The Rival

by Charlotte Duckworth

[Leah]

The Rival is one of those books that hooks you in with a killer premise, and then makes you wonder what you've just read when you turn the last page and I can't decide if that's a good thing or a bad thing. You see, the ending has me questioning a lot of what we read and I wasn't sure if that was the intent but you know when you finish a book, turn the last page, and then wonder what the hell you had bothered with the last 300 pages for? That's how I felt. I expected this epic ending, and it just fell flat. Don't get me wrong, I am not dismissing what happened, and I think there's a time and a book for that kind of ending, it just felt completely shoe-horned in. Which was disappointing, because the rest of this book was actually incredible.

Toxic female friendships is one of my favourite things to read about, especially when it's tied into a job. So when I read the premise, and read that Ashley was basically going to try and take away everything of Helena's and one-up her all the time, I was intrigued. For 90% of the novel that's how it comes across, it's just that last 10% where it all goes sideways. We get narratives from Helena and Ashley and while I found Ashley ruthless and willing to go over Helena's head to get a job done, I didn't think she was as bad as the synopsis, cover or tag line lead her to be. She's hardly stealing Helena's actual life, instead she's just kinda doing the job better? I don't know, it's hard to explain.

Ashley never felt vindictive; merely just passionate about herself, me, me, me. That's kind of where Ashley went wrong, because she wasn't a team player in the slightest and it was so incredibly obvious to everyone. I really liked Ashley, and I wasn't expecting to. I was expecting her to be this ruthless pantomime villain and she wasn't. I also kind of expected, with all the background about her life as a kid and her brother, that more was going to be made of that, but it kind of fizzled into the background, her brother just appeared for convenience rather for any actual reason.

I genuinely enjoyed this book, but looking back and typing my review, it was a flawed premise. If you're going to write toxic female friendship, make it a toxic female friendship. This kept me reading, and I can't fault the writing itself, just the whole thing just felt tame, if I'm being completely honest. Helena's pregnancy and the way it was made to sound like Ashley was stealing her job was pretty poor - because, let's be honest here, Helena just fell off a cliff, work-wise. Arriving late, skipping meetings, she became the cliched expectant mother who drops everything when she gets a bump and that wasn't the Helena we met and it makes me angry. If Helena truly was this career woman we're led to believe, there's not a chance in the world she lets a pregnancy get in the way, especially since Helena was suspicious of Ashley. You wouldn't do that, and that's what's bugging me in hindsight.

I did like this book, I swear. I just, honestly, expected more. The ending really let it down and let me tell you, if the ending had been as spectacular as I was hoping, I never would have found fault elsewhere, but after reading the ending and having a day to stew on my feelings because I couldn't be bothered to write my review at nearly midnight, I've realised the flaws. The writing was amazing, I was drawn in to Ashley and Helena so easily, so expertly, so the talent is there. The plot just wasn't executed as best as it could be. Which is a shame.