to go off of, but if you didn’t like her other books, I don’t think this one will change your mind.
If you already enjoy Morton’s writing style, dual time periods, lots of descriptions, and a not-so-extremely-happy-ending, you’ll probably like this book! Some people like to read about the unfairness and the tragedies of life. If that’s you, you will probably appreciate the feelings journey this book will take you on.
It didn’t actually feel like a slog to read this one. But I just didn’t get the feeling of justice or happiness that I prefer to have at the end of these kinds of books.
So I think this book is a hit or miss, depending on your reading preferences.
[Content Advisory: can’t recall much swearing or sexual content; there are a couple affairs]
“Home is where the heart is, and the heart could be a dark and damaged place.”
Tragic.
That’s how I would describe this book.
Homecoming is a dual-timeline family drama that takes place in Australia. It’s a book about loss, motherhood, mother-daughter relationships, and what it means to come home.
I’ve only read one other Kate Morton book— The Clockmaker’s Daughter— back in 2018, and I don’t remember a single thing about that one, but my review of it says I probably wouldn’t read Morton again because it was basically too long, too slow, too descriptive, and not worth the work.
I don’t feel all that much different about Homecoming, though it wasn’t as hard to keep the characters or timelines straight.
The writing style and descriptions didn’t really bother me this time around. I’m actually really interested in visiting Adelaide Hills now as she drew me into the setting! I didn’t realize Australia had green hills and trees that change color. I only think about the bush and the poisonous snakes:
“This continent was one where beauty and terror were inexplicably linked. People died here from thirst if they took a wrong turn. A single spark of fire could grow to consume an entire town.”
I think what I didn’t really like about this book is that even though there was somewhat of a happy ending, it still just fell all so…. tragic. I can’t really think of a better word for it. I’ll explain some more in my spoiler comments below. It’s hard to articulate it without giving part of the story away.
Like a lot of other reviewers, I thought the last 100 pages were the best of the book so I’m glad it picked up in the end.
The dual timelines are 1959 and 2018.
In 1959 a man named Percy stumbles upon a mother and her four children, seemingly asleep at a picnic, but are actually dead. And then they discover the baby was missing. The small community reels with the knowledge that their deaths may not have been an accident and someone might have taken the baby.
In 2018 we have Jess, a journalist who is forced to return to Australia after her grandmother, Nora, who raised her, takes a severe fall and is in the hospital with very serious injuries. The return brings up a lot of emotions about her mother who abandoned her when she was ten. When Jess visits Nora in the hospital Nora mumbles some nonsense about someone “taking her away from me!” The circumstances around her fall are also suspicious and Jess takes it upon herself to find out what had made Nora so upset.
Intermixed with these timelines are newspaper articles and large sections from a book called ‘As If They Were Asleep.’ The book is a true-crime novel Jess finds in Nora’s house that was written about the Turner Family Tragedy of 1959. These chapters detail the investigation and the lives of the people during that time.
The book within the book feels odd to read because it tells thoughts, motives, and is written in a way that feels unbelievable that an outside person could write. Jess questions this as well but the answer she gets about it felt unsatisfying to me.
Really, I guess it’s better it was written that way because it made it more interesting to read for sure. With how long the book was I think we needed it to be that way, but I think I would have preferred learning that information organically as it played out rather than from a book. But that would have made the book even longer.
I did figure out the reveal pretty early on, but as more information was revealed I still wasn’t entirely sure how they got to that point so I was still invested in reading.
It’s definitely a book you have to settle in for. It’s not a quick read and it’s meant to be atmospheric and drawn out.
I like the concept of exploring what it means to ‘come home.’
She says:
“When someone said, ‘I want to go home,’ what they really meant was that they didn’t want to feel lonely anymore.”
I think that’s true. Home is less about a physical place but more of a community. A person or group of people that gives your life purpose or meaning. They know you and understand you.
When I go back to my home town I like the nostalgia of the school or the church or the main street, but what feels good about being there is the people. And I get that feeling coming back to my people where I am now. Home can be in more than one place.
I think this book took the direction of this exploration in a different direction than I was expecting given the secrets Jess discovers. It felt more like it should have been- ‘how do you cope when what you thought was home is ripped away from you?’
I also think ‘home’ takes on new meaning as a Christian. Belonging is a human need. But really, earth and its inhabitants are broken and ‘belonging’ fluctuates. Sometimes it’s full but sometimes it’s disappointing. But as a Christian I always belong in God’s family. My meaning and purpose is found in him.
God created us for relationships. That’s why loneliness is so devastating. To our core we are meant to be in community with people. But even if we are alone, we are still in relationship and belonging with Christ. A home that is never far away. A home that is unchanging and fills you up rather than takes from you.
The ‘homecoming’ we experience here is but a glimpse of what we will feel when we go to heaven to be in the presence of the Lord.
So as tragic as this book is, it reminds me that I never have to fear the tragedy of loneliness because my belonging is secure.
Spoiler Comments
Okay these are major spoiler comments so scroll past if you don’t want to know stuff.
[ Well first I will say that I’m glad the deaths of the family wasn’t just an accident or a misunderstanding. That sounds bad. I don’t love murder. But I also don’t like when I read a long book about a mystery with suspects and whatnot only to find out it was some fluke accident or a miscommunication. That makes me feel jilted.
For some reason I don’t want to read about people’s innocent mistakes, I would rather read about someone’s purposeful evil and then the finding of the killer and the bringing of justice. Because books are fiction. In real life I would rather not have rampant wicked everywhere but I’m reading over 500 pages. An accidental poisoning just isn’t going to cut it.
So I’m glad that there was a legitimate mystery here.
The thing I hated the most about this book was that it felt like Nora got a pass for what she did. She was manipulative and narcissistic and her choices hurt a lot of people, but in the end she dies without ever having to own up to them. I also think Polly and Jess somehow decide to just forgive her and move past it. Which is probably best for their actual lives, but as a reader I wanted to see more of their anger and hurt about it.
Even if Nora acted out of grief and in love, that doesn’t excuse what she did; it doesn’t make it okay.
Jess reflects that “Nora’s firm ideas were never firmer than when describing what it meant to be a good parent: the sacrifices required, the elevation of one’s child’s needs above one’s own.”
Which is ironic because it’s clear that Nora made her choices to benefit herself. I can’t believe she gaslights Polly into believing she’s a fragile person and a bad mom and teaches Jess that same narrative. If Nora really wanted to be a mother so bad and would do anything for her kids than why did she push Polly away like that and take Jess’s mom from her?
And knowing what Meg did to Nora’s family is awful— why would Nora keep such a secret? She probably would have gotten custody of the baby anyway because she was family. Telling the truth in the moment would have been hard, but the destruction and heartache it caused down the road is just not worth it.
Speaking of Meg— her behavior with the baby didn’t really jive with her knowing it was the product of her husband’s affair.
With all the people who knew parts of the tragedy it seems nonsensical and unbelievable that they could have all kept it a secret for so long. The damage it caused to so many people and the community is again—- tragic.
Even though Jess and Polly find each other again by the end, so much time has been lost. So much distrust had been sown by Nora that it feels hard to be that happy for them. You still just feel sad that Nora did that to them.
“Life doesn’t always work out the way we plan, but it does work out in the end.”
I guess it’s true it didn’t work out the way we would have liked, but I’m not sure it ‘worked out’ in the end after all.
The ‘homecoming’ of this novel seems a bit romanticized. They maybe got to a place of belonging and I’m glad they found each other, but overall I think love requires honesty and if we’re going to go down the path of romanticized homecoming, I’d rather it be with honesty or sincere regret and forgiveness about the effects of their dishonesty. Nora dying brought Polly and Jess together but without full disclosure or a solid ground to stand on. (hide spoiler)]
Recommendation
I’ve only read two of Kate Morton’s books so I have limited information to go off of, but if you didn’t like her other books, I don’t think this one will change your mind.
If you already enjoy Morton’s writing style, dual time periods, lots of descriptions, and a not-so-extremely-happy-ending, you’ll probably like this book! Some people like to read about the unfairness and the tragedies of life. If that’s you, you will probably appreciate the feelings journey this book will take you on.
It didn’t actually feel like a slog to read this one. But I just didn’t get the feeling of justice or happiness that I prefer to have at the end of these kinds of books.
So I think this book is a hit or miss, depending on your reading preferences.
[Content Advisory: can’t recall much swearing or sexual content; there are a couple affairs]
Candor: The Secret to Succeeding at Tough Conversations by Charles Causey
hopeful
informative
reflective
fast-paced
4.0
“Candor helps us build relationships because it requires us to be courageous, vulnerable, and willing to offer feedback. It leverages openness and honesty to increase trust.”
If you came to this book to read about one of the five factions of the Divergent series, you’ve got the wrong book, but if you’d like to learn more about candor and how to use honesty and transparency to benefit your relationships, your home, and your workplace, then you’ve come to the right place!
“My goal in writing this book is for the reader to learn to overcome personal fears and cynicism when speaking and to develop skills in wielding candor so that it becomes habitual and others-centered. My goal is also for leaders to learn to be willing to hear things they don’t like without feeling threatened, lashing out, and punishing well-intentioned honesty.”
I will say that I think this book is written more for people in leadership positions of a ministry, organization, or business, or employees/members of said ministries, organizations, and workplaces, rather than a stay-at-home mom. There were a lot of examples given about speaking up in meetings and how to receive criticism as a leader, etc.
While I wasn’t super engaged in the content regarding leaders and employees as it no longer pertains to me, I did find a few of the chapters more relatable. There were chapters on family, friends, difficult people, and charm vs character that I thought were particularly good.
I think if I was going to be in a faction of Divergent, Candor would have been up there for my top picks just because the truth is so important to me. I don’t like having to decipher people’s answers or ‘opinions’ and would rather people just tell me what they think, even if I don’t like it.
How else does one get to know someone? Or make a good decision? Or keep resentment from building in a relationship?
I want the most information. Which is why I feel like I’m tied between Erudite and Candor, but I already told you that’s not what this book is about so I digress.
The definition of candor that the book works out of is this:
“Candor, at its essence, is to speak truth, as a source of encouragement and according to the need of the moment, in order to give grace to the hearers.”
I think it’s also helpful to talk about what candor is NOT:
“Candor does not involve being critical, attacking someone else, or demonizing a person to others.”
“Candor is not gossip. It is not lying. It is not slander. Speaking with candor has a purpose.”
“The opposite of candor is camouflage, a disguise to cover over the truth instead of exposing it… diverting attention away from what is really there.”
I like that Causey makes this distinction because I think people use the excuse of ‘I’m just being honest’ to say hurtful things, or true things in a hurtful way as if they get a pass on whatever they say as long as it’s true.
There are boundaries that are good. Is now the right time to tell the truth? Is it with grace and encouragement with a constructive purpose? Or am I just mad about someone or something and using it as a license to blast them directly or indirectly and claim it’s a truth bomb as if it’s a good thing?
Social media is probably the platform candor is most often misused or used wrongly as a label.
I felt a little bit called out when I read this part:
“We are not to be the conversation police. We are not to correct every wrong thing spoken. In attempting to do so, our need to ensure every fact, stat, and detail is thoroughly communicated takes precedence over loving the people with whom we are speaking.”
This reminded me of Oscar from The Office being the ‘actually’ guy and I know I have the tendency to be the conversation police. The truth is so important to me that I often let it take priority over people and this was a good reminder to me that it’s OKAY for someone to say something minor wrong without it needing to be corrected. Candor is not the most beneficial option in that instance.
“Without love, candor becomes rooted in pride, fear, cynicism, or coldness.”
I also thought these distinctions were good:
“Our candor is either tethered to our character or to our ego.”
Before we speak, we should do a self-check and see if our motives for saying whatever we’re about to say comes from a place of character or ego. The former obviously being the target rather than the latter.
“People are not the enemy. A lack of honesty, poor communication, and fear are the enemies of relationships and all organizations.”
It’s easy to see people as the enemy. They are the ones saying the words or not saying the words. But viewing people as enemies makes it that much harder to come to agreement or understanding. We need to correct our narrative and use the tools in this book to use better communication and in so doing, inviting others to join in, not ‘keeping them out’ as you would an enemy.
This book has a lot of features meant to really help people work on their candor. Each chapter ends with a summary, candor strategies, reflection questions, and then a commitment statement towards using the principles talked about within each chapter.
At the end of the book there is a list of the 22 candor strategies, 8 commitment statements, and a list of discussion questions for groups. I’m assuming this book is often used in the workplace settings to help build a culture of respectful honesty and transparency.
Causey has also included a lot of diagrams to illustrate his points. I admit that I didn’t really find those very helpful. In some cases they seemed distracting to me because they were difficult to interpret. And once I did interpret them they seemed a bit superfluous and I didn’t feel they added much to the book.
I would have preferred to have less diagrams and more conversation examples.
He includes some examples of what people said in meetings or to their spouses, etc, but they are short and don’t really show you how the entire conversation would play out. They felt vague and I think more details on how the solution is reached or what comes next in a dialogue would have been more helpful.
Recommendation
I’m not sure the entire book is for every person, but I think most readers will come away with useful information to enhance their personal and/or working life.
It’s not quite what I was expecting going into the book as it felt more self-helpy and workplace-oriented. I think I had thought it would be more gospel/truth-oriented in speaking truth into controversial situations. It’s still similar, but the approach is just a bit different.
I think it for sure has a place for those who are employees under hard-to-work-with supervisors or leaders who desire to cultivate a culture of honesty.
For readers like me who are stay-at-home moms, the application may not be as robust. But, this book is short, just over 150 pages, and I think good things can still be gleaned. Or at the very least, just read the chapters that pertain to you.
Because we don’t want to be people who are weaponizing truth or hindering growth by staying silent.
“Lives without candor can lead to hypocrisy, bitterness, lying, gossip, and downright division. Lives with candor are more interesting, expectant, truthful, and exploratory.”
If you came to this book to read about one of the five factions of the Divergent series, you’ve got the wrong book, but if you’d like to learn more about candor and how to use honesty and transparency to benefit your relationships, your home, and your workplace, then you’ve come to the right place!
“My goal in writing this book is for the reader to learn to overcome personal fears and cynicism when speaking and to develop skills in wielding candor so that it becomes habitual and others-centered. My goal is also for leaders to learn to be willing to hear things they don’t like without feeling threatened, lashing out, and punishing well-intentioned honesty.”
I will say that I think this book is written more for people in leadership positions of a ministry, organization, or business, or employees/members of said ministries, organizations, and workplaces, rather than a stay-at-home mom. There were a lot of examples given about speaking up in meetings and how to receive criticism as a leader, etc.
While I wasn’t super engaged in the content regarding leaders and employees as it no longer pertains to me, I did find a few of the chapters more relatable. There were chapters on family, friends, difficult people, and charm vs character that I thought were particularly good.
I think if I was going to be in a faction of Divergent, Candor would have been up there for my top picks just because the truth is so important to me. I don’t like having to decipher people’s answers or ‘opinions’ and would rather people just tell me what they think, even if I don’t like it.
How else does one get to know someone? Or make a good decision? Or keep resentment from building in a relationship?
I want the most information. Which is why I feel like I’m tied between Erudite and Candor, but I already told you that’s not what this book is about so I digress.
The definition of candor that the book works out of is this:
“Candor, at its essence, is to speak truth, as a source of encouragement and according to the need of the moment, in order to give grace to the hearers.”
I think it’s also helpful to talk about what candor is NOT:
“Candor does not involve being critical, attacking someone else, or demonizing a person to others.”
“Candor is not gossip. It is not lying. It is not slander. Speaking with candor has a purpose.”
“The opposite of candor is camouflage, a disguise to cover over the truth instead of exposing it… diverting attention away from what is really there.”
I like that Causey makes this distinction because I think people use the excuse of ‘I’m just being honest’ to say hurtful things, or true things in a hurtful way as if they get a pass on whatever they say as long as it’s true.
There are boundaries that are good. Is now the right time to tell the truth? Is it with grace and encouragement with a constructive purpose? Or am I just mad about someone or something and using it as a license to blast them directly or indirectly and claim it’s a truth bomb as if it’s a good thing?
Social media is probably the platform candor is most often misused or used wrongly as a label.
I felt a little bit called out when I read this part:
“We are not to be the conversation police. We are not to correct every wrong thing spoken. In attempting to do so, our need to ensure every fact, stat, and detail is thoroughly communicated takes precedence over loving the people with whom we are speaking.”
This reminded me of Oscar from The Office being the ‘actually’ guy and I know I have the tendency to be the conversation police. The truth is so important to me that I often let it take priority over people and this was a good reminder to me that it’s OKAY for someone to say something minor wrong without it needing to be corrected. Candor is not the most beneficial option in that instance.
“Without love, candor becomes rooted in pride, fear, cynicism, or coldness.”
I also thought these distinctions were good:
“Our candor is either tethered to our character or to our ego.”
Before we speak, we should do a self-check and see if our motives for saying whatever we’re about to say comes from a place of character or ego. The former obviously being the target rather than the latter.
“People are not the enemy. A lack of honesty, poor communication, and fear are the enemies of relationships and all organizations.”
It’s easy to see people as the enemy. They are the ones saying the words or not saying the words. But viewing people as enemies makes it that much harder to come to agreement or understanding. We need to correct our narrative and use the tools in this book to use better communication and in so doing, inviting others to join in, not ‘keeping them out’ as you would an enemy.
This book has a lot of features meant to really help people work on their candor. Each chapter ends with a summary, candor strategies, reflection questions, and then a commitment statement towards using the principles talked about within each chapter.
At the end of the book there is a list of the 22 candor strategies, 8 commitment statements, and a list of discussion questions for groups. I’m assuming this book is often used in the workplace settings to help build a culture of respectful honesty and transparency.
Causey has also included a lot of diagrams to illustrate his points. I admit that I didn’t really find those very helpful. In some cases they seemed distracting to me because they were difficult to interpret. And once I did interpret them they seemed a bit superfluous and I didn’t feel they added much to the book.
I would have preferred to have less diagrams and more conversation examples.
He includes some examples of what people said in meetings or to their spouses, etc, but they are short and don’t really show you how the entire conversation would play out. They felt vague and I think more details on how the solution is reached or what comes next in a dialogue would have been more helpful.
Recommendation
I’m not sure the entire book is for every person, but I think most readers will come away with useful information to enhance their personal and/or working life.
It’s not quite what I was expecting going into the book as it felt more self-helpy and workplace-oriented. I think I had thought it would be more gospel/truth-oriented in speaking truth into controversial situations. It’s still similar, but the approach is just a bit different.
I think it for sure has a place for those who are employees under hard-to-work-with supervisors or leaders who desire to cultivate a culture of honesty.
For readers like me who are stay-at-home moms, the application may not be as robust. But, this book is short, just over 150 pages, and I think good things can still be gleaned. Or at the very least, just read the chapters that pertain to you.
Because we don’t want to be people who are weaponizing truth or hindering growth by staying silent.
“Lives without candor can lead to hypocrisy, bitterness, lying, gossip, and downright division. Lives with candor are more interesting, expectant, truthful, and exploratory.”
The Alone Time by Elle Marr
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
"In war, often the first strike is best, when the prey is still unaware of the imminent danger.”
Last summer I read Marr’s book The Family Bones which was about a family of psychopaths. The Alone Time also deals with a family, but the vibe is more mystery and trauma about the past than surviving in the present.
Both books are compelling and fast reads. The Alone Time probably doesn’t have as much action as The Family Bones, but it doesn’t really feel like that when you read it.
It also has a disturbing/haunting kind of tone to the story that I think threw off some readers about what they were reading. The story is a little out there, I believe intentionally, so go into it without trying to hold Marr to a completely realistic unraveling. Let it do its thing.
The main characters are Violet and Fiona, sisters. (Ironically, I just finished The Garden Girls which also features two characters with these names.)
Violet and Fiona, though now a bit estranged, are bonded by a traumatic experience from their childhood:
“I survived a plane crash that took the lives of my parents, that left me and my younger sister, Violet, to fend for ourselves for months.”
The pair (13 and 7 at the time) survived Olympic National Forest after their small plane, piloted by their father, crashed on the way to Canada for a family trip.
Since then, they both grew up and dealt with their trauma in different ways. Violet has battled drug and alcohol abuse and general aimlessness in life though now picking up writing again.
Fiona is part of the art scene making sculptures with organic materials:
“As my art dealer likes to promote my pieces: the tangible manifestation of trauma using the very source of trauma itself— nature. I’ll never be more than one of the girl-survivors, and I’ll never be allowed to work through my trauma on my own terms, via my sculptures. All they or I will ever be is an object of fascination and fear.”
It’s been 25 years since ‘The Alone Time’ but when a woman becomes breaking news claiming to be their father’s mistress the months leading up to the crash, the case of their parents’ deaths that was never closed has new energy, a pursuit of more answers as to what really happened out in the woods.
A filmmaker set on making a name for himself with a tell-all documentary is hounding the girls to tell their story, to tell the truth about what happened out there. Did their parents actually die on impact like they’ve always claimed? Or did they survive that first night and potentially more?
The formatting of the book is all first person POVs from alternating viewpoints of the four family members.
Janet and Henry (the parents) have chapters from ‘the wild.’ Fiona and Violet have chapters in both the past and the present. We also get snippets from the notebook Violet wrote in while they were stranded.
Elle Marr does a really good job of making you second guess what happened and who is really the dangerous person. They all have motives or suspicious behaviors. There was one reveal that I had figured out shortly before it was revealed and I thought it was an excellent twist!
Janet’s motive is the infidelity she has recently discovered about her husband who has largely been absent and selfish both as a husband and a father.
Henry’s motive his is life with a different woman whom he had asked to meet at a special spot on this trip. He also battles severe PTSD from his military career that often leaves him disoriented.
From Henry’s chapter he observes:
“Fiona’s emotions have pivoted from sobs to anger within seconds. Violet has remained stoic even through quiet tears. Which reaction is the more appropriate one, given the horror scene we all stumbled on? Could one of my kids actually be responsible for their mother’s death?”
And then we have Violet in the wild saying ‘the woman is back’ and we might have someone else out there with a motive to kill her mother.
I really enjoyed this book. I found it hard to put down.
I am a little surprised by some of the poor reviews of this book.
There are a few things that I agree didn’t make enough sense:
- That the sisters would be too worried about the case being re-investigated because I don’t think there could have been enough evidence to lead to any sort of conviction plus they were minors at the time and it’s been so long that I feel like any retribution wouldn’t have been too harsh. Also does seem odd that the woman would just now be coming forward with information— that trigger makes sense for what comes after it, but the ‘pushing’ of the trigger is absent.
- One reviewer commented on Violet’s poor spelling in her journal and I would agree with this, though I know my seven-year-old is quite advanced for her ability to spell. At the same time, though, I don’t think I minded it too much because it just drove home that Violet was a fragile little girl having to grow up to fast.
- The ‘deal’ with Violet and Wes seemed like a weak addition that either should have been removed or should have been played up more. It was too little that it just felt confusing and out of nowhere.
- I’m still not entirely sure how they survived for how long they did or that they weren’t rescued sooner. But I understand that’s a bit beside the point.
Overall though, I guess I disagree with the reviewers who complain about the logic and the out-there aspect of it. It is a bit of a crazy story. So is The Family Bones. I think Marr just likes to write about insane or disturbing types of scenarios.
This isn’t really meant to be a book where you can picture it happening in real life. It’s not meant to be an academic discourse on mental health. It’s also not necessarily to endear you to the characters.
It’s a thriller that is meant to be mysterious, to freak you out a bit, and to cycle through mistrust and wondering about each of the characters.
Marr says in her own Goodreads review of it: “This story was influenced by my wildest dreams and nightmares”
And that’s how I read it.
Also I really like the title. It’s an eerie reference and very fitting with the tale.
Recommendation
When a book has a ‘what really happened in the past’ premise with flashbacks, I am always leery if the reveal will be worth the anticipation. I do feel like this one holds up.
Sure, if you’re the type that wants to read stories you may find in the newspaper, this probably isn’t the one for you. But if you have a little bit more imagination and are willing to let it be what it is, I think you’ll enjoy it.
This seems to be a hit or miss book for people, but there really wasn’t anything that stuck out to me to be annoying or jarring me out of the story. It was compelling from start to finish and I would recommend it.
[Content Advisory: couple handfuls of f-words, a few s-words, one very brief sexual encounter that doesn’t go very far]
Last summer I read Marr’s book The Family Bones which was about a family of psychopaths. The Alone Time also deals with a family, but the vibe is more mystery and trauma about the past than surviving in the present.
Both books are compelling and fast reads. The Alone Time probably doesn’t have as much action as The Family Bones, but it doesn’t really feel like that when you read it.
It also has a disturbing/haunting kind of tone to the story that I think threw off some readers about what they were reading. The story is a little out there, I believe intentionally, so go into it without trying to hold Marr to a completely realistic unraveling. Let it do its thing.
The main characters are Violet and Fiona, sisters. (Ironically, I just finished The Garden Girls which also features two characters with these names.)
Violet and Fiona, though now a bit estranged, are bonded by a traumatic experience from their childhood:
“I survived a plane crash that took the lives of my parents, that left me and my younger sister, Violet, to fend for ourselves for months.”
The pair (13 and 7 at the time) survived Olympic National Forest after their small plane, piloted by their father, crashed on the way to Canada for a family trip.
Since then, they both grew up and dealt with their trauma in different ways. Violet has battled drug and alcohol abuse and general aimlessness in life though now picking up writing again.
Fiona is part of the art scene making sculptures with organic materials:
“As my art dealer likes to promote my pieces: the tangible manifestation of trauma using the very source of trauma itself— nature. I’ll never be more than one of the girl-survivors, and I’ll never be allowed to work through my trauma on my own terms, via my sculptures. All they or I will ever be is an object of fascination and fear.”
It’s been 25 years since ‘The Alone Time’ but when a woman becomes breaking news claiming to be their father’s mistress the months leading up to the crash, the case of their parents’ deaths that was never closed has new energy, a pursuit of more answers as to what really happened out in the woods.
A filmmaker set on making a name for himself with a tell-all documentary is hounding the girls to tell their story, to tell the truth about what happened out there. Did their parents actually die on impact like they’ve always claimed? Or did they survive that first night and potentially more?
The formatting of the book is all first person POVs from alternating viewpoints of the four family members.
Janet and Henry (the parents) have chapters from ‘the wild.’ Fiona and Violet have chapters in both the past and the present. We also get snippets from the notebook Violet wrote in while they were stranded.
Elle Marr does a really good job of making you second guess what happened and who is really the dangerous person. They all have motives or suspicious behaviors. There was one reveal that I had figured out shortly before it was revealed and I thought it was an excellent twist!
Janet’s motive is the infidelity she has recently discovered about her husband who has largely been absent and selfish both as a husband and a father.
Henry’s motive his is life with a different woman whom he had asked to meet at a special spot on this trip. He also battles severe PTSD from his military career that often leaves him disoriented.
From Henry’s chapter he observes:
“Fiona’s emotions have pivoted from sobs to anger within seconds. Violet has remained stoic even through quiet tears. Which reaction is the more appropriate one, given the horror scene we all stumbled on? Could one of my kids actually be responsible for their mother’s death?”
And then we have Violet in the wild saying ‘the woman is back’ and we might have someone else out there with a motive to kill her mother.
I really enjoyed this book. I found it hard to put down.
I am a little surprised by some of the poor reviews of this book.
There are a few things that I agree didn’t make enough sense:
- That the sisters would be too worried about the case being re-investigated because I don’t think there could have been enough evidence to lead to any sort of conviction plus they were minors at the time and it’s been so long that I feel like any retribution wouldn’t have been too harsh. Also does seem odd that the woman would just now be coming forward with information— that trigger makes sense for what comes after it, but the ‘pushing’ of the trigger is absent.
- One reviewer commented on Violet’s poor spelling in her journal and I would agree with this, though I know my seven-year-old is quite advanced for her ability to spell. At the same time, though, I don’t think I minded it too much because it just drove home that Violet was a fragile little girl having to grow up to fast.
- The ‘deal’ with Violet and Wes seemed like a weak addition that either should have been removed or should have been played up more. It was too little that it just felt confusing and out of nowhere.
- I’m still not entirely sure how they survived for how long they did or that they weren’t rescued sooner. But I understand that’s a bit beside the point.
Overall though, I guess I disagree with the reviewers who complain about the logic and the out-there aspect of it. It is a bit of a crazy story. So is The Family Bones. I think Marr just likes to write about insane or disturbing types of scenarios.
This isn’t really meant to be a book where you can picture it happening in real life. It’s not meant to be an academic discourse on mental health. It’s also not necessarily to endear you to the characters.
It’s a thriller that is meant to be mysterious, to freak you out a bit, and to cycle through mistrust and wondering about each of the characters.
Marr says in her own Goodreads review of it: “This story was influenced by my wildest dreams and nightmares”
And that’s how I read it.
Also I really like the title. It’s an eerie reference and very fitting with the tale.
Recommendation
When a book has a ‘what really happened in the past’ premise with flashbacks, I am always leery if the reveal will be worth the anticipation. I do feel like this one holds up.
Sure, if you’re the type that wants to read stories you may find in the newspaper, this probably isn’t the one for you. But if you have a little bit more imagination and are willing to let it be what it is, I think you’ll enjoy it.
This seems to be a hit or miss book for people, but there really wasn’t anything that stuck out to me to be annoying or jarring me out of the story. It was compelling from start to finish and I would recommend it.
[Content Advisory: couple handfuls of f-words, a few s-words, one very brief sexual encounter that doesn’t go very far]
Content Warnings
Moderate: Cursing
The Garden Girls by Jessica R. Patch
adventurous
dark
hopeful
lighthearted
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
“I know the kinds of things that await me. I know what evil men can do.”
This is my first Jessica Patch book and I loved it!
It was suspenseful from start to finish. The opening prologue begins with a woman’s attempted escape from her captor. The action and intensity continues to the very end as a last rescue attempt is made in the middle of a hurricane on the Outer Banks.
Patch writes Christian fiction so one of the best parts of the book is that there is no swearing or graphic sexual content. It’s felt increasingly harder to find mainstream books without all of that so I’m glad to find a Christian author that can still write good (but clean) thrillers.
I would say Patch is in league with Steven James’s books. The Garden Girls felt a lot like James’s Patrick Bowers series about a serial killer. And if you like one of these authors, you’re sure to like the other.
They both get into the nitty gritty and aren’t afraid of portraying evil or killing off characters. Patch’s writing may have slightly more overt Christian undertones. James writes about moral and ethical questions and mentions God, but Patch writes more specifically about a character’s faith journey.
I will say, though, that I thought she did this in an organic and natural way. I have been a bit (probably overly) critical of a lot of Christian fiction for being cheesy or unnatural. But I didn’t feel that while reading this book.
The Plot and Characters
The Garden Girls is an intense thriller about a serial killer who abducts women with flower names and tattoos them with flowers from neck to thigh: blooms when they obey, buds when they don’t.
He has a secret garden in his house with human-sized bird cages where he puts them on display to dance for him.
So yeah. Pretty disturbing. I hadn’t thought about the concept of an abductor tattooing his victims which is such a permanent and flamboyant way to traumatize someone.
“You’re part of my private garden now. I’m going to teach you how to bloom.”
It’s got NCIS/Criminal Minds vibes with their SCU team (Strange Crimes Unit) which specializes in hunting down “sickos who kill people based on their religious beliefs.”
Here’s the team:
Ty (our main character) is the impulsive, smart aleck of the group and their resident religious behavioral analyst. He had left a cult as a teenager and had coped with his abusive childhood by studying religions and the psychology behind them.
They’ve got Selah, their computer hacker/analyst.
“Violet [the psychologist] had a superpower. She could slide into the brain of a serial killer and was rarely wrong.”
“Owen was a great geopattern theorist, and his work helped them triangulate where killers might live or work and where they hunted based on geographical patterns.” (just like Patrick Bowers…)
Asa is the father-figure, Special Agent in Charge.
Fiona is the profiler.
[It may be best to read the other books first or you might read a few little spoilers: Violet’s story is in Patch’s book A Cry in the Dark. Asa and Fiona’s story is in her book Her Darkest Secret. Both, I believe, also have serial killers]
Ty’s team takes on this case in the Outer Banks because the killer has a beef with Ty and is acting out his revenge.
“Tiberius would pay for his sins— pride at the top of the list. When he finally fell to his face, he would be humbled, humiliated and held accountable.”
The case gets even more personal when he finds out that a girl from his cult that he had fallen in love with as a teen—Bexley— and had planned to marry and escape the cult with all those years ago is still alive. And her younger sister, who he had also cared for, is now one of the missing girls.
To add to the turmoil he’s already feeling, he discovers Bexley had a son who is now 15. And Ty is the father.
Ty’s world is crashing down, the killer always five steps ahead, and just as they are getting answers to their questions, a cat 5 hurricane is bearing down on the East coast, threatening not only the missing women’s lives but their ability to finish the investigation and catch the killer.
“Ty wasn’t sure which scared him more— the unstoppable hurricane or the possibility that someone might be killing people as part of a revenge scheme against him.”
There is action and surprises up to the very end.
The Faith Part
I appreciate the way she showed the main character (Ty) with his transparent feelings toward religion and Christianity which were influenced by his cult upbringing, but how his relationship with his friends (who had their own faith journeys in other books) did life with him and their words and experiences helped penetrate the walls Ty had built up against God.
I thought it made a lot of sense to show how he came to the end of himself.
“He’d believed in no one but himself, and he was spent, stretched as far as one man could be stretched, feeling it in every beat of his heart and in every breath.”
That’s how it is for all of us. We think we can be in charge of our lives and that we have everything under control. If we just work hard enough and try long enough we can do anything, we can make it through anything.
But faith requires dependency on something (some One) outside of yourself. It doesn’t take too long to realize that we don’t have it in us. We are not enough on our own. There is not some magic in the fibers of our bodies that allow us to handle hard things.
There is grace. And mercy. And peace. And they come from a sovereign and powerful God who loves us.
That story was evident in The Garden Girls in a real life kind of way. There was real life suffering and grief. Real darkness. And then real light and hope even in the midst of loss.
I think that was an honest way to portray it because the Christian life is not a promise of an easy, care-free life of luxury. We are not called to endure nothing. But we persevere the hardship with the strength of the One who sustains the world and sustains our every breath and we know we can trust him.
Randos
I wanted to commend Jessica Patch on this well-placed cultural reference to a wonderful show:
“I’ll put this slow cooker on Warm unless you’re still freaked out about it since watching This Is Us.”
The book is mostly told in third-person, but the writing voice does change styles depending what character is the focus. This got to be a little confusing at times to know what perception we were getting.
Ty’s is the main voice and we probably should have had more of that. But there were times we were in the killer’s mind or in Bexley’s mind.
There was one first person POV from one of the women who was abducted.
Ty’s writing voice sections had more humor and sarcasm, Bexley’s had more anxiety and the others were meant to be more mysterious.
I thought Patch did a good job of creating unique characters with their own personalities and quirks. At times I wondered if the slang used for the son was too over-the-top, but it probably is how teenagers talk. I’m not around enough of them to know. But I do know ‘bussin’ is a thing so there’s that.
For the most part, I liked the way she wrote. She seems to have a good handle on humor and sarcasm and not all writers can do that realistically.
When they were going to get a sketch of the tattoo artist but the guy wasn’t going to get to it until Saturday I knew what was going to happen. In real life, if you’re about to get a sketch of a potential killer and you’re short on time you tell the guy to sketch that thing at home and text a picture of it! You don’t say- well, I guess we have to wait several days, he’s not scheduled to work. Hope he doesn’t call in sick!
I get that the sketch needed to come into play later for the suspense unfolding as Patch intended but I wish there was at least a better reason for the delay in getting that sketch so it made more sense than just waiting til the guy’s next shift of work.
Major Spoiler Comments
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I’m mostly satisfied with how everything ended up/was revealed, but one thing that I’m still trying to figure out is the tattooing.
Did Garrick do all the tattooing then? He was around that much to get that much tattooing done? And would Garrick listen to Lysander on what he wanted tattooed? How involved was Garrick?
It doesn’t really fit that Lysander was the tattooer, but the parts told from the killer’s POV call him The Artist. Without re-reading the whole book, my remembrance says it doesn’t really make sense that those parts were Garrick.
I guess I need more information about that tattoo aspects in relation to Garrick and Lysander.
I’m also not sure how much Ahnah was involved in. It seems like she was aware of what Lysander was doing with the girls. Knowing her background, it seems weird that she would have been okay with that kind of torture being done to women, especially the deaths.
I know those who are abused often end up abusing others. I also know Lysander had groomed Ahnah and she had loved him at one point, so it’s not like he was a stranger she was working with.
But it still feels hard to believe she was part of all that.
I really liked Owen’s character and was sad with how his story ended. But I also think it was a really neat and momentous aspect of Ty’s faith journey. Dang, though, that was an emotional scene!
“Live in the light.”
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SPOILERS OVER!!
Recommendation
Even though this is classified as a Christian fiction book, I would recommend this one to all readers. Especially if you enjoy intense thrillers, or serial killer thrillers.
The ‘Christian stuff’ doesn’t take you out of the story, but rather enhances the character development and it’s not preachy or cheesy. (Well, I’m sure there’s someone out there who will disagree with me, but out of all the Christian fiction books out there, this is on the very ‘less preachy’ side of the spectrum).
If you don’t do well with serial killer books, you won’t want to read this one. The killer is a formidable opponent with a lot of evil.
I’m excited to have found Jessica Patch and look forward to reading some of her other books.
Disclaimer: I will say that she writes books like these and she also writes for ‘Love Inspired Suspense’ and the book covers for books with that organization are less than appealing to me. If any of you have read her books in those series, let me know how or if they’re a different kind of book than this. The covers make the books seem more like a Nancy Drew type of book. But if the writing is the same, I can look past the cover for the story. I may have to try one and see for myself.
[Content Advisory: no swear words- it’s written that a character curses but doesn’t say the word; no graphic sexual content but the abducted women are naked and there is some sexual perversion with a few of the characters]
This is my first Jessica Patch book and I loved it!
It was suspenseful from start to finish. The opening prologue begins with a woman’s attempted escape from her captor. The action and intensity continues to the very end as a last rescue attempt is made in the middle of a hurricane on the Outer Banks.
Patch writes Christian fiction so one of the best parts of the book is that there is no swearing or graphic sexual content. It’s felt increasingly harder to find mainstream books without all of that so I’m glad to find a Christian author that can still write good (but clean) thrillers.
I would say Patch is in league with Steven James’s books. The Garden Girls felt a lot like James’s Patrick Bowers series about a serial killer. And if you like one of these authors, you’re sure to like the other.
They both get into the nitty gritty and aren’t afraid of portraying evil or killing off characters. Patch’s writing may have slightly more overt Christian undertones. James writes about moral and ethical questions and mentions God, but Patch writes more specifically about a character’s faith journey.
I will say, though, that I thought she did this in an organic and natural way. I have been a bit (probably overly) critical of a lot of Christian fiction for being cheesy or unnatural. But I didn’t feel that while reading this book.
The Plot and Characters
The Garden Girls is an intense thriller about a serial killer who abducts women with flower names and tattoos them with flowers from neck to thigh: blooms when they obey, buds when they don’t.
He has a secret garden in his house with human-sized bird cages where he puts them on display to dance for him.
So yeah. Pretty disturbing. I hadn’t thought about the concept of an abductor tattooing his victims which is such a permanent and flamboyant way to traumatize someone.
“You’re part of my private garden now. I’m going to teach you how to bloom.”
It’s got NCIS/Criminal Minds vibes with their SCU team (Strange Crimes Unit) which specializes in hunting down “sickos who kill people based on their religious beliefs.”
Here’s the team:
Ty (our main character) is the impulsive, smart aleck of the group and their resident religious behavioral analyst. He had left a cult as a teenager and had coped with his abusive childhood by studying religions and the psychology behind them.
They’ve got Selah, their computer hacker/analyst.
“Violet [the psychologist] had a superpower. She could slide into the brain of a serial killer and was rarely wrong.”
“Owen was a great geopattern theorist, and his work helped them triangulate where killers might live or work and where they hunted based on geographical patterns.” (just like Patrick Bowers…)
Asa is the father-figure, Special Agent in Charge.
Fiona is the profiler.
[It may be best to read the other books first or you might read a few little spoilers: Violet’s story is in Patch’s book A Cry in the Dark. Asa and Fiona’s story is in her book Her Darkest Secret. Both, I believe, also have serial killers]
Ty’s team takes on this case in the Outer Banks because the killer has a beef with Ty and is acting out his revenge.
“Tiberius would pay for his sins— pride at the top of the list. When he finally fell to his face, he would be humbled, humiliated and held accountable.”
The case gets even more personal when he finds out that a girl from his cult that he had fallen in love with as a teen—Bexley— and had planned to marry and escape the cult with all those years ago is still alive. And her younger sister, who he had also cared for, is now one of the missing girls.
To add to the turmoil he’s already feeling, he discovers Bexley had a son who is now 15. And Ty is the father.
Ty’s world is crashing down, the killer always five steps ahead, and just as they are getting answers to their questions, a cat 5 hurricane is bearing down on the East coast, threatening not only the missing women’s lives but their ability to finish the investigation and catch the killer.
“Ty wasn’t sure which scared him more— the unstoppable hurricane or the possibility that someone might be killing people as part of a revenge scheme against him.”
There is action and surprises up to the very end.
The Faith Part
I appreciate the way she showed the main character (Ty) with his transparent feelings toward religion and Christianity which were influenced by his cult upbringing, but how his relationship with his friends (who had their own faith journeys in other books) did life with him and their words and experiences helped penetrate the walls Ty had built up against God.
I thought it made a lot of sense to show how he came to the end of himself.
“He’d believed in no one but himself, and he was spent, stretched as far as one man could be stretched, feeling it in every beat of his heart and in every breath.”
That’s how it is for all of us. We think we can be in charge of our lives and that we have everything under control. If we just work hard enough and try long enough we can do anything, we can make it through anything.
But faith requires dependency on something (some One) outside of yourself. It doesn’t take too long to realize that we don’t have it in us. We are not enough on our own. There is not some magic in the fibers of our bodies that allow us to handle hard things.
There is grace. And mercy. And peace. And they come from a sovereign and powerful God who loves us.
That story was evident in The Garden Girls in a real life kind of way. There was real life suffering and grief. Real darkness. And then real light and hope even in the midst of loss.
I think that was an honest way to portray it because the Christian life is not a promise of an easy, care-free life of luxury. We are not called to endure nothing. But we persevere the hardship with the strength of the One who sustains the world and sustains our every breath and we know we can trust him.
Randos
I wanted to commend Jessica Patch on this well-placed cultural reference to a wonderful show:
“I’ll put this slow cooker on Warm unless you’re still freaked out about it since watching This Is Us.”
The book is mostly told in third-person, but the writing voice does change styles depending what character is the focus. This got to be a little confusing at times to know what perception we were getting.
Ty’s is the main voice and we probably should have had more of that. But there were times we were in the killer’s mind or in Bexley’s mind.
There was one first person POV from one of the women who was abducted.
Ty’s writing voice sections had more humor and sarcasm, Bexley’s had more anxiety and the others were meant to be more mysterious.
I thought Patch did a good job of creating unique characters with their own personalities and quirks. At times I wondered if the slang used for the son was too over-the-top, but it probably is how teenagers talk. I’m not around enough of them to know. But I do know ‘bussin’ is a thing so there’s that.
For the most part, I liked the way she wrote. She seems to have a good handle on humor and sarcasm and not all writers can do that realistically.
When they were going to get a sketch of the tattoo artist but the guy wasn’t going to get to it until Saturday I knew what was going to happen. In real life, if you’re about to get a sketch of a potential killer and you’re short on time you tell the guy to sketch that thing at home and text a picture of it! You don’t say- well, I guess we have to wait several days, he’s not scheduled to work. Hope he doesn’t call in sick!
I get that the sketch needed to come into play later for the suspense unfolding as Patch intended but I wish there was at least a better reason for the delay in getting that sketch so it made more sense than just waiting til the guy’s next shift of work.
Major Spoiler Comments
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I’m mostly satisfied with how everything ended up/was revealed, but one thing that I’m still trying to figure out is the tattooing.
Did Garrick do all the tattooing then? He was around that much to get that much tattooing done? And would Garrick listen to Lysander on what he wanted tattooed? How involved was Garrick?
It doesn’t really fit that Lysander was the tattooer, but the parts told from the killer’s POV call him The Artist. Without re-reading the whole book, my remembrance says it doesn’t really make sense that those parts were Garrick.
I guess I need more information about that tattoo aspects in relation to Garrick and Lysander.
I’m also not sure how much Ahnah was involved in. It seems like she was aware of what Lysander was doing with the girls. Knowing her background, it seems weird that she would have been okay with that kind of torture being done to women, especially the deaths.
I know those who are abused often end up abusing others. I also know Lysander had groomed Ahnah and she had loved him at one point, so it’s not like he was a stranger she was working with.
But it still feels hard to believe she was part of all that.
I really liked Owen’s character and was sad with how his story ended. But I also think it was a really neat and momentous aspect of Ty’s faith journey. Dang, though, that was an emotional scene!
“Live in the light.”
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SPOILERS OVER!!
Recommendation
Even though this is classified as a Christian fiction book, I would recommend this one to all readers. Especially if you enjoy intense thrillers, or serial killer thrillers.
The ‘Christian stuff’ doesn’t take you out of the story, but rather enhances the character development and it’s not preachy or cheesy. (Well, I’m sure there’s someone out there who will disagree with me, but out of all the Christian fiction books out there, this is on the very ‘less preachy’ side of the spectrum).
If you don’t do well with serial killer books, you won’t want to read this one. The killer is a formidable opponent with a lot of evil.
I’m excited to have found Jessica Patch and look forward to reading some of her other books.
Disclaimer: I will say that she writes books like these and she also writes for ‘Love Inspired Suspense’ and the book covers for books with that organization are less than appealing to me. If any of you have read her books in those series, let me know how or if they’re a different kind of book than this. The covers make the books seem more like a Nancy Drew type of book. But if the writing is the same, I can look past the cover for the story. I may have to try one and see for myself.
[Content Advisory: no swear words- it’s written that a character curses but doesn’t say the word; no graphic sexual content but the abducted women are naked and there is some sexual perversion with a few of the characters]
12 Ways Your Phone Is Changing You by Tony Reinke
challenging
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
“My phone is a window into the worthless and the worthy, the artificial and the authentic.”
“With my phone, I find myself always teetering between useful efficiency and meaningless habit.”
This book is not an anti-technology book. Or even an anti-smartphone book. Reinke is fascinated by technology and its advancements.
“my aim is to avoid both extremes: the utopian optimism of the technophiliac and the dystopian pessimism of the technophobe.”
He has written this book to help us use our phone in better ways. To think about how our phones are influencing us and changing us and to help us take captive our habits and thoughts and order them properly.
“The question of this book is simple: What is the best use of my smartphone in the flourishing of my life?”
There are numerous studies on the psychological and physical affects smartphones, social media, and internet usage has on people as individuals and on the society in general. We would be naive to think our phones aren’t changing us.
Reinke doesn’t dive into the psychological and physical, but instead veers to the spiritual. He spends time talking about nine biblical realities surrounding technology and how it pertains to creation, human power, our creativity, our health, our relationships and more.
It was convicting to read this book and realize the deeper influence my phone has on my ability to listen and hear God, distracting me from meeting physical needs around me (tangibly and spiritually), keeping me from silence, enabling me to speak harshly with little immediate kickback, inflating my fear of missing something, weakening my ability to process information, and luring me to become “like what I like.”
I think all would benefit from reading this book and changing our mindsets and boundaries with our phones.
I thought it was interesting when he compared our phones to the carved images and statues (idols) of Bible times. They weren’t used as tools, but they were worshiped for something else:
“These idols were more like our technologies, divine oracles of knowledge and prosperity, used by worshipers in an attempt to control and manipulate the events of life for personal benefit. The figurine and the iPhone appeal to the same fetish.”
There are definitely ways we use our phone as a tool, but if we aren’t careful, it becomes the means by which we seek to control and manipulate our lives for our own gain.
Similarly, in the foreword John Piper likens our phones to mules. If we live in fear, our phones become an escape from life or from fear of death, but as Christians we have hope in the resurrection of Christ and should not live in fear. Then our phones are more like mules— there to just get the job done and help us on our way to something better.
“Don’t waste your life grooming your mule. Make him bear the weight of a thousand works of love. Make him tread the heights with you in the mountains of worship.”
One interesting thing about this book is that it was written in 2017 and even in these 7 years between its publishing and my reading it, technology has changed. AI is on the rise. Facebook isn’t as popular. Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, the Metaverse, and Fortnite are the time-wasters. And there’s probably a whole host of other apps that I’ve not even aware of taking over the interwebs and people’s time.
This book is more phone/internet-specific, but if you are interested in how we as Christians should view technology more generally, I would recommend Reinke’s book God, Technology, and the Christian Life which has some really good insights from the Tower of Babel and beyond and how God has used technology for his glory.
Though our world has advanced since its writing, the principles Reinke shares in this book are no less relevant.
I liked how he summarized the twelve points at the end of the book:
[I’ve removed chapter parentheticals for easier reading]
- “Our phones amplify our addiction to distractions, and thereby splinter our perception of our place in time.
- Our phones push us to evade the limits of embodiment and thereby cause us to treat one another harshly.
- Our phones feed our craving for immediate approval and promise to hedge against our fears of missing out.
- Our phones undermine key literary skills and, because of our lack of discipline, make it increasingly difficult for us to identify ultimate meaning.
- Our phones offer us a buffet of produced media and tempt us to indulge in visual vices.
- Our phones overtake and distort our identity and tempt us toward unhealthy isolation and loneliness.”
I think we can read these and all recognize areas of our phone usage that is not beneficial to our relationship with ourselves, those around us, or God himself.
But with every warning, Reinke pairs it with a positive, an encouragement and a grace. Just throwing out our phones is not going to solve the problem or change our hearts. We must use wisdom to understand our weaknesses and in all things seek Christ first.
Reinke promotes disciplines that tie in with each pitfall and points us back to Christ and the gospel freedom he offers us. It positions us to our phones in a way so we can use the phone for God’s glory instead of being at the mercy of our phone.
Some Standouts
Every chapter had great insights and I took a lot of notes, but here are just a few ponderings I will share from my readings:
In the throes of Covid, churches were largely forced to commune online. And even after we could meet in person again, so many people opted to continue to be churched from afar, electing to just watch the sermon online. What’s the point of dealing with the church body if I can just be taught at home?
But we miss out on so much when we are not meeting together in person as the Lord commands in Scripture. Sure, it might be awkward at times, or uncomfortable but we have to force ourselves out of the phone’s drive for immediate approval and its pull to like-minded people.
People are diverse. People have different strengths, weaknesses, and blindspots. The church is a place to feel unity and encouragement even in difference. To learn how to work through disagreements and talk through hard things, not avoid them.
“In the local church, I do not fear rejection. In the healthy local church, I can pursue a spiritual depth that requires agitation, frustration, and the discomfort of being with people who conform not to “my” kingdom but to God’s.”
We can’t live in a vacuum or on a pedestal of our own maneuvering. We need the body of Christ to challenge us and bear with us in our struggles. We need the honesty and tangibility of the church body.
As a reader, another of Reinke’s principles stood out to me. Our phones cause us to lose literacy. The shortness of tweets and posts and our constant scrolling and skimming erodes our ability to concentrate and read for long periods of time.
We are being conditioned for snippets and highlights, not depth and meditation.
“God has given us the power of concentration in order for us to see and avoid what is false, fake, and transient— so that we may gaze directly at what is true, stable, and eternal. It is part of our creatureliness that we are easily lured by what is vain and trivial.”
“We are called to suspend our chronic scrolling in order to linger over eternal truth, because the Bible is the most important book in the history of the world.”
We are called to know and love God’s Word. But to understand the Bible, we have to put in the work of studying it, and lingering over it. Taking it to heart. A random daily Bible verse on an app is not bad, but it’s not the kind of depth that is required of us.
I know not everyone can read the amount of books that I do, but it’s important not to shrug off reading altogether. We miss out on the very words of God when we settle for snapshots and scrolling instead of silence and savoring.
As an artist/creator/writer, his chapter on production and digital media and creations was interesting to think about. It reminded me a little of Rembrandt is in the Wind by Russ Ramsey as he talked about what art is meant to do, meant to portray.
Technology can help us create things. Make art. It is a platform to share our pictures and our words.
We need to think about where our art and our words lead people— towards God or away? Does it serve and build up our audiences?
We wield a power to influence many people and we should evaluate before every post or creation whether or not we are pointing to truth and the beauty of God and his world.
“take all of God’s created and revealed gifts to you and make all of them into a life that shows the world how glorious and satisfying God really is.”
I was shocked when Reinke shared this statistic:
“The average output of email and social-media text is estimated at 3.6 trillion words, or about thirty-six million books— typed out every day… which is one million more books than the Library of Congress holds.”
Seven years later, it’s got to be a lot more than this. That is a lot of words.
And it’s sobering when we consider that we will be held accountable for every idle word we speak or tweet or post or message. (Matt 12:36)
How much of our online presence or our phone usage is made up of idle, careless words? We may think what we do with our phones is anonymous or without consequences, but God sees every stroke and swipe and we will have to answer for every action we take on our phones, every choice we make with it.
That’s not to beat us down with the gravity of that reality and make us feel like failures, unable to atone for all those careless words we’ve written. Of course, we do need to feel the weight of our sin and the need for our Savior.
But Reinke also uses this verse to remind us that we are responsible for every word that comes from us— in word, thought, or deed— and it would be good practice to consider the idleness of our phone usage and our online presence. Can we stand behind what we do and say? And if not, what changes need to be made?
Conclusion
“If our digital technology becomes our god, our wand of power, it will inevitably shape us into technicians who gain mastery over a dead world of conveniences.”
I recommend this book to all people. Smartphones aren’t going away. Or if they do, they will be replaced by something even more invasive and alluring. We have to take the time to look at how our phones are changing us and what pitfalls we can easily fall into.
Reinke’s book is realistic and practical and written in a voice, not of abandoning technology, but in harnessing it and using it to point to God and his glory. To use our phones and not let our phones use us. To understand what sins poor phone usage can tap into and to seek forgiveness.
“I am not my own. I am owned by my Lord. I have been bought with a price, which means I must glorify Christ with my thumbs, my ears, my eyes, and my time. And that leads me to my point: I do not have “time to kill”— I have time to redeem.”
“With my phone, I find myself always teetering between useful efficiency and meaningless habit.”
This book is not an anti-technology book. Or even an anti-smartphone book. Reinke is fascinated by technology and its advancements.
“my aim is to avoid both extremes: the utopian optimism of the technophiliac and the dystopian pessimism of the technophobe.”
He has written this book to help us use our phone in better ways. To think about how our phones are influencing us and changing us and to help us take captive our habits and thoughts and order them properly.
“The question of this book is simple: What is the best use of my smartphone in the flourishing of my life?”
There are numerous studies on the psychological and physical affects smartphones, social media, and internet usage has on people as individuals and on the society in general. We would be naive to think our phones aren’t changing us.
Reinke doesn’t dive into the psychological and physical, but instead veers to the spiritual. He spends time talking about nine biblical realities surrounding technology and how it pertains to creation, human power, our creativity, our health, our relationships and more.
It was convicting to read this book and realize the deeper influence my phone has on my ability to listen and hear God, distracting me from meeting physical needs around me (tangibly and spiritually), keeping me from silence, enabling me to speak harshly with little immediate kickback, inflating my fear of missing something, weakening my ability to process information, and luring me to become “like what I like.”
I think all would benefit from reading this book and changing our mindsets and boundaries with our phones.
I thought it was interesting when he compared our phones to the carved images and statues (idols) of Bible times. They weren’t used as tools, but they were worshiped for something else:
“These idols were more like our technologies, divine oracles of knowledge and prosperity, used by worshipers in an attempt to control and manipulate the events of life for personal benefit. The figurine and the iPhone appeal to the same fetish.”
There are definitely ways we use our phone as a tool, but if we aren’t careful, it becomes the means by which we seek to control and manipulate our lives for our own gain.
Similarly, in the foreword John Piper likens our phones to mules. If we live in fear, our phones become an escape from life or from fear of death, but as Christians we have hope in the resurrection of Christ and should not live in fear. Then our phones are more like mules— there to just get the job done and help us on our way to something better.
“Don’t waste your life grooming your mule. Make him bear the weight of a thousand works of love. Make him tread the heights with you in the mountains of worship.”
One interesting thing about this book is that it was written in 2017 and even in these 7 years between its publishing and my reading it, technology has changed. AI is on the rise. Facebook isn’t as popular. Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, the Metaverse, and Fortnite are the time-wasters. And there’s probably a whole host of other apps that I’ve not even aware of taking over the interwebs and people’s time.
This book is more phone/internet-specific, but if you are interested in how we as Christians should view technology more generally, I would recommend Reinke’s book God, Technology, and the Christian Life which has some really good insights from the Tower of Babel and beyond and how God has used technology for his glory.
Though our world has advanced since its writing, the principles Reinke shares in this book are no less relevant.
I liked how he summarized the twelve points at the end of the book:
[I’ve removed chapter parentheticals for easier reading]
- “Our phones amplify our addiction to distractions, and thereby splinter our perception of our place in time.
- Our phones push us to evade the limits of embodiment and thereby cause us to treat one another harshly.
- Our phones feed our craving for immediate approval and promise to hedge against our fears of missing out.
- Our phones undermine key literary skills and, because of our lack of discipline, make it increasingly difficult for us to identify ultimate meaning.
- Our phones offer us a buffet of produced media and tempt us to indulge in visual vices.
- Our phones overtake and distort our identity and tempt us toward unhealthy isolation and loneliness.”
I think we can read these and all recognize areas of our phone usage that is not beneficial to our relationship with ourselves, those around us, or God himself.
But with every warning, Reinke pairs it with a positive, an encouragement and a grace. Just throwing out our phones is not going to solve the problem or change our hearts. We must use wisdom to understand our weaknesses and in all things seek Christ first.
Reinke promotes disciplines that tie in with each pitfall and points us back to Christ and the gospel freedom he offers us. It positions us to our phones in a way so we can use the phone for God’s glory instead of being at the mercy of our phone.
Some Standouts
Every chapter had great insights and I took a lot of notes, but here are just a few ponderings I will share from my readings:
In the throes of Covid, churches were largely forced to commune online. And even after we could meet in person again, so many people opted to continue to be churched from afar, electing to just watch the sermon online. What’s the point of dealing with the church body if I can just be taught at home?
But we miss out on so much when we are not meeting together in person as the Lord commands in Scripture. Sure, it might be awkward at times, or uncomfortable but we have to force ourselves out of the phone’s drive for immediate approval and its pull to like-minded people.
People are diverse. People have different strengths, weaknesses, and blindspots. The church is a place to feel unity and encouragement even in difference. To learn how to work through disagreements and talk through hard things, not avoid them.
“In the local church, I do not fear rejection. In the healthy local church, I can pursue a spiritual depth that requires agitation, frustration, and the discomfort of being with people who conform not to “my” kingdom but to God’s.”
We can’t live in a vacuum or on a pedestal of our own maneuvering. We need the body of Christ to challenge us and bear with us in our struggles. We need the honesty and tangibility of the church body.
As a reader, another of Reinke’s principles stood out to me. Our phones cause us to lose literacy. The shortness of tweets and posts and our constant scrolling and skimming erodes our ability to concentrate and read for long periods of time.
We are being conditioned for snippets and highlights, not depth and meditation.
“God has given us the power of concentration in order for us to see and avoid what is false, fake, and transient— so that we may gaze directly at what is true, stable, and eternal. It is part of our creatureliness that we are easily lured by what is vain and trivial.”
“We are called to suspend our chronic scrolling in order to linger over eternal truth, because the Bible is the most important book in the history of the world.”
We are called to know and love God’s Word. But to understand the Bible, we have to put in the work of studying it, and lingering over it. Taking it to heart. A random daily Bible verse on an app is not bad, but it’s not the kind of depth that is required of us.
I know not everyone can read the amount of books that I do, but it’s important not to shrug off reading altogether. We miss out on the very words of God when we settle for snapshots and scrolling instead of silence and savoring.
As an artist/creator/writer, his chapter on production and digital media and creations was interesting to think about. It reminded me a little of Rembrandt is in the Wind by Russ Ramsey as he talked about what art is meant to do, meant to portray.
Technology can help us create things. Make art. It is a platform to share our pictures and our words.
We need to think about where our art and our words lead people— towards God or away? Does it serve and build up our audiences?
We wield a power to influence many people and we should evaluate before every post or creation whether or not we are pointing to truth and the beauty of God and his world.
“take all of God’s created and revealed gifts to you and make all of them into a life that shows the world how glorious and satisfying God really is.”
I was shocked when Reinke shared this statistic:
“The average output of email and social-media text is estimated at 3.6 trillion words, or about thirty-six million books— typed out every day… which is one million more books than the Library of Congress holds.”
Seven years later, it’s got to be a lot more than this. That is a lot of words.
And it’s sobering when we consider that we will be held accountable for every idle word we speak or tweet or post or message. (Matt 12:36)
How much of our online presence or our phone usage is made up of idle, careless words? We may think what we do with our phones is anonymous or without consequences, but God sees every stroke and swipe and we will have to answer for every action we take on our phones, every choice we make with it.
That’s not to beat us down with the gravity of that reality and make us feel like failures, unable to atone for all those careless words we’ve written. Of course, we do need to feel the weight of our sin and the need for our Savior.
But Reinke also uses this verse to remind us that we are responsible for every word that comes from us— in word, thought, or deed— and it would be good practice to consider the idleness of our phone usage and our online presence. Can we stand behind what we do and say? And if not, what changes need to be made?
Conclusion
“If our digital technology becomes our god, our wand of power, it will inevitably shape us into technicians who gain mastery over a dead world of conveniences.”
I recommend this book to all people. Smartphones aren’t going away. Or if they do, they will be replaced by something even more invasive and alluring. We have to take the time to look at how our phones are changing us and what pitfalls we can easily fall into.
Reinke’s book is realistic and practical and written in a voice, not of abandoning technology, but in harnessing it and using it to point to God and his glory. To use our phones and not let our phones use us. To understand what sins poor phone usage can tap into and to seek forgiveness.
“I am not my own. I am owned by my Lord. I have been bought with a price, which means I must glorify Christ with my thumbs, my ears, my eyes, and my time. And that leads me to my point: I do not have “time to kill”— I have time to redeem.”
Dark Matter by Blake Crouch
adventurous
emotional
reflective
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
“We couldn’t possible contend with simultaneously observing all possible realities at once… but if we could, where would it take us?”
This book lives up to the hype!
This is my first Blake Crouch book and I know it won’t be my last. It was definitely a story that was hard to put down.
I know a lot people aren’t into sci-fi or feel like books about the multiverse hurt their brains, but I think this one is pretty accessible to any reader.
This book seeks to explore the questions— What if my life could have been different? What if I had made different choices? Am I actually living the life I want?
“My life is great. It’s just not exceptional. And there was a time when it could have been.”
Even though I don’t believe the multiverse exists, it’s a compelling concept for a story and a way to think about those questions that a lot of people ask themselves.
Our lives don’t always end up being what we thought they would. We have to make hard choices about where to go, what to do, and who to be with. Sometimes it’s tempting to ask- is this my best life?
“Fighting always against the whispers of what might have been.”
I really liked what Crouch did with these questions. There is a lot to be said of contentment. There is constant cultural pressure to dream big and do what it takes to achieve those dreams— whatever it takes— because we deserve them.
But there is not much said about self-sacrifice and self-denial for the sake of another. That’s generally seen as settling, giving up, and not living up to your potential rather than a noble choice with a meaningful purpose.
Dark Matter is a poignant tale that forces us to see that what we think might be better, may not actually be. Sometimes the little things are the big things.
Brief Plot Summary
The main character in the book— Jason— is an atomic physicist and professor at a small college in the Chicago suburbs married to an aspiring artist, Daniela, and father to a 15-year-old son, Charlie.
When he and Daniela got unexpectedly pregnant with Charlie they made the choice to build their family. Jason gave up intense quantum physics research. Daniela gave up time spent advancing her art.
They see friends and colleagues achieving the things they used to think they would do.
Well all that changes for Jason. A version of himself from a different universe made the choice to continue his research instead of being a family man. His research led him to create a special box that allows him to break the barriers of reality and traverse through the multiverse. Having realized his research-focused life was unfulfilling, he enters Jason’s universe and effectively takes over his life, forcing Jason to switch places with him.
This launches Jason into a heart-wrenching and devastating journey across the multi-verse to try to get back to his family. He has to continually make the choice whether to take the life he could have had or choose Daniela and Charlie as it is now, if he can even get back to them.
“What if all the pieces of belief and memory that comprise who I am—my profession, Daniela, my son— are nothing but a tragic misfiring in that gray matter between my ears? Will I keep fighting to be the man I think I am? Or will I disown him and everything he loves, and step into the skin of the person this world would like for me to be?”
If you like this concept, you should definitely read Brian Freeman’s book Infinite. It also takes place in Chicago and involves a man dealing with another version of himself from another universe ruining his life. I wouldn’t be surprised if Freeman was inspired by Crouch’s book since his came out in 2021. But it’s somewhat the inverse of Dark Matter in that Dylan’s wife has died and he has to struggle with not taking over other lives where she is still alive.
Also, this book feels similar to The Midnight Library by Matt Haig but with more action and violence.
Dark Matter
The book is called Dark Matter because dark matter is the term used by astrophysicists to describe “the [theoretical] force holding stars and galaxies together—the thing that makes our whole universe work.” and “some string theorists think it might be a clue to the existence of the multiverse.”
You don’t really have to understand the quantum mechanics of the theory at the base of this story. Thanks to Marvel we’re probably all somewhat familiar with the multiverse, and we can just accept the fact that the box works the way it does without having to fully comprehend the ‘how.’ Since that’s all theoretical anyway.
But let’s explore some of the concepts in this book for fun…
Part of the idea behind the box is the theory that “observation determines reality.” An object can be in two states at once until it is observed in a single state.
I don’t think that observation is the only thing that determines reality. Does observation require sight? Touch? Hearing? All at the same time? Not everyone can give that. Are their surroundings less real? Observation obviously influences our perception of reality, but it doesn’t determine reality itself.
I’m not sure how many people actually believe in the multiverse. But to indulge in that line of thinking I’ll also bring up that I disagree with Jason’s conclusion on how the multiverse influences his view of identity:
“My understanding of identity has been shattered— I am one face of an infinitely faceted being… I can’t help thinking that we’re more than the sum total of our choices, that all the paths we might have taken factor somehow into the math of our identity.”
Perhaps that makes sense within the context of the particular story, but I don’t think that theory can hold any weight. What a burden it would be to carry the weight of every choice you effectively DON’T take but COULD HAVE. What importance would any choice really have if the multiverse says you actually made every choice or your identity is formed in part from choices you didn’t take. How could you have any identity?
Plus this multiverse theory doesn’t hold up to a biblical worldview. In that theory, there would be universes where Jesus didn’t die on the cross. Universes where God’s actions didn’t happen. It is inconsistent with the character and sovereignty of God.
So if the multiverse scares you, fear not. It can’t be true biblically. We don’t have to worry about our other selves living in a universe where Jesus didn’t save us from our sins. A universe where Jesus didn’t defeat the death we deserve.
We only have one soul. It can’t be both saved and not saved.
Our hope is assurance, not just luck that we happen to be conscious of our self living in the ‘right’ universe.
But that does make your choices all the more important. You don’t get infinite chances to try until something works. You get this life. And your choices will have eternal consequences.
Jason comments, “I suppose we’re both just trying to come to terms with how horrifying infinity really is.”
Infinity is impossible to comprehend. And depending what infinity is applying to, it can be horrifying.
Or it can be comforting. I know that I will spend infinite time in heaven when I die. But if I wasn’t sure about that… that would be a terrifying reality I would have to contend with.
The multiverse is a fun idea that makes for good books and movies and creative hypothetical conversations. But it’s not real. It doesn’t excuse the choices we make today and it doesn’t burden us with the ones we didn’t.
It does allow us to ponder the significance of the life we wake up to every day and the choices we make right now. It does remind us to be thankful for what we do have instead of pining for what we do not.
And that’s what I liked most about this book. The way it invested me in Jason’s story and the way he fights for his family and his ‘mediocre’ life. The here-and-now taking precedence over the what-ifs.
Recommendation
I would definitely recommend this book! It is a super fast read because you won’t be able to put it down.
It immediately draws you into the main character’s dilemma and wanting his family to be together.
I could definitely have done without some of the swearing, but in this case I think the story was worth dealing with that.
Even if you don’t like quantum physics, I think you’ll still be engaged in the drama of Jason trying to get back to his wife and son.
The overarching concept of this story is relatable to pretty much everyone and will hopefully help you see the blessings of the life you currently live.
Book to Film FYI
This is being made into a series on Apple TV that is set to release with two episodes on May 8th and then weekly beyond that. I’m excited to see how they portray this story. Fingers crossed that they don’t increase the swearing/sexual content from the book, but these days that seems to be a lot to ask for.
I’ll add my book to show comparison at some point for anyone interested.
[Content Advisory: a decent amount of f-words (mostly used in relation to sex); a couple sex ‘moments’ but nothing graphic or erotic; some gore/violence throughout but a graphic stabbing/ ‘fight scene’ at the end]
This book lives up to the hype!
This is my first Blake Crouch book and I know it won’t be my last. It was definitely a story that was hard to put down.
I know a lot people aren’t into sci-fi or feel like books about the multiverse hurt their brains, but I think this one is pretty accessible to any reader.
This book seeks to explore the questions— What if my life could have been different? What if I had made different choices? Am I actually living the life I want?
“My life is great. It’s just not exceptional. And there was a time when it could have been.”
Even though I don’t believe the multiverse exists, it’s a compelling concept for a story and a way to think about those questions that a lot of people ask themselves.
Our lives don’t always end up being what we thought they would. We have to make hard choices about where to go, what to do, and who to be with. Sometimes it’s tempting to ask- is this my best life?
“Fighting always against the whispers of what might have been.”
I really liked what Crouch did with these questions. There is a lot to be said of contentment. There is constant cultural pressure to dream big and do what it takes to achieve those dreams— whatever it takes— because we deserve them.
But there is not much said about self-sacrifice and self-denial for the sake of another. That’s generally seen as settling, giving up, and not living up to your potential rather than a noble choice with a meaningful purpose.
Dark Matter is a poignant tale that forces us to see that what we think might be better, may not actually be. Sometimes the little things are the big things.
Brief Plot Summary
The main character in the book— Jason— is an atomic physicist and professor at a small college in the Chicago suburbs married to an aspiring artist, Daniela, and father to a 15-year-old son, Charlie.
When he and Daniela got unexpectedly pregnant with Charlie they made the choice to build their family. Jason gave up intense quantum physics research. Daniela gave up time spent advancing her art.
They see friends and colleagues achieving the things they used to think they would do.
Well all that changes for Jason. A version of himself from a different universe made the choice to continue his research instead of being a family man. His research led him to create a special box that allows him to break the barriers of reality and traverse through the multiverse. Having realized his research-focused life was unfulfilling, he enters Jason’s universe and effectively takes over his life, forcing Jason to switch places with him.
This launches Jason into a heart-wrenching and devastating journey across the multi-verse to try to get back to his family. He has to continually make the choice whether to take the life he could have had or choose Daniela and Charlie as it is now, if he can even get back to them.
“What if all the pieces of belief and memory that comprise who I am—my profession, Daniela, my son— are nothing but a tragic misfiring in that gray matter between my ears? Will I keep fighting to be the man I think I am? Or will I disown him and everything he loves, and step into the skin of the person this world would like for me to be?”
If you like this concept, you should definitely read Brian Freeman’s book Infinite. It also takes place in Chicago and involves a man dealing with another version of himself from another universe ruining his life. I wouldn’t be surprised if Freeman was inspired by Crouch’s book since his came out in 2021. But it’s somewhat the inverse of Dark Matter in that Dylan’s wife has died and he has to struggle with not taking over other lives where she is still alive.
Also, this book feels similar to The Midnight Library by Matt Haig but with more action and violence.
Dark Matter
The book is called Dark Matter because dark matter is the term used by astrophysicists to describe “the [theoretical] force holding stars and galaxies together—the thing that makes our whole universe work.” and “some string theorists think it might be a clue to the existence of the multiverse.”
You don’t really have to understand the quantum mechanics of the theory at the base of this story. Thanks to Marvel we’re probably all somewhat familiar with the multiverse, and we can just accept the fact that the box works the way it does without having to fully comprehend the ‘how.’ Since that’s all theoretical anyway.
But let’s explore some of the concepts in this book for fun…
Part of the idea behind the box is the theory that “observation determines reality.” An object can be in two states at once until it is observed in a single state.
I don’t think that observation is the only thing that determines reality. Does observation require sight? Touch? Hearing? All at the same time? Not everyone can give that. Are their surroundings less real? Observation obviously influences our perception of reality, but it doesn’t determine reality itself.
I’m not sure how many people actually believe in the multiverse. But to indulge in that line of thinking I’ll also bring up that I disagree with Jason’s conclusion on how the multiverse influences his view of identity:
“My understanding of identity has been shattered— I am one face of an infinitely faceted being… I can’t help thinking that we’re more than the sum total of our choices, that all the paths we might have taken factor somehow into the math of our identity.”
Perhaps that makes sense within the context of the particular story, but I don’t think that theory can hold any weight. What a burden it would be to carry the weight of every choice you effectively DON’T take but COULD HAVE. What importance would any choice really have if the multiverse says you actually made every choice or your identity is formed in part from choices you didn’t take. How could you have any identity?
Plus this multiverse theory doesn’t hold up to a biblical worldview. In that theory, there would be universes where Jesus didn’t die on the cross. Universes where God’s actions didn’t happen. It is inconsistent with the character and sovereignty of God.
So if the multiverse scares you, fear not. It can’t be true biblically. We don’t have to worry about our other selves living in a universe where Jesus didn’t save us from our sins. A universe where Jesus didn’t defeat the death we deserve.
We only have one soul. It can’t be both saved and not saved.
Our hope is assurance, not just luck that we happen to be conscious of our self living in the ‘right’ universe.
But that does make your choices all the more important. You don’t get infinite chances to try until something works. You get this life. And your choices will have eternal consequences.
Jason comments, “I suppose we’re both just trying to come to terms with how horrifying infinity really is.”
Infinity is impossible to comprehend. And depending what infinity is applying to, it can be horrifying.
Or it can be comforting. I know that I will spend infinite time in heaven when I die. But if I wasn’t sure about that… that would be a terrifying reality I would have to contend with.
The multiverse is a fun idea that makes for good books and movies and creative hypothetical conversations. But it’s not real. It doesn’t excuse the choices we make today and it doesn’t burden us with the ones we didn’t.
It does allow us to ponder the significance of the life we wake up to every day and the choices we make right now. It does remind us to be thankful for what we do have instead of pining for what we do not.
And that’s what I liked most about this book. The way it invested me in Jason’s story and the way he fights for his family and his ‘mediocre’ life. The here-and-now taking precedence over the what-ifs.
Recommendation
I would definitely recommend this book! It is a super fast read because you won’t be able to put it down.
It immediately draws you into the main character’s dilemma and wanting his family to be together.
I could definitely have done without some of the swearing, but in this case I think the story was worth dealing with that.
Even if you don’t like quantum physics, I think you’ll still be engaged in the drama of Jason trying to get back to his wife and son.
The overarching concept of this story is relatable to pretty much everyone and will hopefully help you see the blessings of the life you currently live.
Book to Film FYI
This is being made into a series on Apple TV that is set to release with two episodes on May 8th and then weekly beyond that. I’m excited to see how they portray this story. Fingers crossed that they don’t increase the swearing/sexual content from the book, but these days that seems to be a lot to ask for.
I’ll add my book to show comparison at some point for anyone interested.
[Content Advisory: a decent amount of f-words (mostly used in relation to sex); a couple sex ‘moments’ but nothing graphic or erotic; some gore/violence throughout but a graphic stabbing/ ‘fight scene’ at the end]
Content Warnings
Moderate: Cursing, Gore, and Violence
Minor: Sexual content
The Mystery Writer by Sulari Gentill
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
3.5
“Perhaps the dead are afraid to live as much as we are afraid to die.”
I think I would have liked this book better if I hadn’t read the summary first. I did enjoy the book, but the summary was misleading to me:
“…the police begin looking at her brother, Gus, as their prime suspect, and Theo does the unthinkable in order to protect him. But the writer has left a trail, a thread out of the labyrinth in the form of a story. Gus finds that thread and follows it, and in his attempt to save his sister he inadvertently threatens the foundations of the labyrinth itself. To protect the carefully constructed narrative, Theo Benton, and everyone looking for her, will have to die.”
This is what I thought the bulk of the book would be describing. For one, this is probably only the last 20% of the book. Theo doesn’t disappear until 75% in. Two, the ‘threatening of the foundations of the labyrinth’ seems like a bad thing in this summary, but if Theo is stuck in there, isn’t that actually a good thing? Three, thread makes it seem like a continuous series of clues you keep pulling on until you unravel it, but in actuality, the thread was one not-so-hidden clue found by Mac, not Gus.
I thought the majority of the book was going to be figuring out what Theo’s ‘unthinkable’ thing was and that she had left a manuscript behind with clues in it as to where she is or what’s going on. That was an intriguing concept to me.
But it’s not quite so complex.
Theo, an aspiring writer, gets dragged into a mess of murders after she gets involved with another writer who she finds murdered in his home just 24 hours after she had given her manuscript to him.
As others around her also get murdered, she is a suspect… and by association her lawyer brother as well.
She has to figure out who murdered her friend and why. Who can she can trust now that she and her brother are in danger.
Another aspect of this book is the interspersed snippets of chat room discussion on a conspiracy theory known as the Frankenstein Project which they believe is an experiment being conducted on people, dead and alive, by an organization called the Labyrinth .
Having read it now, I think that I’m grasping what the author was attempting to do here, but at the same time, I’m still a little confused about what I’m supposed to see as a conspiracy theory’s tendency to exaggerate and dramatize the truth versus what I’m supposed to see as a shocking revelation of what’s really going on.
The author leaves you on a bit of a cliffhanger, but as far as I know this was meant to be a stand alone novel. So the last couple paragraphs made me just sit there for a minute trying to figure out what I missed. (One thing I completely forgot about was the prologue.)
The idea of incorporating a conspiracy theory into a thriller is super interesting to me, especially considering the power they have to change people’s behavior or cause mistrust.
In the book it says, “If you need people to distrust the education system, or the media, or fast food, [such and such] would develop a conspiracy theory that would do it.”
That statement seems to imply that all conspiracy theories are untrue, and we should inherently trust everyone. That’s what makes conspiracy theories interesting. What truths are they tapping into? Knowing people are sinful and have a capability for evil it takes a lot of discernment to know what to trust. While many conspiracy theories are beyond ridiculous (birds, for instance) I think we also have to understand the power move it is to label a belief as a conspiracy theory to convince people to ignore any of the truths that may be found in it.
However, in this book, the conspiracy theory just felt bizarre and confusing when it could have been fleshed out more. It was hard to tell how important the author wanted it to be in the story.
Also the Primus character didn’t seem to fit in the way it was supposed to considering who the person was and what their warnings were saying.
I think this book would benefit from a rewritten summary or even better— spend more time on the last 20% because that’s where the action happened. This book had a lot of potential, and I did enjoy reading it, but as I sit down to write the review I’m realizing more and more the parts that ended up being unsatisfying. It didn’t go the direction I was expecting/wanting and there was too much anticipation of the action on the front end.
Plus we jump months and even years into the future in the last few chapters which was disappointing and definitely played into the need to suspend belief. I feel like the author focused and expanded on the wrong parts.
Towards the end there was some confusion for me about what was happening, but I read a digital advanced reader’s copy and I’m assuming not all the formatting was in place. I plan to check the physical copy if my library has one to see how it ended up being written. It was jumping back and forth between two characters/locations but it wasn’t clear and I had to reread several parts because I was confused why those characters were all of a sudden in the same place (they weren’t).
But again— hopefully this was fixed in the official published version!
Considering the author is Australian and lives in Australia, I thought the Kansas setting was an interesting choice. Kansas doesn’t have a whole lot to offer (although she did send me down a crazy rabbit hole regarding The Bloody Benders who may have had a connection to Laura Ingalls Wilder’s family). But I guess it is a good location if you want to incorporate some bizarre characters like the doomsday preppers with all their guns and bunkers and such.
Some reviewers mentioned that reading the book made you think all Americans run around with guns, but I didn’t think that at all. Maybe it’s because I’m from Iowa and guns are common but not everywhere? There are characters with guns, especially the preppers, but I don’t really think there were that many, if any, other characters with guns.
At one point a character comments that Americans respond to surprises by shooting, but that’s a well-known stereotype that I read more as humor than any actual attempt to label America, although even though not all Americans have guns, I would say that shooting at least with their words would probably be an accurate description of most. I also think readers are adept enough to understand that preppers don’t represent an entire country.
Even though we were in Kansas, Theo and Gus were Australians and we got to see Gentill’s roots show through: from Vegemite (which is to be spread sparingly over a thick layer of butter), to calling Americans emotional, the Tasmanian term for hippies being ‘ferals’ and how they called their parents ‘the ancients,’ to their eating of chicken parma (which I knew was a popular Australian dish because of Australian Survivor), it was kinda fun to see an Australian planted in Kansas.
Gentill had some good, interesting characters. I would probably agree with other reviewers that Theo was a bit boring, though, and I feel like she should have been more wary of one of the characters than she was, but considering what she ended up doing, I don’t know if it would have mattered anyway.
Recommendation
This one is hard to know how to recommend. I really did enjoy the book as I was reading it— I didn’t find it boring by any means, but overall it did feel unsatisfying for what I was expecting and what I feel the author could have done with the concept.
I think a lot of people will still like this book even with some of my qualms. Others may not think the reading was worth the convolution, or may not enjoy conspiracy theories.
I think I would still consider reading other Gentill books as many reviewers have said this book was different than her others.
[Content Advisory: 31 f-words, 2 s-words; one implied sex scene]
**Received an ARC via NetGalley**
I think I would have liked this book better if I hadn’t read the summary first. I did enjoy the book, but the summary was misleading to me:
“…the police begin looking at her brother, Gus, as their prime suspect, and Theo does the unthinkable in order to protect him. But the writer has left a trail, a thread out of the labyrinth in the form of a story. Gus finds that thread and follows it, and in his attempt to save his sister he inadvertently threatens the foundations of the labyrinth itself. To protect the carefully constructed narrative, Theo Benton, and everyone looking for her, will have to die.”
This is what I thought the bulk of the book would be describing. For one, this is probably only the last 20% of the book. Theo doesn’t disappear until 75% in. Two, the ‘threatening of the foundations of the labyrinth’ seems like a bad thing in this summary, but if Theo is stuck in there, isn’t that actually a good thing? Three, thread makes it seem like a continuous series of clues you keep pulling on until you unravel it, but in actuality, the thread was one not-so-hidden clue found by Mac, not Gus.
I thought the majority of the book was going to be figuring out what Theo’s ‘unthinkable’ thing was and that she had left a manuscript behind with clues in it as to where she is or what’s going on. That was an intriguing concept to me.
But it’s not quite so complex.
Theo, an aspiring writer, gets dragged into a mess of murders after she gets involved with another writer who she finds murdered in his home just 24 hours after she had given her manuscript to him.
As others around her also get murdered, she is a suspect… and by association her lawyer brother as well.
She has to figure out who murdered her friend and why. Who can she can trust now that she and her brother are in danger.
Another aspect of this book is the interspersed snippets of chat room discussion on a conspiracy theory known as the Frankenstein Project which they believe is an experiment being conducted on people, dead and alive, by an organization called the Labyrinth .
Having read it now, I think that I’m grasping what the author was attempting to do here, but at the same time, I’m still a little confused about what I’m supposed to see as a conspiracy theory’s tendency to exaggerate and dramatize the truth versus what I’m supposed to see as a shocking revelation of what’s really going on.
The author leaves you on a bit of a cliffhanger, but as far as I know this was meant to be a stand alone novel. So the last couple paragraphs made me just sit there for a minute trying to figure out what I missed. (One thing I completely forgot about was the prologue.)
The idea of incorporating a conspiracy theory into a thriller is super interesting to me, especially considering the power they have to change people’s behavior or cause mistrust.
In the book it says, “If you need people to distrust the education system, or the media, or fast food, [such and such] would develop a conspiracy theory that would do it.”
That statement seems to imply that all conspiracy theories are untrue, and we should inherently trust everyone. That’s what makes conspiracy theories interesting. What truths are they tapping into? Knowing people are sinful and have a capability for evil it takes a lot of discernment to know what to trust. While many conspiracy theories are beyond ridiculous (birds, for instance) I think we also have to understand the power move it is to label a belief as a conspiracy theory to convince people to ignore any of the truths that may be found in it.
However, in this book, the conspiracy theory just felt bizarre and confusing when it could have been fleshed out more. It was hard to tell how important the author wanted it to be in the story.
Also the Primus character didn’t seem to fit in the way it was supposed to considering who the person was and what their warnings were saying.
I think this book would benefit from a rewritten summary or even better— spend more time on the last 20% because that’s where the action happened. This book had a lot of potential, and I did enjoy reading it, but as I sit down to write the review I’m realizing more and more the parts that ended up being unsatisfying. It didn’t go the direction I was expecting/wanting and there was too much anticipation of the action on the front end.
Plus we jump months and even years into the future in the last few chapters which was disappointing and definitely played into the need to suspend belief. I feel like the author focused and expanded on the wrong parts.
Towards the end there was some confusion for me about what was happening, but I read a digital advanced reader’s copy and I’m assuming not all the formatting was in place. I plan to check the physical copy if my library has one to see how it ended up being written. It was jumping back and forth between two characters/locations but it wasn’t clear and I had to reread several parts because I was confused why those characters were all of a sudden in the same place (they weren’t).
But again— hopefully this was fixed in the official published version!
Considering the author is Australian and lives in Australia, I thought the Kansas setting was an interesting choice. Kansas doesn’t have a whole lot to offer (although she did send me down a crazy rabbit hole regarding The Bloody Benders who may have had a connection to Laura Ingalls Wilder’s family). But I guess it is a good location if you want to incorporate some bizarre characters like the doomsday preppers with all their guns and bunkers and such.
Some reviewers mentioned that reading the book made you think all Americans run around with guns, but I didn’t think that at all. Maybe it’s because I’m from Iowa and guns are common but not everywhere? There are characters with guns, especially the preppers, but I don’t really think there were that many, if any, other characters with guns.
At one point a character comments that Americans respond to surprises by shooting, but that’s a well-known stereotype that I read more as humor than any actual attempt to label America, although even though not all Americans have guns, I would say that shooting at least with their words would probably be an accurate description of most. I also think readers are adept enough to understand that preppers don’t represent an entire country.
Even though we were in Kansas, Theo and Gus were Australians and we got to see Gentill’s roots show through: from Vegemite (which is to be spread sparingly over a thick layer of butter), to calling Americans emotional, the Tasmanian term for hippies being ‘ferals’ and how they called their parents ‘the ancients,’ to their eating of chicken parma (which I knew was a popular Australian dish because of Australian Survivor), it was kinda fun to see an Australian planted in Kansas.
Gentill had some good, interesting characters. I would probably agree with other reviewers that Theo was a bit boring, though, and I feel like she should have been more wary of one of the characters than she was, but considering what she ended up doing, I don’t know if it would have mattered anyway.
Recommendation
This one is hard to know how to recommend. I really did enjoy the book as I was reading it— I didn’t find it boring by any means, but overall it did feel unsatisfying for what I was expecting and what I feel the author could have done with the concept.
I think a lot of people will still like this book even with some of my qualms. Others may not think the reading was worth the convolution, or may not enjoy conspiracy theories.
I think I would still consider reading other Gentill books as many reviewers have said this book was different than her others.
[Content Advisory: 31 f-words, 2 s-words; one implied sex scene]
**Received an ARC via NetGalley**
Content Warnings
Moderate: Cursing
A Death at the Party by Amy Stuart
mysterious
slow-paced
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
“Somehow, it came to this: a dead body on my bathroom floor.”
Because of the swearing, the unlikable characters, and the loose ends, this book didn’t do much for me.
I am also not a huge fan of books (or movies) that start with the end and then rewind to tell us how we got there. It removes some of the mystery!
This book begins by telling us that Nadine, the main character, is in her bathroom with a dying man, choosing not to call the police and allowing him to die.
“You did this.” she says.
So who is this guy?
Stuart throws a lot of options at us throughout the book of men Nadine might have a motive to kill. I didn’t necessarily ‘figure out’ who the man was for awhile, but the problem with that is that we still have the issue of all these other guys that did these other things or were suspicious for something. Unfortunately, some of these things didn’t really get resolution in a satisfying way.
I admit that part of that is because this book takes place in one day: the day of the party which ends with the death of the mysterious man. We get a few flashbacks for context, but otherwise everything happens within one day— morning, afternoon, and evening— and all loose ends can’t easily be tied up in that time frame.
The party is a sixtieth birthday garden party Nadine wanted to throw for her famous writer mother, Marilyn.
But these ladies don’t have a great track record with parties.
This party occurs on the anniversary of her mom’s 30th birthday party which had ended in her mother’s 15 year-old sister’s mysterious death (whose body Nadine— just ten at the time— found). Plus just last New Year’s Eve they had a party where Nadine fell down the stairs and shattered her hip.
Besides party tragedy, we’ve got another trauma that happened just six weeks ago when Nadine’s daughter found her friend, River, overdosed and is now in a coma.
There’s something not right with this family.
Stuart gives us hints that Nadine is hiding something. Keeping some secrets. And that she will do anything to protect the ones she loves.
“My job is to protect Marilyn, even if that means keeping secrets from her. No one, not even her, knows the truth better than me.”
“Even a marriage that seems steady to an outside can be full of ups and downs. I’ve often thought that it’s the downs that ultimately bring you closer. The losses you endure. The secrets you keep. I hope that for all our downs, Paul and I will hang on forever. Because despite my wrongdoings, the risks I’ve taken with our life together, I don’t know what I’d do without him. I need to believe he’d forgive me for almost anything.”
What makes Nadine unlikable is a bit hard to pin down. She’s a bit of a control freak. Suspicious. She had an affair that, even though it’s over now, no one knows about. And her inner dialogue isn’t super pleasant to listen to.
I think the author writes her specifically like this. After all, we have to believe that she’s killed a man so something had to have driven her to feel the feelings required for that and it’s the day of, so no development can happen to progress to that point slowly.
Also she uses ‘Jesus’ and ‘God’ as a curse allllll the time. Which turned me off as well.
In some ways this book reminded me of The Guest List which is also a book that takes place in one day (actually it’s two)— a wedding instead of a birthday party— but both have a death of someone and you aren’t told who it is til the end. But I didn’t really like that one other. I think it’s an interesting concept for a book but I’m not sure I’ve read one done really well.
Maybe The Dilemma? That’s a book over a one day period with a party, but without a death. Just some secrets between a husband and a wife about their daughter and a bit of a twist at the end. But even then, there was just a disconnect between the reader and the daughter which felt important.
I think I just like to read books with more depth, context, and development. I think I’d prefer more of a locked room/Sherlock type of mystery in a situation like this rather than a domestic thriller type of suspicion.
I’m just not going to be super invested in the characters and it leaves me with too many questions.
In terms of A Death at a Party, I don’t want to share my unanswered questions because that would give away who is NOT dead and I don’t want to ruin it for anyone who is going to read the book.
I guess here’s a couple things I think I can get away with saying: Do we even really know WHY Nadine threw this party? What’s the deal with Marilyn? The two doors didn’t feel as momentous as I thought they were going to be. And I am just not sure what life will look like for Nadine after this because it feels like her problems are far from solved.
Some people like some open-endedness to books but that’s not my cup of tea.
Recommendation
I think there are some people who are going to like the book— especially if they like rewinded… rewound…? books or stories that happen all in one day. But those who like more of a developing plot and likeable characters may want to pass on this one.
As other reviewers have commented, the cover is really pretty, but it didn’t quite live up to what I was hoping for when I picked it up.
It just felt a little too unsatisfying when I finished.
[Content Advisory: 54ish f-words, 18ish s-words; lots of ‘Jesus’ and ‘God.’; Nadine had an affair and there are some references to the trysts]
**Received a copy from Simon & Schuster in exchange for an honest review**
Because of the swearing, the unlikable characters, and the loose ends, this book didn’t do much for me.
I am also not a huge fan of books (or movies) that start with the end and then rewind to tell us how we got there. It removes some of the mystery!
This book begins by telling us that Nadine, the main character, is in her bathroom with a dying man, choosing not to call the police and allowing him to die.
“You did this.” she says.
So who is this guy?
Stuart throws a lot of options at us throughout the book of men Nadine might have a motive to kill. I didn’t necessarily ‘figure out’ who the man was for awhile, but the problem with that is that we still have the issue of all these other guys that did these other things or were suspicious for something. Unfortunately, some of these things didn’t really get resolution in a satisfying way.
I admit that part of that is because this book takes place in one day: the day of the party which ends with the death of the mysterious man. We get a few flashbacks for context, but otherwise everything happens within one day— morning, afternoon, and evening— and all loose ends can’t easily be tied up in that time frame.
The party is a sixtieth birthday garden party Nadine wanted to throw for her famous writer mother, Marilyn.
But these ladies don’t have a great track record with parties.
This party occurs on the anniversary of her mom’s 30th birthday party which had ended in her mother’s 15 year-old sister’s mysterious death (whose body Nadine— just ten at the time— found). Plus just last New Year’s Eve they had a party where Nadine fell down the stairs and shattered her hip.
Besides party tragedy, we’ve got another trauma that happened just six weeks ago when Nadine’s daughter found her friend, River, overdosed and is now in a coma.
There’s something not right with this family.
Stuart gives us hints that Nadine is hiding something. Keeping some secrets. And that she will do anything to protect the ones she loves.
“My job is to protect Marilyn, even if that means keeping secrets from her. No one, not even her, knows the truth better than me.”
“Even a marriage that seems steady to an outside can be full of ups and downs. I’ve often thought that it’s the downs that ultimately bring you closer. The losses you endure. The secrets you keep. I hope that for all our downs, Paul and I will hang on forever. Because despite my wrongdoings, the risks I’ve taken with our life together, I don’t know what I’d do without him. I need to believe he’d forgive me for almost anything.”
What makes Nadine unlikable is a bit hard to pin down. She’s a bit of a control freak. Suspicious. She had an affair that, even though it’s over now, no one knows about. And her inner dialogue isn’t super pleasant to listen to.
I think the author writes her specifically like this. After all, we have to believe that she’s killed a man so something had to have driven her to feel the feelings required for that and it’s the day of, so no development can happen to progress to that point slowly.
Also she uses ‘Jesus’ and ‘God’ as a curse allllll the time. Which turned me off as well.
In some ways this book reminded me of The Guest List which is also a book that takes place in one day (actually it’s two)— a wedding instead of a birthday party— but both have a death of someone and you aren’t told who it is til the end. But I didn’t really like that one other. I think it’s an interesting concept for a book but I’m not sure I’ve read one done really well.
Maybe The Dilemma? That’s a book over a one day period with a party, but without a death. Just some secrets between a husband and a wife about their daughter and a bit of a twist at the end. But even then, there was just a disconnect between the reader and the daughter which felt important.
I think I just like to read books with more depth, context, and development. I think I’d prefer more of a locked room/Sherlock type of mystery in a situation like this rather than a domestic thriller type of suspicion.
I’m just not going to be super invested in the characters and it leaves me with too many questions.
In terms of A Death at a Party, I don’t want to share my unanswered questions because that would give away who is NOT dead and I don’t want to ruin it for anyone who is going to read the book.
I guess here’s a couple things I think I can get away with saying: Do we even really know WHY Nadine threw this party? What’s the deal with Marilyn? The two doors didn’t feel as momentous as I thought they were going to be. And I am just not sure what life will look like for Nadine after this because it feels like her problems are far from solved.
Some people like some open-endedness to books but that’s not my cup of tea.
Recommendation
I think there are some people who are going to like the book— especially if they like rewinded… rewound…? books or stories that happen all in one day. But those who like more of a developing plot and likeable characters may want to pass on this one.
As other reviewers have commented, the cover is really pretty, but it didn’t quite live up to what I was hoping for when I picked it up.
It just felt a little too unsatisfying when I finished.
[Content Advisory: 54ish f-words, 18ish s-words; lots of ‘Jesus’ and ‘God.’; Nadine had an affair and there are some references to the trysts]
**Received a copy from Simon & Schuster in exchange for an honest review**
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cursing