by B.A. Paris

A Mystery/Thriller, 2024 by St. Martin’s Press, 305 Pages

What I Didn’t Like:

The prologue is the sort of prologue I’m not fond of. The kind that attempts to hint at something coming but fails to actually suck you in. Whatever is happening feels lower stakes than a prologue like this needs.
Laure essentially broke into a home and tried on someone’s life and that someone was like “eh, we’re friends.” Nope, nope, nope. They give her a lot of passes. It felt unrealistic.
There are times when things happen between chapters and you get a summary of them in the next chapter. It’s a strange way to get the story. It’s as if the moments you MISS are heavier than the ones you get. It makes the whole book feel lopsided.

The book had a sense that you’re not getting the full story and can’t trust anything you’re hearing from the beginning. This is a good vibe to add tension because you’re on alert for clues or things you missed.
Unreliable, unlikeable main character. From the beginning, you’re not sure who you can trust. This gives the entire book that familiar unreliable narrator feeling, even when we’re in third person and there’s no official narrator.
The vibe change for the end is fun. It creates a reveal that answers a lot of questions.

Fans of unreliable narrator stories who like a big sort of rewind-the-story-and-explain-everything reveal may like this one more than I did.

The awkward pacing and skipping important things part of the book made reading it a bit frustrating and problematic. Plus, for me, the ending didn’t work. It answered questions but not in a good way.