A disappointing climax

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I received a copy of Your Guilty Secret from Readers First in exchange for an honest review.

Lara King is the biggest star in the world - or so she likes to think. She has it all - an amazing house, the most dedicated fans, a hit TV show all about her, and a gorgeous daughter. This is, until her daughter goes missing and for once, everything is out of her control. And that's when things start to unravel...

I have such mixed feelings about this book. When first starting it, I was really not sure. It seemed like the pacing was quite slow, but there was just question upon question and no real pay off, no snippet of information to drive you forward - just more mysteries and questions to answer.

I've finally settled on a 3 star rating for Your Guilty Secrets. Lara is not the most likeable character - in fact, she doesn't really have any redeemable features at all. The story is built up to be so much more than it reveals itself to be, and a lot of the key points are disappointing and quite frankly a little unbelievable. Lara's character is quite flat and not very dimensional, but I think in the position she's in she could have been so intriguing and multi-faceted. 



This review will contain spoilers from here on out.

Some of my main issues:

There was no explanation of what she did to become famous. She was on a signing show in the UK, and then she was a TV host when she first got to America. But to go from that to her level of celebrity as it was? What was she known for except that TV about her and Ava? Surely there must have been a middle step we should have been told about.
'The announcement' was so overrated in my eyes. I was so iffy up until that point as to what Matthew actually was to her - a boyfriend/fiance/husband? So the fact they were getting engaged was lost in all the momentum they were trying to build up for it.
Similarly, what was going on in pool house annexe. A let down. Something worse than drugs, sex, and rock and roll, something to traumatise Ava.... and yes, a violent video of the man about to become her father would be very upsetting... but it was also an odd reason for him to be watching it? To 'punish' himself some more... do people do that? Is that a feasible explanation? I'm not convinced.
Ava's father wasn't that scandalous either, and yet it was made such a big deal of.
I just feel everything in this book was hyped up to be so dramatic and outrageous that when the reveal came, it was quite disappointing.
I also found that her level of fame was... absurd? Or maybe it was all distorted from her point of view and her perception of herself, and the view of an in-too-deep fan with a blog about her. And her portrayal of England... we're not a country of total unknowns you know? I know 2004 was a while ago now, but people come from all over the world for our X Factor and our talent shows.... someone would know her from her England days, especially if she was as big then as she says she is.


What I did love about this is that I didn't see the twist coming - the twist being that Lara's story to the police was a lie. We all knew she was lying about a lot, but I at least thought I knew what she was lying about. I bought the story of Ava getting out the car to go to the toilet and disappearing. So I loved the reveal of that truth. Unreliable narrators are one of my favourite things to read about... but when you don't suspect it. I'm thinking of The Girl On The Train by Paula Hawkins - you knew that main character was having blackouts, you knew she was drunk and out of it a lot. It would be feasible for her to not be telling you the whole story - not deliberately - just because she didn't remember or wasn't fully aware. But here, you thought that Lara was functioning perfectly fine. If you did enjoy this I would recommend Dangerous Girls by Abigail Haas. 

Overall, a satisfying end, but a bit of a disappointing climax.