I really enjoyed this thriller. I quite literally sat down and finished it in one day because I was so hooked into it. There are quite a few different point of views going on all at once, but I actually didn’t find it overwhelming as they each added to the story and added to the confusion and uncertainty of who was guilty and who did what. Just when you think you might have an idea of what might have happened, a certain point of view will throw that on its head because something will be revealed about one character or another that makes them seem that much more guilty. It felt like there were some unreliable narrators which added to the mystery and made it difficult to trust any of them which added to the experience for me.
I personally could have done without the victims post-death point of view scenes as I don’t think they really added anything to the overall story. I feel like it was meant to generate sympathy perhaps for those young girl who has been murdered at the prime of her life and has to deal with that knowledge, but it really just took me out of the story and suspended belief in a pointless manner in my experience. I don’t think it added enough to the book to make it necessary.
The characters all together were very interesting. I felt for them as they dealt with the death of someone they loved, I wanted some to be innocent because I liked them, while others I disliked immensely because they were the scum of the other and I wanted them to receive their comeuppance. All to say these characters made me feel which to me always means good writing and well fleshed out characters. The mystery itself of who killed the victim was also super interesting, especially as details came to light that make the reader question everything and just gives overall background to the victim herself, as well as the many people in her life effected by her death, or otherwise bringing out their guilty consciences as far as the secrets they wanted to keep from the investigators as well as their community members.
There were a lot of things I enjoyed about this book all together. The diversity of point of views was actually a win, the fact that one person was telling there thoughts essentially through a journal entry periodically throughout the book, and the way everything wraps up in the end. I very much liked this book and definitely recommend it to thriller fans. I can’t wait for the next.
