Reviews with content warning for Death - Before She Knew Him

This was definitely not my favorite of this author's books, but it was a solid thriller with some twists I didn't see coming. The reveal regarding one particular character SHOULD have been obvious, but I managed to gloss right over it somehow until shortly before it was unveiled. Overall this was a great story and I enjoyed it, but it definitely isn't the best indicator of how talented Peter Swanson really is.

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smileysam's review against another edition

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medium-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

3.5

I’m pretty sure that a year or two ago, I listened to a podcast about this book. Despite that, the book was still enjoyable and I didn’t remember all of the twists and turns, which was a plus.

I had completely forgotten that Matthew and Richard were the same person, so it still came as a surprise when unveiled.

All in all, this book is a good, quick read.

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catriona176's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.5

I don’t like the central framing device as a rule

because I think dissociative identity disorder is really overused and often poorly researched in media

though I’ll allow it here because the character’s background is quite faithful to the real life nature of the disease. Not his strongest novel but still entirely readable

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gellyreads's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.5

So, I can see why some people may feel like this book was trying to do too much, but I had a lot of fun with it. I didn't exactly go where I wanted it to go, even though I really thought I was right on a plot twist or too. I really enjoy books where you can see

the killer's point of view

, and the fact that this one still had some twists and turns was great for me. I also really enjoyed Hen's point of view, although I'm not sure how accurate of a depiction of bipolar is with it; Swanson also continues to do a decent job of a man writing a woman's view.

I definitely didn't see the fact that he didn't have a brother and it was a split personality at all, and I felt incredibly stupid for not realizing that she almost slept with and then got almost raped by one of his victims.

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tspice24's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.5

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sambo_0103's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.75

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kiki9988's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious medium-paced

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

4.25

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marieeh's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

2.0

I have to say, I just didn't love this book. Women written by men are pretty hit or miss for me and this felt like a miss. From the beginning when Hen started following her neighbor who she suspected of murder at night, in a car, and then got out of the car to investigate further on a quiet road - very unbelievable, especially for someone who was written to be not in a manic phase, on correct medication. Like, I just can't picture any woman doing this, there is so much risk. A lot of the decisions she made did not feel like ones a woman who has grown up in this world would make.

As the book went on, I felt like the author really wanted us to feel sympathy for Matthew. Like, look at this poor guy, he's had a bad life, he's been abused, he's only killing men who treat women badly. That plot point reminded me a lot of You, actually.

All of the characters were pretty unlikable and undeveloped, other than Hen and Matthew. And really I don't think they were so developed as much as we just got a ton of backstory and information about them.

Overall I picked 2 stars because it was so easy to read and I didn't want to put it down until about the last 20 percent. At which point I stopped for almost a week before picking it up again because it was just not so engaging anymore. It felt like everything was going to come together a little too well and I just started feeling a little bored. But it wasn't flat out awful. I can see how people would like it, it just wasn't really for me and I don't know if I would try anymore by this author.

A few more spoiler-y points below...

I feel like we should be past using multiple personalities as a shocking plot device. I will admit, when Richard brought Melissa's keychain and left it for Matthew, I had a slight suspicion of "oh, he didn't hand him the keychain, he left it on the mantle... bc how can he hand something to himself if he is his "brother". But I kind of let it go because it had been mentioned how much Mira hated Richard, which made it really seem like he was a real person. This also makes you wonder, if Mira knew that Matthew had a full on second personality, why wasn't she insisting he get help for that?

The whole Lloyd cheating sideplot felt unnecessary. I think the author wanted us to think that the marriage was rocky and maybe both of them were a little too complacent and bored, but I think that could have been achieved in another way that still could have triggered Lloyd to go over to Matthew's house for the confrontation.

Also, the final chapter revealing that Hen had almost been raped by Dustin and that is why she felt so obsessed with the case seemed too extra. We had already seen that she can be manic and obsessive in the flashbacks to her college experience, so it almost makes sense that she could have been so obsessive with Dustin's murder simply because she was off her meds and the murder happened on her street. That doesn't seem too out of character based on how she behaved for the rest of the book.

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