Precious Thing

by Colette McBeth

[Leah]

When I heard about Colette McBeth’s debut novel I thought it sounded really great. I haven’t read many psychological thrillers, but I have read a few and have recently just finished Paula Daly’s wonderful second novel Keep Your Friends Close which was ridiculously twisty and very hard to put down, so when I received Precious Thing, I couldn’t quite wait to get stuck in! I wanted to see if it was just as impressive as Keep Your Friends Close, and I started Precious Thing with very high expectations. It was a bit of a strange novel for me – I enjoyed it, and the ending was out of this world insane, but the novel did lag in parts during the middle of the novel, I have to say.

Toxic friendships are my favourite topic to read about. However, I of all the toxic friendships I’ve read about, I don’t think any can top Rachel and Clara’s. It was NUTS, and I could only really appreciate how nuts once I had finished the novel and it had all come out. It is the second novel in a row that I’ve read where the ending of the book has got my all hyped up and excited, hardly able to believe what I’ve just read. I do sort of wish the rest of the novel had had that pace to it, because the rest of the novel was severly lacking in shocks and revelations, which is such a shame. I did keep reading the novel, it wasn’t a bad read, I just think the middle of the book saffed somewhat after a very promising beginning and a ridiculously unbelievable ending.

I enjoyed reading about Rachel’s bid to track down Clara, and I totally believed in their friendship, up to a point. I felt quite duped when it was all revealed, because it wasn’t the most toxic of friendships – it was just as if they were two best friends who would do anything for each other, isn’t that what best friends do? But as the novel wore on, it all became clear that perhaps Clara wasn’t the person we thought she was. It was very much like we’d been given the news version of Clara – a best friend who had just disappeared, with no bad stuff attached, and we were blinded to the truth. And we were, blinded to the truth about the pair of them! It was a very interesting tale to get us from beginning to end, though, and the person I felt most sorry for was Rachel’s colleague Jake, who soon becomes a bit more than a colleague, and more of a friend. I ended up feeling VERY worried about him.

Precious Thing was very clever, and in the end it became ridiculously twisty, the ending of a novel has barely surprised me as much, and I’ve read lots of twisty books recently. Colette McBeth is a wonderful writer, and I just wish it hadn’t lagged in the middle, as it seemed to just slow down a bit more than I would like, but the beginning and end were amazing. I will definitely be reading Colette’s second novel when it’s released later this year, because this novel was very fascinating, with characters I realise I never really knew AT ALL, which is a very bizarre feeling! It was like reading about strangers, I’ve never felt less connected to characters, but it worked. Thank you, Colette, for a very twisty, head-wrecking read with a very unexpected ending.