Joy W

I know authoring a book is a tremendous feat so I feel badly for what I’m about to say about this author’s work. This story is silly. The characters are all very peak archetype and underdeveloped. The story is incredibly unrealistic, particularly with the characters. The main character is supposed to be viewed as this stoic intuitive all-knowing-and-feeling woman who cannot be shaken in the midst of a life-changing event. She discovers the truth about her family and breaks through the hard outer walls of those she knows and meets as they succumb to her pure loving intentions for everyone around her. However, she does this by making poor decisions, overlooking the obvious, talking like Jennifer Coolidge if she were a literary scholar, and magically convincing bad guys “you’re not bad, you were just in a bad situation” within the first 8 minutes of meeting them. Super convenient and unlikely events take place in nearly every chapter to move the plot forward. This story feels like the author wanted to write about a specific character in a specific city and didn’t care what she had to write between the first and last pages to make that happen. Additionally, this book is not really a mystery or a thriller. I’m not sure what genre this would most accurately fall under….maybe family drama with some thrills and a riddle. Part 1 was actually fairly good, but once we got past that I only kept going because I had invested the time and am susceptible to sunk-cost reasoning. Would not recommend, particularly for the well-read mystery/thriller crowd.