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kbergsten's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcoholism, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Toxic relationship, Car accident, and Death of parent
girlonbooks's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
🍬🍬🍬🍬 (four stars as rated in Aarav’s exceptionally addictive stash of sweets)
It’s been ten years since Nina Rai disappeared with a quarter of a million dollars. Generally assumed to have fled her former life willingly, Nina and her disappearance have all but faded from the rumor mill of the close-knit cul-de-sac where she once lived. But when Nina’s remains are discovered only a short distance from her home, everything changes. With only a handful of neighbors that could have been responsible for her death, Nina’s murder uproots secrets about more than just her and the Rai family. Her son, Aarav, is determined to discover who murdered his mother, but having recently suffered brain damage from a nearly fatal car accident, his account of his mother’s last night alive is far from reliable. Still, he is willing to face every one of his demons to get to the truth. Even the ones his family would prefer never saw the light of day…
Ten years was a long time… For everyone to forget that Nina Parvati Rai had been a living, breathing woman who’d loved music and cooking and had a mind like a computer.
In another life she could have been a professor.
In this life she’d been a rich man’s wife.
Now she was just bones.
This book spoke to me the minute I saw that deliciously sinister looking cover. I’m adding Quiet In Her Bones to my list of rainy day recommendations because this is exactly the type of book with which one really ought to cozy up on the couch with a cuppa. I loved that the neighborhood in which the Rai family lives is so thoroughly multi-cultural and diverse; and not in a way that feels forced or “for show.” Nalini Singh really raises the bar when it comes to writing about a variety of races, sexual orientations and life experiences without leaning on tropes or stereotypes. I’ll be adding some of her other work to my TBR right away. Also, considering that she (according to her website) especially loves writing romance, I am blown away at how well she pulled of the mystery of this story. I really did not put the pieces together until just at the end. And the unreliable narrator bits were fun for me to try and sort through.
✨ Rep in this book: Indian protagonist, diverse community of side characters
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Car accident, Death of parent, and Murder
Moderate: Body shaming, Sexual violence, and Violence
Minor: Fatphobia and Homophobia
cursedepub's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Quiet in Her Bones is an enjoyable and suspenseful read, but ultimately isn't very fulfilling. The prose is great - tense and action-packed, while providing a lot of emotional appeal and insight into main character Aarav's personal psyche, and the book is populated with the perfect cast of dramatic, trashy, filthy rich people that make for the most fun mysteries and thrillers. It starts off strong and the pace picks up very nicely, but towards the end I was beginning to grow impatient with the almost never-ending addition of new possibilities to explore and how nothing we had previously discovered seemed to be coming together. The final reveal of the culprit and of the circumstances of Nina Rai's disappearance and death was very unsatisfying for me, and the way it was all hinged on a completely different disappearance and death came off as cheap and sloppy. I think more should have been done to establish the connection earlier in the novel, rather than spending time on points and hints that would eventually fade away or not end up particularly important.
One thing that definitely detracted from my enjoyment of the novel is how egregious the sexually objectifying male gaze was in the narration. I think genuinely every woman above the age of 18 in the novel was described in terms of her sexuality and/or physical attributes, to a degree I found gross and uncomfortable.
One thing that definitely detracted from my enjoyment of the novel is how egregious the sexually objectifying male gaze was in the narration. I think genuinely every woman above the age of 18 in the novel was described in terms of her sexuality and/or physical attributes, to a degree I found gross and uncomfortable.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcoholism, Animal death, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Violence, Medical content, and Death of parent
Moderate: Drug use
amym84's review against another edition
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Ten years ago Nina Rai vanished. Taking nothing but some money and her car, she left everyone, including her beloved son Aarav, behind. It's something that has had a huge impact on Aarav growing up and now, as a best-selling author, the themes of loss and abandonment are prominent in his works.
Everyone, even Aarav, had put her disappearance down to an unhappy wife leaving her unhappy and toxic marriage behind.
Except now, Nina Rai has been found, and it's not on a calm and sunny beach somewhere, she actually didn't make it much farther than her own home before her car veered into the brush.
Aarav immediately knows that this wasn't some unfortunate accident. He knows his mother was murdered. Now, he'll stop at nothing to unearth the secrets from the past. But can he rely on his own memories about what happened all those years ago when he's held so much grief and anger towards his mother and father? But if he is right, there's still a murderer on the loose, and secrets that someone wants to leave buried.
Nalini Singh is a must-read author for me. Even when she moved from her fantasies and romances into this mystery/thriller genre I knew she wouldn't let me down.
This is her second foray into mystery following [book:A Madness of Sunshine|44525771], but I loved how different the two books are. Nalini Singh takes readers in a completely different direction, but obviously still retains the murder mystery aspect.
This time around readers are taken to the affluent gated community Aarav calls The Cul-de-Sac where everyone knows everybody else's business. At least, they think they do. Behind closed doors everyone has their secrets. Aarav is newly returned to the community returning to his childhood home after a vehicle accident left him with a broken leg.
The entire story is told from Aarav's point of view, and I feel like Nalini Singh was very calculating in how she framed everything. You at once feel bad for the child Aarav once was, losing his mother, but then some of his actions as an adult make him kind of easy to dislike. The same goes for the rest of the people in the neighborhood. But then you stop and think that ALL of this is from Aarav's perspective, and then you begin to question how much you can take at face value and how much is a distorted point of view.
Without another more reliable character to balance things out a bit, Quiet in Her Bones wasn't always an easy read. But as I said before, this is all so calculated. It's meant to cause the reader to get pulled in and question everything just as Aarav does. So even we feel this kind of isolation. Who do you trust? Who can you believe? Nalini Singh pulls this aspect off to perfection.
There was a very Hitchcockian feel to the story especially the idea of this idyllic close community, these neighbors that smile to your face on the outside and seemingly have it all, yet pretty much everyone harbors some kind of secret. It's something that kind of carries over from the her previous book. The secrets that hide beneath the surface of a community.
I don't want to say too much for fear of spoilers, but suffice it to say, Nalini Singh has never let me down no matter what she's writing. I'm really loving her new Mystery/Thriller direction.
Everyone, even Aarav, had put her disappearance down to an unhappy wife leaving her unhappy and toxic marriage behind.
Except now, Nina Rai has been found, and it's not on a calm and sunny beach somewhere, she actually didn't make it much farther than her own home before her car veered into the brush.
Aarav immediately knows that this wasn't some unfortunate accident. He knows his mother was murdered. Now, he'll stop at nothing to unearth the secrets from the past. But can he rely on his own memories about what happened all those years ago when he's held so much grief and anger towards his mother and father? But if he is right, there's still a murderer on the loose, and secrets that someone wants to leave buried.
Nalini Singh is a must-read author for me. Even when she moved from her fantasies and romances into this mystery/thriller genre I knew she wouldn't let me down.
This is her second foray into mystery following [book:A Madness of Sunshine|44525771], but I loved how different the two books are. Nalini Singh takes readers in a completely different direction, but obviously still retains the murder mystery aspect.
This time around readers are taken to the affluent gated community Aarav calls The Cul-de-Sac where everyone knows everybody else's business. At least, they think they do. Behind closed doors everyone has their secrets. Aarav is newly returned to the community returning to his childhood home after a vehicle accident left him with a broken leg.
The entire story is told from Aarav's point of view, and I feel like Nalini Singh was very calculating in how she framed everything. You at once feel bad for the child Aarav once was, losing his mother, but then some of his actions as an adult make him kind of easy to dislike. The same goes for the rest of the people in the neighborhood. But then you stop and think that ALL of this is from Aarav's perspective, and then you begin to question how much you can take at face value and how much is a distorted point of view.
Without another more reliable character to balance things out a bit, Quiet in Her Bones wasn't always an easy read. But as I said before, this is all so calculated. It's meant to cause the reader to get pulled in and question everything just as Aarav does. So even we feel this kind of isolation. Who do you trust? Who can you believe? Nalini Singh pulls this aspect off to perfection.
There was a very Hitchcockian feel to the story especially the idea of this idyllic close community, these neighbors that smile to your face on the outside and seemingly have it all, yet pretty much everyone harbors some kind of secret. It's something that kind of carries over from the her previous book. The secrets that hide beneath the surface of a community.
I don't want to say too much for fear of spoilers, but suffice it to say, Nalini Singh has never let me down no matter what she's writing. I'm really loving her new Mystery/Thriller direction.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcoholism, Domestic abuse, and Death of parent
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