Lying with Strangers
Author:
Genres: Literature & Fiction, Mystery, Thriller & Suspense
Book Type: Hardcover
Author:
Genres: Literature & Fiction, Mystery, Thriller & Suspense
Book Type: Hardcover
I enjoy medical thrillers and legal thrillers, so the idea of a psychological thriller featuring a woman doctor protagonist and her lawyer husband seemed like it would be the best of both worlds. In addition, I've enjoyed other Grippando novels, so I was sure this one would be great from start to finish.
Unfortunately, it wasn't so. Although it was overall not a bad read, with a couple of surprising trists, the book suffered most from characters that were so insufferable and obnoxious that I couldn't muster any enthusiasm for the central marriage to succeed or even for anyone to survive by the end.
[Minor spoiler alert ahead, for a plot detail revealed about 25% of the way in...]
Ironically, Kevin, the husband, turns out to be dabbling in writing a legal thriller himself, and Peyton, the main character, supports him by helping him improve the wooden dialogue of the female protagonist, telling him that a woman would never say things that his early draft had her saying. In acknowledgements at the end of the novel, Grippando says this detail came from real life, as his wife also assisted with early drafts of Lying With Strangers in the years before it was published, admonishing him when the female lead character said things a woman would never say. Unfortunately, she clearly didn't help enough. I found myself muttering, "This would only be written by a man" a number of times even before I encountered those signals that other early female readers found similar flaws.
Kevin and Peyton have a horrible marriage, and they treat each other terribly. Neither is honest, neither can communicate well, both let collossally huge problems grow, undiscussed, and their mutual passivity and unhappiness makes them difficult characters to like, let alone root for. And the character of the would-be killer, in whose voice many chapters are written, is similarly difficult to make any emotional investment in -- his evilness has a wooden quality to it, and his motivation and obsession feel only marginally plausible.
Still, lest you think I hate it, I actually read it twice. (Granted, I was desperate for something to read on a quiet night, and it was there...but if it were truly awful, I never would have re-read it.)
Unfortunately, it wasn't so. Although it was overall not a bad read, with a couple of surprising trists, the book suffered most from characters that were so insufferable and obnoxious that I couldn't muster any enthusiasm for the central marriage to succeed or even for anyone to survive by the end.
[Minor spoiler alert ahead, for a plot detail revealed about 25% of the way in...]
Ironically, Kevin, the husband, turns out to be dabbling in writing a legal thriller himself, and Peyton, the main character, supports him by helping him improve the wooden dialogue of the female protagonist, telling him that a woman would never say things that his early draft had her saying. In acknowledgements at the end of the novel, Grippando says this detail came from real life, as his wife also assisted with early drafts of Lying With Strangers in the years before it was published, admonishing him when the female lead character said things a woman would never say. Unfortunately, she clearly didn't help enough. I found myself muttering, "This would only be written by a man" a number of times even before I encountered those signals that other early female readers found similar flaws.
Kevin and Peyton have a horrible marriage, and they treat each other terribly. Neither is honest, neither can communicate well, both let collossally huge problems grow, undiscussed, and their mutual passivity and unhappiness makes them difficult characters to like, let alone root for. And the character of the would-be killer, in whose voice many chapters are written, is similarly difficult to make any emotional investment in -- his evilness has a wooden quality to it, and his motivation and obsession feel only marginally plausible.
Still, lest you think I hate it, I actually read it twice. (Granted, I was desperate for something to read on a quiet night, and it was there...but if it were truly awful, I never would have re-read it.)
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