blueyogi's review against another edition
dark
tense
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
3.0
demiew's review against another edition
dark
emotional
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
aubreyisawesome's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
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
3.5
jeanniechambers's review against another edition
5.0
I thought about a less-than-five-star, but any book that makes me think about it during the day, begging me to pick it up again and read more, is worth a five star.
This is a psychological suspense with a few sordid twists. It’s sort of like watching an accident happen in slow motion. You can’t do anything about the accident, except look away, but that’s just it. You can’t.
I almost stopped reading right off the bat, because of the operatic theme. (I’m not a big fan, and it was all foreign), BUT, I encourage you to read through it, because it follows throughout the story.
It’s a dark story, and a tragic tale of a narcissistic person with a troubled past.
This is a psychological suspense with a few sordid twists. It’s sort of like watching an accident happen in slow motion. You can’t do anything about the accident, except look away, but that’s just it. You can’t.
I almost stopped reading right off the bat, because of the operatic theme. (I’m not a big fan, and it was all foreign), BUT, I encourage you to read through it, because it follows throughout the story.
It’s a dark story, and a tragic tale of a narcissistic person with a troubled past.
steph_davidson's review against another edition
4.0
I don't know what I think about it yet. It was a quick read, though.
leilin's review against another edition
3.0
This book was good, but still fell a bit short. Not by far though!
I want to praise the author for her writing and her sense of pacing. I know other reviewers have complained, saying it was choppy and convoluted, but I strongly disagree with this. The book is actually told pretty linearly. There are indeed interruptions, side-stories and older memories called back as intermissions in the middle of the main narrative timeline. Those, however, are always short and to the point, said point being directly related to what was just then being said (or what was being shown behind what was being said) in the main story thread. This technique brings some dynamism and breaks the linearity, without leaving us with open, parallel and ongoing plot threads. I personally think the author used this style very well, managing to give the impression of the slightly patchy way memories are recalled, making that confession feel natural, without actually letting it get messy and hard to follow. The other criticism I have seen was that the book was too slow paced... there's really no way around this. It's a confession story, told by someone who is probably in prison at the time the writing, and trying to give their own version of the events, how they recall them, what they meant to them, why they happened. Of course it's not going to have the pacing of a Fast and Furious book equivalent! (I guess I actually don't read action books, since I just had to use a movie comparison by lack of anything else ^^)
So really, I don't think this book should be attacked on those particular points, though I do have one or two reservations about it.
The first one is that it was a bit unsubtle. I am not one of those geniuses claiming to be able to guess the ending and culprit in any crime novel, and still I could have told you what this guy was going to do from the back cover blurb alone. Then, in the first couple pages, there is this that clearly confirms where we are heading and what you might have guessed already... . I don't think it's a deal breaker though. The author keeps the narrator from telling us clearly what he did, to build tension and suspense, but in the story's world, we would already know (since it was a well covered affair in the news). As a result, failing to maintain that suspense might take a little of the shock value away, when the final reveal comes, but it doesn't break the book at all!
More problematic to me was the fact that the characters were not the most credible I have seen, and in a book such as this one, it quickly becomes a major problem. To be fair, this level of character building would have been something I would have praised in many other books, as it is, indeed, pretty well done... but pretty well done is still falling a bit short when it comes to a book whose whole plot is psychological and introspective.
The protagonists are far from being simplistic or one dimensional, but they are still a bit too cleanly/logically built. I am not an author, and one of the reasons I am pretty sure I will never be one is because it is so hard to breath life into a character, to give them that messy and far-fetched and sometimes barely logical quality that actually makes them human. That psychological elusiveness that makes perfect instinctive sense in that character, while somehow remaining hard to exactly grasp and plainly explain. Reverse engineering a complex psyche is one thing, and it already usually demands that I put the book down and take a minute to think about the characters, mull over their circumstances and their reactions... but creating it from scratch as an author is a quasi herculean feat, if you ask me. I admire authors able to do so. Here we come real close... but fall a tiny bit short in the end. Maybe that's the predictability, maybe the over-abundance of drama in Thomas' family. I don't know. All I know, is that I get the self-hatred at having been the passive witness to his father's deeds, the obsessive need to provide and protect his family now (to a fault), the oscillating between self-loathing and anger, between thinking of himself as a failure and as a martyr... it all makes perfect sense. And maybe too much so. Maybe it's too clear, too neat to feel organic. Maybe what's lacking is the contorted and meandering way human brains work, the convoluted mess of thoughts and immediate feelings that usually blurs the underlying logical trend.
As a short read and because I quite like the author's prose, I am still happy I got to read this! It wasn't perfect but it was still a pretty decent book and you wouldn't be wasting your time reading it, at all! (*)
(*) That being said, there are also other stories of men going down the path from seemingly normal citizens to violent criminals, bringing you along through the lens of their unreliable narration... turns out I haven't read that many of those stories but there is one in particular that comes to mind and that I would very strongly recommend: The Confession, by Domenic Stansberry. It was strikingly similar in thematic, but really nailed the psychological part. The way the narrator tells the story, letting us guess at his unreliability, but keeping us doubting everything until the very end, was one of the best example of this I have seen so far. The fact the main protagonist is a forensic psychologist makes the whole setting even more striking, while also allowing the author to subtly build layers of possibilities and increasing doubts as to what was actually happening... really masterful!
I want to praise the author for her writing and her sense of pacing. I know other reviewers have complained, saying it was choppy and convoluted, but I strongly disagree with this. The book is actually told pretty linearly. There are indeed interruptions, side-stories and older memories called back as intermissions in the middle of the main narrative timeline. Those, however, are always short and to the point, said point being directly related to what was just then being said (or what was being shown behind what was being said) in the main story thread. This technique brings some dynamism and breaks the linearity, without leaving us with open, parallel and ongoing plot threads. I personally think the author used this style very well, managing to give the impression of the slightly patchy way memories are recalled, making that confession feel natural, without actually letting it get messy and hard to follow. The other criticism I have seen was that the book was too slow paced... there's really no way around this. It's a confession story, told by someone who is probably in prison at the time the writing, and trying to give their own version of the events, how they recall them, what they meant to them, why they happened. Of course it's not going to have the pacing of a Fast and Furious book equivalent! (I guess I actually don't read action books, since I just had to use a movie comparison by lack of anything else ^^)
So really, I don't think this book should be attacked on those particular points, though I do have one or two reservations about it.
The first one is that it was a bit unsubtle. I am not one of those geniuses claiming to be able to guess the ending and culprit in any crime novel, and still I could have told you what this guy was going to do from the back cover blurb alone. Then, in the first couple pages, there is this
Spoiler
detailed account of the plot and significance of Wagner's opera TannhäuserSpoiler
The only remaining question from that point onward, really, was whether he was going to kill the dog too or not ^^More problematic to me was the fact that the characters were not the most credible I have seen, and in a book such as this one, it quickly becomes a major problem. To be fair, this level of character building would have been something I would have praised in many other books, as it is, indeed, pretty well done... but pretty well done is still falling a bit short when it comes to a book whose whole plot is psychological and introspective.
The protagonists are far from being simplistic or one dimensional, but they are still a bit too cleanly/logically built. I am not an author, and one of the reasons I am pretty sure I will never be one is because it is so hard to breath life into a character, to give them that messy and far-fetched and sometimes barely logical quality that actually makes them human. That psychological elusiveness that makes perfect instinctive sense in that character, while somehow remaining hard to exactly grasp and plainly explain. Reverse engineering a complex psyche is one thing, and it already usually demands that I put the book down and take a minute to think about the characters, mull over their circumstances and their reactions... but creating it from scratch as an author is a quasi herculean feat, if you ask me. I admire authors able to do so. Here we come real close... but fall a tiny bit short in the end. Maybe that's the predictability, maybe the over-abundance of drama in Thomas' family. I don't know. All I know, is that I get the self-hatred at having been the passive witness to his father's deeds, the obsessive need to provide and protect his family now (to a fault), the oscillating between self-loathing and anger, between thinking of himself as a failure and as a martyr... it all makes perfect sense. And maybe too much so. Maybe it's too clear, too neat to feel organic. Maybe what's lacking is the contorted and meandering way human brains work, the convoluted mess of thoughts and immediate feelings that usually blurs the underlying logical trend.
As a short read and because I quite like the author's prose, I am still happy I got to read this! It wasn't perfect but it was still a pretty decent book and you wouldn't be wasting your time reading it, at all! (*)
**ARC provided by publisher in a giveaway. Thank you!**
(*) That being said, there are also other stories of men going down the path from seemingly normal citizens to violent criminals, bringing you along through the lens of their unreliable narration... turns out I haven't read that many of those stories but there is one in particular that comes to mind and that I would very strongly recommend: The Confession, by Domenic Stansberry. It was strikingly similar in thematic, but really nailed the psychological part. The way the narrator tells the story, letting us guess at his unreliability, but keeping us doubting everything until the very end, was one of the best example of this I have seen so far. The fact the main protagonist is a forensic psychologist makes the whole setting even more striking, while also allowing the author to subtly build layers of possibilities and increasing doubts as to what was actually happening... really masterful!
kelsey24's review against another edition
3.0
I won this book as a Goodreads Giveaway. This was a really interesting book. I struggled a bit in the beginning trying to understand the author's writing style, but once you get the hang of it the story is a quick read. There are no quotations, so sometimes I found it a bit difficult to differentiate between dialogue between characters and the narrator's own inner thoughts, but that may be the goal of the author. Overall an interesting read.
eserafina42's review against another edition
3.0
Very dark and disturbing - probably not the best read for the current situation. Maybe a 3.5, but rounded down for two things: 1) An animal is killed (fair warning for those who hate such things, as I do); and 2) I'm sure there's some wonderfully sophisticated rationale behind it, but I really hate it when authors don't set off dialogue from the rest of the text in some way, either with quotes or even italics or something if the author thinks quotes are too pedestrian.
the_bitchy_booker's review against another edition
challenging
dark
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0