Helpful Score: 2
Let's see if I can write this review without mentioning "Gone Girl..........."
After 5 year old Jacob is killed in a hit and run accident, Jenna Gray moves to Wales in an attempt to hide from her grief and start a new life. Meanwhile, Detective Inspector Ray Stevens can't quite give up the investigation into who drove the car that killed Jacob, despite the long hours his supervisory position requires and troubles at home with his wife and son.
After reading excellent reviews of this book, I was thinking about giving up on it. For the first half nothing much of interests happens, especially nothing that would warrant calling this book a thriller. However, in Part Two everything does a one-eighty. The latter half the book is very difficult to put down. The plot twists are excellent, and the suspense and tension is almost unbearable.
After 5 year old Jacob is killed in a hit and run accident, Jenna Gray moves to Wales in an attempt to hide from her grief and start a new life. Meanwhile, Detective Inspector Ray Stevens can't quite give up the investigation into who drove the car that killed Jacob, despite the long hours his supervisory position requires and troubles at home with his wife and son.
After reading excellent reviews of this book, I was thinking about giving up on it. For the first half nothing much of interests happens, especially nothing that would warrant calling this book a thriller. However, in Part Two everything does a one-eighty. The latter half the book is very difficult to put down. The plot twists are excellent, and the suspense and tension is almost unbearable.
Helpful Score: 2
I LET YOU GO was the October 2016 pick in my online book club, The Reading Cove. And for me, it's sadly a HUGE miss.
Well worn, shallow and contrived commercial fiction reader manipulation gimmicks are in full effect here. (Comparable to the popularity of shallow, mindless reality TV) The first quarter of this story was pretty dull; and then a "twist" happens that actually made me go back and re-read the opening pages. Was it a clever twist? In the hands of a more skillful writer I think it could've been, but since I never connected with or cared about any of the narrators, and found the obligatory police POV a snooze, it fell flat and went nowhere pretty fast. I'm still yawning.
I won't dare spoil the "twists," but the entire plot is based on coincidence + convenient narration--where the narrator deliberately keeps the one thing that would be most dominant in her mind from her otherwise incontinent stream of consciousness...for chapters and chapters and chapters! Is that clever? Nope. Just demonstrates weak storytelling skills. And the bad guy? You can't miss him, he didn't even need a mustache to twirl.
This might've worked for me when I was a teenager, but now only credible plots seem to hold my attention. This plot had subzero, not-for-the-thinking-mind credibility. So if you're looking for above adolescent/teen reading comprehension, this would be a waste of time. 2/5 stars.
Well worn, shallow and contrived commercial fiction reader manipulation gimmicks are in full effect here. (Comparable to the popularity of shallow, mindless reality TV) The first quarter of this story was pretty dull; and then a "twist" happens that actually made me go back and re-read the opening pages. Was it a clever twist? In the hands of a more skillful writer I think it could've been, but since I never connected with or cared about any of the narrators, and found the obligatory police POV a snooze, it fell flat and went nowhere pretty fast. I'm still yawning.
I won't dare spoil the "twists," but the entire plot is based on coincidence + convenient narration--where the narrator deliberately keeps the one thing that would be most dominant in her mind from her otherwise incontinent stream of consciousness...for chapters and chapters and chapters! Is that clever? Nope. Just demonstrates weak storytelling skills. And the bad guy? You can't miss him, he didn't even need a mustache to twirl.
This might've worked for me when I was a teenager, but now only credible plots seem to hold my attention. This plot had subzero, not-for-the-thinking-mind credibility. So if you're looking for above adolescent/teen reading comprehension, this would be a waste of time. 2/5 stars.
