Tag: thriller read

Book Review, Fiction, thriller

One by One by Freida McFadden ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪.5
Genre: Thriller

*Rolls eyes very hard.* I have never so quickly whipped through a book that I was not enjoying. I will never understand how McFadden’s books draw me in so deeply and quickly or what about her writing keeps me glued to it. For some reason, that was still the case even as I was consciously aware that this book felt extremely cliched.

Claire is headed to a weekend getaway with her husband and two other couples. When their car breaks down in the woods, they decide they’ll walk the rest of the way to their accommodations, it should only be a couple of miles. Instead of an easy walk though, the group finds themselves hopelessly lost and slowly people begin to die or disappear.

I felt like I was right there with the group walking in circles in the woods because this book took so long to get anywhere. I didn’t feel like there were any hints about the context of why this was happening to them, it was just the group increasingly getting scared and walking around more and Claire thinking she can reconcile with her husband as he does borderline nice things for her.

Usually, McFadden’s books have a crazy twist that I love and that gets me fired up rethinking the entire book. This one just felt flat. There are excerpts throughout the book from ‘anonymous’ that I knew were going to tie in, but when their identity was ultimately revealed it didn’t really make sense to me.

This was somehow still a thriller I read in just a couple days and wanted to find out the ending to, but would recommend any of McFadden’s other books above this one.

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Book Review, Fiction, thriller

The Heiress By Rachel Hawkins ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪
Genre: Thriller
Read if you liked: Daisy Darker

When Ruby McTavish died, she left her entire fortune and her estate, Ashby House, to her adopted son Camden, who turned down his inheritance and chose to lay low with his wife, Jules. Upon his uncle’s death though, the couple is summoned to Ashby house where the whole family is waiting to discuss the fortune and next steps.

The narration is split into three perspectives, that of Camden, Jules, and the late Ruby. Each voice is so distinct and their points of view and motivations completely different. Weaving them together made for such a layered story. Camden questions his adoption and Ruby’s motivation while Jules feels cautiously optimistic that her luck could change given Camden’s family wealth. Ruby’s voice was probably my favorite. She was sarcastic and witty and her story was startling and surprising at every turn.

There were so many twists in this book but each one made sense and added an exciting element to the story. I loved never knowing who the characters truly were and what was driving their motivations. The story goes as far back as Ruby’s childhood, when she was briefly kidnapped as a girl, and builds from their creating a rich backstory to the present action.

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Book Review, Fiction, thriller

The New Couple in 5B By Lisa Unger ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪
Genre: Thriller
Read if you liked: Lock Every Door

Rosie and Chad’s lives are forever changed when they inherit a luxury apartment in the esteemed Windermere in New York City from Chad’s late uncle. Initially, Rosie couldn’t be more thrilled at their change of circumstances, but as she learns more and more about the building’s dark past, she begins to suspect there’s something deeply disturbing still happening there.

There have been a lot of thrillers in recent years that focus on a creepy old building that seems to take on a life of its own. In my opinion, those other thrillers approach the premise a lot better than this one. The supernatural elements seemed very plot device-y and thrown in to try to do all the heavy lifting of making the Windermere seem spooky.

I had trouble connecting with the main characters, which made it difficult for me to get invested in their story. That said, the mystery surrounding their neighbors and the constant surveillance in the building intrigued me.

The story is told with alternating timelines and I was holding my breath to see how they tied together. The plotline set in the past is what kept me invested in unraveling the connections between past and present occurrences.

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Book Review, Fiction, thriller

Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪.5
Genre: Thriller
Read if you liked: Final Girls

What a chilling read. Bright Young Women is a fictionalized retelling of Ted Bundy’s crimes told in alternating perspectives from two women, Pamela and Tina, who were close with his victims, as well as one of the victims herself, Ruth. It highlights the incompetence of law enforcement of catching and sentencing a serial killer and the vibrance and promise of the women whose lives he cut short.

Although this is largely a story following The Defendant’s crimes and sentencing, it delves deeply into Pamela, Tina, and Ruth’s lives, interests, desires and past trauma. Each one is richly detailed and it was so heartbreaking to see how their lives were altered forever by the actions of The Defendant.

Much of this book aims at highlighting the fact that The Defendant was not smart and attractive as media made out in the real case, he was actually quite dim and it was the lack of accountability in law enforcement that allowed him to continue murdering so many women.

I really appreciated that this was a true-crime style book that centered the victims and didn’t even name the perpetrator. It was a unique way to tell this story and one that I found powerful, although a bit slow for the first half.

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Book Review, Fiction, thriller

The Family Game by Catherine Steadman ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪.5
Genre: Thriller
Similar to: The Inheritance Games

Harriet and Edward are newly engaged when she’s first whisked into the whirlwind of his incredibly wealthy family, the Holbecks. At first, their excitement in welcoming her into the family feels genuine and expected despite Edward’s estrangement from them. As she slowly sees the impact the family’s prominence and power has on their lives, Harriet feels less and less comfortable.

I was so enthralled by the antics of this family and the narrative around the power of the 1%. The secrets swirling around the patriarch in particular were intriguing and the way that he simultaneously pulls Harriet closer to the family while also threatening her was captivating.

Harriet’s initiated into a series of insane family traditions that went a little off the rails for me, but I also kind of loved seeing how she grappled with her love for Edward and suddenly being part of the madness.

I found the conclusion of this book and what was happening deeply disappointing. I was totally into the story until then, and unfortunately it made it all somewhat flat for me.

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Book Review, Fiction, thriller

None of this is True by Lisa Jewell ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪
Genre: Thriller
Similar to: Emma in the Night

Podcast books seem to really be picking up in recent years. Alix is a podcast host, highlighting the lives of different women. When she runs into Josie at a restaurant on both of their forty-fifth birthdays, Josie latches onto Alix, convincing her that she deserves to be the subject of a podcast.

The book bounces back and forth between present day narrative of the two women interacting, snippets of their recorded podcast, and updates from a documentary about them. It’s clear based on the documentary that something dark is coming for the two women and it made it hard for me to put this book down.

Josie is one of the most spine-tinglingly off-putting characters I’ve read. Clearly unreliable, her actions made me cringe throughout the entirety of the book and I wanted to shake Alix sometimes. The real story here is incredibly dark and twisted, so be warned.

Despite the snappy format, I found that the narrative dragged toward the middle. We kept getting story after story that we couldn’t trust and I was ready for things to be figured out long before they were. I also did not think the ending did justice to the rest of the story.

Solid, but not standout.

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Book Review, Fiction, thriller

Never Lie by Freida McFadden ~ Book Review

Morgan

Thriller
My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪

I really love thrillers with big old houses that act as their own character and Never Lie was just such a book. Tricia and her husband attend an open house at a remote mansion only to get snowed in during a storm. The house belonged to the late Adrienne Hale, a psychiatrist who disappeared years prior. As the storm rages outside, Tricia begins to explore and discovers a series of cassette tapes that Dr. Hale used to record sessions with patients.

I knew from the get-go that everything was not as it seemed in this story. The ‘being locked in a creepy house during a storm’ thing was kind of cliche and I’ve read a lot of similar thrillers, so I knew the chances of me being blown away weren’t super high. The first half of the book was pretty slow. It was a lot of hearing creepy sounds and then nothing happening. What kept it interesting were the interspersed recordings of Dr. Hale’s sessions. I was intrigued to figure out how they would fit into the present.

I definitely did not see the big twist(s) coming and I was pleasantly shocked, but the ending was just okay and didn’t live up the the thrill that I think the twists could have provided.

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Book Review, thriller

The Villa by Rachel Hawkins ~ Book Review

Morgan

Mystery
My Rating: 🍪🍪.5

Emily and her ex-best friend (who is now a successful self-help guru) head to an Italian villa for a friendship rekindling. The villa they stay at was the scene of the murder of Pierce Sheldon in the ‘70s. As Emily explores, she starts to believe there was more to the story of the villa’s past than the public has been led to believe. The more she digs in though, the more her friend Chess begins acting like perhaps she was not so sincere in her intentions for inviting Emily on the trip.

This narrative bounces back and forth between Emily and Chess’s timeline and the ‘70s, following a group of four staying at the villa leading up to the murder. I found the characters in the past hard to keep track of and their stories were not very compelling to me. No one was detailed enough for me to feel empathetic to their experiences.

There’s a twist in the present day narrative near the end that seemed completely random. I didn’t feel like there was enough backstory to see if coming, so it just felt dropped in as a plot device.

Although I love the use of a building as almost a central character to the story, and I appreciated the mystery and hunting for clues, there wasn’t much else that worked for me in this one.

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Book Review, Fiction, mystery, thriller

A Flicker in the Dark by Stacy Willingham ~ Book Review

Morgan

Minotaur Books
Thriller
My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪

I’m not sure why this book didn’t quite click for me. It has all the makings of a great thriller, with Chloe grappling with the impending 20th anniversary of when her father was convicted of a series of murders and sent to jail. When teenage girls begin to go missing again, Chloe has to face the fact that there may be a copycat killer on the loose.

From the beginning, Chloe voices how difficult romantic relationships have been for her given her family history. The framing is meant to make the reader automatically question her fiancé Daniel, and I felt like this was being forced too much throughout the book. There were twists that intrigued and surprised me, but the red herrings were frustrating.

The writing style was a little flowery for me and it seemed at odds with the tense content of the story. I would have preferred if it was more cut and dry so the action could unfold faster.

Overall, this was a fine thriller, but nothing earth-shattering.

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Book Review, Fiction, thriller

The Lies I Tell by Julie Clark ~ Book Review

Morgan

Sourcebooks Landmark
Thriller
My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪.5

I love a good con artist and Meg Williams is a great one. Popping up in different towns under different names, she gets close to her targets and their friends and has them eating out of the palm of her hand before she takes what she wants of theirs and disappears. Kat, a reporter, has had her eyes on Meg for years. When she finally sees an opportunity to get close to her, Kat begins to realize that there’s more to Meg than meets the eye.

The backstory behind Meg and her actions was really interesting and made me appreciate her genius all the more. I enjoyed getting narration by both her and Kat so I could see how Meg’s image differentiated from her true motivations.

Although this is classified as a thriller, I hesitate a little to call it one. There are a lot of questions swirling around Meg and her actions which I guess could be considered thrilling, but not in the traditional sense of the genre. It felt like more of a character study of these two women. Personally, I found Meg much more compelling and well-developed than Kat, who seemed naïve and whiny most of the time.

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