Reviews

This entire book felt very rushed to me, it takes place in a span of a week-ish. The ish is because the ending is a little hazy with the timeline. Maybe it was just that it was rush of the story but a lot of this was a miss for me.

Jules our main character is an orphan. Her parents died and her sister went missing when she was younger. After her parents died they left her with tons of medical bills and she is basically broke. She lives with her boyfriend whom she finds out is cheating on her the same day she loses her job. She immediately packs a bag and ends up on the couch of her best friend. She needs a job and needs a place to stay when she finds an add for an apartment sitter. $4k a month for 3 months. That’s $12k for 3 months. Sounds like a dream right? Except there’s a catch. There are rules. No guests. No leaving the apartment overnight. No taking photos of the place or of you while there and posting them online. Paid in cash at the end of each week. Sounds sketchy to me. But Jules takes the bait.

I expected our main character to be a bit more observant after all she's been stung by life several times. Her parents committed a double suicide because of medical bills, her missing sister was never found. To top everything off warning signs of this place being bad news is everywhere. Apartment sitters keep going missing. and the history of all the deaths at in the building over the years, the servant whose organs were removed. None of this deters Jules; desperate to not be a burden she takes the deal.

Now I think this could've been a great book if it hadn't been so rushed. You really didn't get to make connections with any of the characters. I also think that because it was rushed the betrayal of Nick and Charlie didn't hit so hard with me. I found the sex scene in the book to be obsolete since the relationship really didn't have much weight I just felt it was thrown in there to make Jules have that bitterness towards him but I really didn't get that if they had developed a closer relationship I guess I would've felt it a little more. Now I will say with Charlie I did feel a bit betrayed. This was probably the one twist in the book that I did not see coming and based on the character the revelation made me very sad.

I found the overall story predictable and I found it lacking with character development. The twists were not really surprising as you could guess your way through it if you were paying attention to all the red flags. One of the things I typically like with RS books is how I am guessing until the end. With this one I just didn't get that. I also didn't like how nothing with her sister was resolved, as much as her sister was mentioned in the book I was thinking that maybe her sister would've been on the victims list. That was a loose end for me and the fact that Greta Manville got away and just disappeared. It seems silly that she just got away in the end.

I will say I was going to only give this one star but there is one aspect that saved it for me. This could actually happen in real life. I'm sure it is something that has happened before too. People need organs and organ donations are hard to come by. Its completely plausible that some person somewhere has done something like this before.

alaynameyers'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? It's complicated

4.0

patriciapluggedin's review against another edition

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5.0

5 STARS!

SOLID AND STRONG FROM START TO FINISH.
Love how it went from all THOSE theories to THAT twist.

As always, the writing never disappoints and this is another fun, thrilling ride. An absolute page turner, I was hooked from page one. Though I'm a bit sad that I'm finally caught up on all things Riley as of this date, I'm glad that this was my last read from him before the next one in 2023.

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