The Paper Palace

by Miranda Cowley Heller

I’ve wanted to read this for months, and then I started it and had trouble getting into it. I almost DNF’d it about 130 pages in because I couldn’t connect with the characters. I didn’t like any of them or the things they did. I got to “book 2 Jonas” and thought I’d give it one more chapter. For me, this is when things became clearer to me. Horrific things happen in this book, but I loved how the author went back and forth, slowly peeling back the layers of these characters by letting us into their history, childhood, relationships bringing us to a place where I understood who they were and why they did what they did. So for me, it was a bit of a bumpy start, but in the end, I appreciated it for what it was, and I’m glad I read it. This book may make you angry, sad, tense, all the feels. I think in the end, this is why I went from almost dropping it to it having a special place. I will also say that I love how Cape Cod felt like another character in this book and is the setting for most of this story. If you are a sensitive reader, this book is not for you. A lot of trigger warnings