Reviews with content warning for Alcohol - All the Dangerous Things

Isabel Drake is a mother slowly unraveling from the kidnapping of her son. We enter the story one year after his disappearance, the police have no leads and the only clue is an open window. Izzy is distraught, and suffering from severe insomnia, her husband has left her and she has no one to turn to for help. She's been throwing herself into researching all of her neighbors and telling her story at true crime conventions, where she meets Waylon. Waylon is a young podcaster invested in her story and his appearance changes Izzy's investigation and everything she knows.

I wasn't sure about this one at first, but the way it stuck with me. The bits we know about Izzy's life come out in drips and drabs over the course of the book. We get tiny flashbacks to her childhood and her meeting her husband. All of these flashbacks and the little morsels of information we get serve to paint her as an unreliable narrator, and then add to that her extreme lack of sleep and you have a portrait of a woman losing her mind and her grip on ... well everything.

The twists were foreshadowed nicely in a way that really made you think Izzy was even more unhinged than she is. I didn't expect most of them and I really didn't expect the outcome at all.

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bookssupremacy8920's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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tarynlannister's review against another edition

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emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I'm not ashamed to admit I didn't guess many of the twists in All the Dangerous Things, but the clues really were there for those more astute than me. (After a second read, can confirm this! It's extremely well done.) I love how Willingham leads the reader into certain assumptions without ever lying. The fast-paced, short chapters are dangerous, it's easy to scarf down in a sitting or two.

This reminded me of The Girl on the Train in construction and some themes, so if you enjoyed that I think you will enjoy this.

EDIT: (mild thematic spoilers)

after discussing with my book club, one thing that stands out to me is the very superficial look at true crime fandom. We only see true crime consumers briefly as ghoulish fans, eagerly feeding on Isabelle's and other victims' suffering. We could say Willingham is only criticizing that particular kind of fan, but it surprises me that it never went any deeper.

True crime content is mostly consumed by women, and many women are at least partially motivated by a sense that learning about the tragedies of other women can make them safer, that they might be able to avoid a mistake that cost others their lives. The book comes so close to that idea, talking about "the violence" that can suddenly come into anyone's life without warning. I just wish if Willingham had wanted to touch on the complexity of true crime media consumption, she could have gone even just a little deeper than seeming to paint all consumers as ghouls feeding on others' pain.

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