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A review by amy_alwaysreading
The Night We Lost Him by Laura Dave
4.0
Many thanks to my friends at @marysueruccibooks and @simon.audio for the #gifted copies of this book.
Slow burn suspense + evocative family drama. Dave has taken one of my favorite combinations and created a storyline I found easy to dive into. (You see what I did there? š)
Noraās dad somehow fell of the cliff where he lived. Gone in an instant. Noraās grief was immense, but then it was thrown into chaos when her estranged brother, Sam, confided that he didnāt believe their dadās death was an accident.
ā”ļø I think itās important to note: This is not a fast paced, edge of your seat thriller.
Instead, it is a sharply written story of a family in grief trying to unravel long held secrets and possibly uncover what happened the night they lost their father.
The characters were intricately layered and richly drawn in a way that I needed to know them fully, even the ones I didnāt particularly like.
The atmosphere was effortlessly set and made me feel as though I was holding my breath in fear that I was too close to the cliff myself.
But ultimately, it was the relationships that made this read a winner for me. There was a realistic complexity to the way the characters connected and interacted.
Estranged siblings... needing each other but holding each other at armās length. Could they work together? Could they reconnect? I found myself fully engaged with the dynamics between Nora and Sam, and that drove the plot for me.
Truth be told... I didnāt find the epic love story to be, well, epic. But the rest of the storyline more than overcame that one aspect for me.
Thereās something about the way Dave tells a story that always draws me in. And this one is worth a read!
š§ This one is impeccably narrated by the great Julia Wheelan. What more can I say? You already know that she becomes the very essence of the storyline, honing in on every emotion with depth and nuance, and exposes the core of each character with aplomb. And she does that in spades, yet again, in this audiobook.
Slow burn suspense + evocative family drama. Dave has taken one of my favorite combinations and created a storyline I found easy to dive into. (You see what I did there? š)
Noraās dad somehow fell of the cliff where he lived. Gone in an instant. Noraās grief was immense, but then it was thrown into chaos when her estranged brother, Sam, confided that he didnāt believe their dadās death was an accident.
ā”ļø I think itās important to note: This is not a fast paced, edge of your seat thriller.
Instead, it is a sharply written story of a family in grief trying to unravel long held secrets and possibly uncover what happened the night they lost their father.
The characters were intricately layered and richly drawn in a way that I needed to know them fully, even the ones I didnāt particularly like.
The atmosphere was effortlessly set and made me feel as though I was holding my breath in fear that I was too close to the cliff myself.
But ultimately, it was the relationships that made this read a winner for me. There was a realistic complexity to the way the characters connected and interacted.
Estranged siblings... needing each other but holding each other at armās length. Could they work together? Could they reconnect? I found myself fully engaged with the dynamics between Nora and Sam, and that drove the plot for me.
Truth be told... I didnāt find the epic love story to be, well, epic. But the rest of the storyline more than overcame that one aspect for me.
Thereās something about the way Dave tells a story that always draws me in. And this one is worth a read!
š§ This one is impeccably narrated by the great Julia Wheelan. What more can I say? You already know that she becomes the very essence of the storyline, honing in on every emotion with depth and nuance, and exposes the core of each character with aplomb. And she does that in spades, yet again, in this audiobook.