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A review by vacantbones
Every Vow You Break by Peter Swanson
4.0
I don't spend much time reading other reviews, other than the obligatory quick scroll to make sure that a book isn't universally reviled or authored by a questionable human. However, I find myself incredibly intrigued by the reaction to this book - many found it to be a run-of-the-mill thriller, others lamented its predictability and suggested it for those new to the genre.
While the premise of Every Vow You Break is, admittedly, your standard thriller fare (a normal woman marries a very wealthy man and chaos ensues - apparently, this is also a favorite trope of Swanson's as well), I found the reveal and plot beyond this to be a breath of fresh air in this current landscape of copy and paste domestic dramas. To be fair, anything not set directly in the home gets a thumbs up from me at this point.
As far as being predictable, if you read enough then yes, you will be able to sniff out some suspicious behavior and perhaps deduce that someone here is not telling the whole truth, but there were several points where I found myself thinking "oh, I didn't think we were gonna take *that* kind of turn."
I feel like Every Vow You Break is a solid, interesting read. Sure, it's imperfect - the writing in the first, say, half of the book is weirdly choppy and has next to no flow. But I also recently read Swanson's The Kind Worth Killing and found it to be, while well-written and interesting, overrated in the grand scheme of thrillers. It was compared to Gone Girl (a descriptor that sets any book up to fail, if you ask me) and I thought that was a bit of a stretch.
Is this book for everyone? Certainly not. I myself agree with/find myself thinking deeply about what other reviews say about how misogyny is portrayed here - are the women given a fair write? Does the unlikable nature of characters detract from the book? How do we as readers reconcile misogyny as a plot device with our own sensibilities? I'm not sure what the answers are, but I do know that reading this one made me think hard about these things.
While the premise of Every Vow You Break is, admittedly, your standard thriller fare (a normal woman marries a very wealthy man and chaos ensues - apparently, this is also a favorite trope of Swanson's as well), I found the reveal and plot beyond this to be a breath of fresh air in this current landscape of copy and paste domestic dramas. To be fair, anything not set directly in the home gets a thumbs up from me at this point.
As far as being predictable, if you read enough then yes, you will be able to sniff out some suspicious behavior and perhaps deduce that someone here is not telling the whole truth, but there were several points where I found myself thinking "oh, I didn't think we were gonna take *that* kind of turn."
I feel like Every Vow You Break is a solid, interesting read. Sure, it's imperfect - the writing in the first, say, half of the book is weirdly choppy and has next to no flow. But I also recently read Swanson's The Kind Worth Killing and found it to be, while well-written and interesting, overrated in the grand scheme of thrillers. It was compared to Gone Girl (a descriptor that sets any book up to fail, if you ask me) and I thought that was a bit of a stretch.
Is this book for everyone? Certainly not. I myself agree with/find myself thinking deeply about what other reviews say about how misogyny is portrayed here - are the women given a fair write? Does the unlikable nature of characters detract from the book? How do we as readers reconcile misogyny as a plot device with our own sensibilities? I'm not sure what the answers are, but I do know that reading this one made me think hard about these things.