A review by brittany_tellefsen
Where They Found Her by Kimberly McCreight
3.0
Rating: 3.5
I struggle with my rating for this book because though there wasn't anything inherently wrong with it, it is simply a story that I feel rather indifferent towards. It is not one I ever connected to or felt pulled towards even though I did find the story itself rather compelling and intriguing and it ended up being a far more intricately woven story then I originally anticipated.
The best word I can use to describe this book would be "puzzle."
Centered around the discovery of a dead infant that was found in a wooded area near a lake directly off of the town's university campus, the story is told through three different perspectives, each one somehow involved whether directly, or indirectly, with the crime.
Within each perspective, we are also getting glimpses of other story lines and characters within them and this allows us, as readers, to start weaving together this intricate web of relationships, connections, etc., that may just allow us to solve the mystery or lead us in the wrong direction.
As a character-driven reader, I often have difficulty with books that do not provide enough development with their characters. As you might expect, there were quite a lot of characters in this story and, for the most part, they all had some part to play no matter how small or insignificant, so we are tasked with remember each one and their role. That left little room to actually truly know or care about these characters at all since it was entirely plot-focused and the author was simply trying to drive the narrative forward.
Again, I did feel that this ended up being a lot more tangled and complex then I was anticipating, which I give the author praise for. She took what could have been a very straight-forward plot and created a wind, serpentine like path that ensured we were kept on our toes throughout the process. I just know that in a short amount of time, the overall details of this book will escape me and I will not remember much at all. I cannot even attach any type of emotion to it. So while it wasn't a bad book, I don't think it was all that memorable, either.
I struggle with my rating for this book because though there wasn't anything inherently wrong with it, it is simply a story that I feel rather indifferent towards. It is not one I ever connected to or felt pulled towards even though I did find the story itself rather compelling and intriguing and it ended up being a far more intricately woven story then I originally anticipated.
The best word I can use to describe this book would be "puzzle."
Centered around the discovery of a dead infant that was found in a wooded area near a lake directly off of the town's university campus, the story is told through three different perspectives, each one somehow involved whether directly, or indirectly, with the crime.
Within each perspective, we are also getting glimpses of other story lines and characters within them and this allows us, as readers, to start weaving together this intricate web of relationships, connections, etc., that may just allow us to solve the mystery or lead us in the wrong direction.
As a character-driven reader, I often have difficulty with books that do not provide enough development with their characters. As you might expect, there were quite a lot of characters in this story and, for the most part, they all had some part to play no matter how small or insignificant, so we are tasked with remember each one and their role. That left little room to actually truly know or care about these characters at all since it was entirely plot-focused and the author was simply trying to drive the narrative forward.
Again, I did feel that this ended up being a lot more tangled and complex then I was anticipating, which I give the author praise for. She took what could have been a very straight-forward plot and created a wind, serpentine like path that ensured we were kept on our toes throughout the process. I just know that in a short amount of time, the overall details of this book will escape me and I will not remember much at all. I cannot even attach any type of emotion to it. So while it wasn't a bad book, I don't think it was all that memorable, either.