A review by jennieamber
The Girl Before by JP Delaney
3.0
This book wasn't the greatest but it wasn't the worst either. It had a lot of elements of Behind Closed Doors, Gone Girl, and a lot of similar other novels that have surfaced within the last few years.
Pros: The storyline was gripping, it kept me entertained and it was in fact a page turner. The author does know how to keep you guessing and wondering, and I was a bit surprised at the ending. I would say if you like this genre give it a whirl and see what you think.
Cons: The grammar and set up of the book was...strange. For one thing in Emma's chapters nothing had quotation marks to let you know when there was a verbal exchange going on. It took me a bit to figure out what was going on, to tell the difference between conversations and descriptions or thoughts. Maybe, thinking now, the author was making all of Emma's chapters in the form of thoughts, I don't know.
The second con for me was, and I've never seen this in other books, in describing the tone of a sentence, instead of saying "so and so replied" or exclaimed, or asked in surprise.... It was "and he was like" or "and i was like". Which made me cringe. lol Of course people say this in real life, out loud but reading it in the book was just strange on top of the fact that there was no quotations to differentiate.
Also there was some odd...sex? If that's what that was? It reminded me of Big Little Lies where one of the characters is getting abused but she gets angry too and causes marks as well. Very strange, IMO.
Also there's a cat and things happen to said cat, just saying for animal lovers, I don't think that's a spoiler.
And lastly, this is just quibbling on my part, but 3 or 4 times the author describes people "drinking a mouthful of coffee". That got under my skin. Why not say took a sip of coffee? Anyway, that's my two cents.
Pros: The storyline was gripping, it kept me entertained and it was in fact a page turner. The author does know how to keep you guessing and wondering, and I was a bit surprised at the ending. I would say if you like this genre give it a whirl and see what you think.
Cons: The grammar and set up of the book was...strange. For one thing in Emma's chapters nothing had quotation marks to let you know when there was a verbal exchange going on. It took me a bit to figure out what was going on, to tell the difference between conversations and descriptions or thoughts. Maybe, thinking now, the author was making all of Emma's chapters in the form of thoughts, I don't know.
The second con for me was, and I've never seen this in other books, in describing the tone of a sentence, instead of saying "so and so replied" or exclaimed, or asked in surprise.... It was "and he was like" or "and i was like". Which made me cringe. lol Of course people say this in real life, out loud but reading it in the book was just strange on top of the fact that there was no quotations to differentiate.
Also there was some odd...sex? If that's what that was? It reminded me of Big Little Lies where one of the characters is getting abused but she gets angry too and causes marks as well. Very strange, IMO.
Also there's a cat and things happen to said cat, just saying for animal lovers, I don't think that's a spoiler.
And lastly, this is just quibbling on my part, but 3 or 4 times the author describes people "drinking a mouthful of coffee". That got under my skin. Why not say took a sip of coffee? Anyway, that's my two cents.