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calhudak's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Death, Violence, Grief, Murder, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Confinement, Cursing, Domestic abuse, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Blood, and Stalking
Minor: Child abuse and Infidelity
juanat77's review against another edition
- 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
Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Infidelity, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Kidnapping, Grief, Murder, Abandonment, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail
strawberrycasualreader's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Graphic: Alcoholism
Moderate: Confinement, Death, Physical abuse, Grief, Suicide attempt, and Murder
Minor: Child abuse, Suicide, Vomit, and Abandonment
puddleshoes's review against another edition
- 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
4.0
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Death, Misogyny, and Murder
Moderate: Confinement and Kidnapping
Minor: Child abuse and Suicide
eilseleslie's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Graphic: Alcoholism, Child abuse, Death, Drug use, Infidelity, Self harm, Suicide, Violence, Stalking, and Murder
shannananahey's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Death, Grief, Murder, and Alcohol
Moderate: Kidnapping and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Infidelity, Physical abuse, Blood, and Abandonment
toofondofbooks_'s review against another edition
- 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
2.5
Other than that, things get a little dicey...
I wrote down in my journal around page 100 that the star rating of this book was very much going to depend on the twist(s)...and friends, I just thought that all of these twists were weak at best and goofy at worst. There was one twist that made me actually LOL and I really don't think that was Sager's intent.
When I wasn't rolling my eyes out of confusion or snort laughing at how dumb that one twist was, I was just...bored. I dunno, Riley. We'll try again next time.
Graphic: Alcoholism, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Grief, Stalking, Murder, and Alcohol
Moderate: Child abuse, Suicide, and Abandonment
Minor: Racism, Sexual content, and Colonisation
sallysimply's review against another edition
3.0
Graphic: Alcoholism and Death
Moderate: Child abuse and Murder
daijahsbookworld's review against another edition
- 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
in this book we follow casey fletcher who is a semi-famous actress mostly known for smaller roles in tv shows and movies as well as playing the lead in a pretty popular thriller broadway show. there are multiple timelines throughout this book but in the main timeline begins with casey in her familys cabin on lake greene that was built in the 1800s. casey was sent there by her even more famous mother due to a scandal casey got wrapped into. casey tried to perform her broadway show drunk and was thus fired. casey's mother hopes sending her to the cabin will help solve her daughter's alcoholism but throughout the book alcohol is a huge part of the plot which makes casey an unreliable narrator. i wouldn't recommend this book if you'd find that annoying or triggering. casey's drinking started about 14 months prior to the main timeline after the death of her husband because he drowned in the same lake that casey is now forced to reside on by her mother.
while casey is at the lake she ends up saving one of her new neighbors katherine from drowning in lake greene and prevented her from facing a similar fate as her husband. katherine and her husband tom just moved into the house across the lake which is mostly made of glass windows. katherine and casey begin to strike up a friendship after this event over the following couple days after her accident. casey also finds a pair of binoculars her husband left behind and she uses them to spy on her new neighbors thorugh their giant windows. she starts seeing suspicious behavior over the following days between the couple and then suddenly katherine disappears without warning. she begins trying to figure out what exactly happened to katherine and if her husband, tom, had anything to do with it.
while some are definietly going to find casey annoying, i really thought she was just a flawed charatcer who was dealing with real human struggles. sometimes there types of characters can grate on my nerves but this one just didn't. i personally also really enjoy having unriable narrators in thrillers. compared to the main character in riley sager's last release, survive the night, who many people also thought was annoying mostly in part to her unreliableness, i would say casey is less annoying than her for sure. i enjoyed a lot of the side charatcers like boone and eli who are both neighbors of casey—one newer and one a family friend. boone and casey do have a slight romance throughout the story so if you don't like that in your thrillers, i wouldn't necessarily recommend this one but it's not a huge part of the plot. katherine and tome were very interesting to me in the way the really felt like fractions of people since both were celebrities—katherine an ex model and tom a billionaire tech guru who created a new social media app. we also only saw them through casey eyes and what she gathered by spying on them which really helped to create the illusion of not knowing whats's going on.
the writing was the same riley sager, descriptive but not overly distracting, and very digestiable. this book is slightly more lsower paced than osme of his novels but i feel like most of his books tend to be slow until th first 60-70% where the main character is just invesitgating without anything major occuring. then in the last third of the book he generally packs in a lot of action and plot twists and this book was no exception. riley sager's endings always have me shaking in my boots because i absoutly never see them coming but they always click into place perfectly. as stated this one went in a bit of a different route than most of his other books but the vibes were a combination of the last time i lied and home before dark with the unriable narraotr aspect of survive the night. those happened to be my top 3 from him before this book.
overall, while this book was slightly slower paced than some of his others and also went in a different direction, this still had the classic sager intrigue and twists that make his books so consuming and shocking. i don't think this is going to be one that everybody loves but i had an amazing time reading this and i genuinely never wanted to put it down and when i had to, i kept thinking about it all day.
thank you to penguin group dutton, riley sager, and netgalley for an arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Death, Suicide, Suicide attempt, and Alcohol
Moderate: Confinement, Domestic abuse, and Toxic relationship
Minor: Child abuse and Drug use
aghoststory's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
Graphic: Alcoholism, Death, and Murder
Minor: Child abuse, Emotional abuse, and Sexual assault