A fast-paced thriller, but plot and characters lacked credibility.
The story alternates between Rose’s past history and her present circumstances and also includes sections devoted to Finn’s journal. As Rose’s backstory is gradually revealed, it becomes apparent that her feelings of guilt and grief pre-date her recent trauma, exposing the events from her own family history which are influencing her determination to pursue the mystery surrounding what has happened to Finn. In many ways the build-up of tension is fast-paced and relentless, although a considerable suspension of disbelief is required to accept several of the developments the plotting relies on – although it’s difficult to give examples without including spoilers!
My initial feelings of sympathy towards Rose, especially her struggles with chronic insomnia, guilt and grief, which were very well-portrayed, increasingly turned to frustration when some of the decisions she made were so clearly foolish and self-destructive. I do enjoy reading about flawed characters, but their behaviour has to be psychologically credible, otherwise I end up feeling very irritated by their melodramatic actions. In fact, I found that there wasn’t one character in the story who felt fully credible, resulting in me frequently feeling distracted from the rhythm of the storytelling and, consequently, frustrated by it.
Although I felt I had to read to the end in order to discover the resolution of the mystery, by about halfway through I had begun to tire of some of the stereotypical characters, as well as the barely believable scenarios which were leading to that resolution. This was a story which had appeared to hold such promise but didn’t quite manage to fulfil my expectations and, had it not been for the way in which the author so evocatively captured Rose’s emotional state, I would have been inclined to give this a 2* rating as a personal read. However, some of the themes which emerge would provide groups with some interesting discussion points.
My initial feelings of sympathy towards Rose, especially her struggles with chronic insomnia, guilt and grief, which were very well-portrayed, increasingly turned to frustration when some of the decisions she made were so clearly foolish and self-destructive. I do enjoy reading about flawed characters, but their behaviour has to be psychologically credible, otherwise I end up feeling very irritated by their melodramatic actions. In fact, I found that there wasn’t one character in the story who felt fully credible, resulting in me frequently feeling distracted from the rhythm of the storytelling and, consequently, frustrated by it.
Although I felt I had to read to the end in order to discover the resolution of the mystery, by about halfway through I had begun to tire of some of the stereotypical characters, as well as the barely believable scenarios which were leading to that resolution. This was a story which had appeared to hold such promise but didn’t quite manage to fulfil my expectations and, had it not been for the way in which the author so evocatively captured Rose’s emotional state, I would have been inclined to give this a 2* rating as a personal read. However, some of the themes which emerge would provide groups with some interesting discussion points.