A review by doodlebeanz
She's Not Sorry by Mary Kubica

dark emotional mysterious reflective tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.25

I read 'Local Woman Missing' and I did not like it. There were too many plot lines to follow, too many characters, and not enough pay off. I nearly put off Kubica forever based on that book, but I'm glad I didn't. This book had some of the same issues - too many plot lines and not a lot of payoff, but it was so much better! Luckily, there were only a few characters to keep up with which made it so much easier to follow, unlike Local Woman Missing.

The first twist I did not see coming.
I always found Nat to be a bit suspicious, popping up randomly and having such a sad sob story and appearing along Meghan's commute, but I did not expect that SHE was Caitlyn, and I did not expect that Megan was the one to push her!
I literally gasped at that part of the story, finding it to be such an interesting twist and as I've seen online, most people didn't see it coming either which makes me feel a little less dense (: The only thing I did not like about this, for me anyways, it caused the timelines in the beginning of the book to become a bit muddled and confusing. I wasn't sure what turn of events happened when, but luckily, that isn't too important. It's just something that I noticed.

The second and third twists I saw coming, but they were still good... kind of.
No one who a writer describes as 'a good guy' can ever be trusted.  I was onto Luke from the first moment they introduced him. Why was he jogging and whistling as he followed Megan in the dark? Like what the fuck? From then on, I was like, oh he's the rapist! Also, I feel Ben is sketchy and untrustworthy and I feel he already knows that Sienna isn't his daughter based on how short and irritable he is when it comes to her. The first time I thought it was when she is taking too long to get ready and second when Sienna texts Megan and he tells her to ignore it... father of the year award.


I saw this from phdiva.blog's review of this book, and they explain my gripes with this book/Kubica's writing perfectly: "Kubica is known for launching a bunch of plot threads at the beginning, but fails to tie them together in a way that makes sense and has impact for the reader. I didn't guess that
Caitlyn was Ben's girlfriend, and that was a good twist,
but then the plot got away from Kubica. Threads began fraying into different directions instead of coming back together." There were so many things that didn't make sense and storylines that weren't tied up at all, they were just shoved into a closet and Kubica closed the door, hoping we as readers would forget about them and just accept the unsatisfactory 'ending' to them. For example, Caitlyn's family being the entire focus of the first 75% of the book, the characters seeming sketchy and suspicious, but then just disappearing from the story once the first twist hits. Or Caitlyn's weird friend who showed up with no explanation. Or
how Sienna was the one leaving her mother cryptic threatening notes after believing her father's girlfriend... how does that make sense?


There were a lot of storylines that didn't need to happen, and because of these, the book was so long-winded and pretty boring for a decent amount of it. The main bulk of the story was just following Meghan on her day to day commute to work and living her life... which was not very exciting as a plot. It took such a long time to get through the sloggy parts of this book but when you get to part 2, the book definitely picks up pace and gets way more interesting. Kubica just needs to be better about highlighting important elements/plot points and not adding so many in because its impossible for her to tie them all together nicely or to have them come together as one big twist which would've been incredible for this book.
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