A Mother Would Know

by Amber Garza

[Jeff Sexton]

Slow Burn That Becomes Twistier And With More Crossings Than A Mountain Road Between A Railroad Track And A River. Let's get the elephant out of the room up front: Through around the 2/3 or so mark of this 300+ page book - so for roughly the first couple hundred pages - this book is *slow*. So slow that it does in fact struggle to keep the attention at times. But then, Great Gatsby was *so much worse* in that regard and is regarded as one of the greatest books in American literature. This particular book will never be in *that* conversation, but like Gatsby it does have the moment where suddenly, it begins getting *so much better* and actually becomes a truly solid book by the end. Indeed, that back third - that last hundred pages or so- really is going to remind you of driving down a 2 lane mountain road between train tracks and a stream - there are so very many twists and crossings that it can get rather dizzying trying to keep track of who is crossing who and for what reason now. And yet it is this aspect of the book that is executed *so* well and almost *had* to have the slow buildup it got. Some of the stuff here is utterly horrific, others of it more simply extremely creepy, and in the end you will be left breathless. Very much recommended.