Reviewed by shannonmiz on
I adored the author's debut, After the Woods, and was expecting to love this one just as much. But alas. The premise was promising, and I was very excited to jump in. But it was rocky from the start for me, as I was kind of bored at the beginning. Ben just didn't... speak to me, as a narrator. I had trouble connecting to him, his personality was a bit lackluster for my taste. But, I was curious enough about what happened to the sisters to keep reading.
The problem was, I kind of started to not even care what happened? As awful as that sounds, they just did not seem like nice people. And while I didn't wish them harm... I wasn't super invested in what became of them either. Part of it is that Ben (along with everyone else in the town, basically) has put the girls on pedestals, but I couldn't figure out any reason why, other than the elusiveness of them. And while that may have been good enough for the local boys, it wasn't really good enough for me.
He's also not doing great himself. He not only lost Mira, but had been sexually assaulted years earlier, which is frustratingly underexplored. There is also a bit in the story where antidepressants are shamed by Ben and his "friends", and that did not sit well with me. I know there is a general stigma surrounding medication for mental health issues, and introducing this dialogue can be helpful... only Ben never heard or saw anything but justification for ignoring his doctor's directions to take his medications. So there was no message that came out of it.... just "Zoloft Bad".
Things took a... weird turn, too. I want to say so much more, but I wouldn't want to give away too much. But the bottom line is, Ben is determined to figure out what happened, and he is doing so through these notes Mira left him- only they're more about her sister than her, which frustrates Ben. He makes a lot of really bad choices in hopes of finding the truth. In fact, everyone in this town seemed to be making bad choices and were messes in general. I can believe that everyone has some issues, but this was... extreme, to the point of disbelief.
I will say, I enjoyed that the book kind of veered in a few directions before ultimately landing on the final one. I was pretty interested by some of the middle bits, before I realized where it was headed. I pretty much knew how it was going to end about halfway through. So that didn't help. I was, at that point, just kind of reading to see if I was right, and hoping that Ben would take his damn meds. One out of two isn't bad?
Bottom Line: Though I enjoyed the author's writing, I had too much trouble with the characters and plot in general to really care for the book.
**Copy provided by publisher for review
Reading updates
- Started reading
- 10 January, 2017: Finished reading
- 10 January, 2017: Reviewed