Genre: Mystery/Thriller
Release Date: January 16th, 2024
Pages: 368 (10 Hr. 16 Min.)
Publisher: St. Martins Press / Minotaur (Macmillan Audio)
My Rating: ⭐⭐
Publisher’s Synopsis:
“Lucy Sharpe is larger than life. Magnetic, addictive. Bold and dangerous. Especially for Margot, who meets Lucy at the end of their freshman year at a liberal arts college in South Carolina. Margot is the shy one, the careful one, always the sidekick and never the center of attention. But when Lucy singles her out at the end of the year, a year Margot spent studying and playing it safe, and asks her to room together, something in Margot can’t say no—something daring, or starved, or maybe even envious.
And so Margot finds herself living in an off-campus house with three other girls, Lucy, the ringleader; Sloane, the sarcastic one; and Nicole, the nice one, the three of them opposites but also deeply intertwined. It’s a year that finds Margot finally coming out of the shell she’s been in since the end of high school, when her best friend Eliza died three weeks after graduation. Margot and Lucy have become the closest of friends, but by the middle of their sophomore year, one of the fraternity boys from the house next door has been brutally murdered… and Lucy Sharpe is missing without a trace.”
My Review:
Well… it wasn’t great. I’m severely disappointed.
The prologue had such dramatic tension and ominous feelings, and then it all fizzled out from there. Nothing happens in the first eighty percent of this book. The vast majority of my reading experience was uninteresting and uneventful.
Margot is quite a dull character. We only get her perspective and it becomes so boringly monotonous that I don’t understand why this narrative choice was made. It really limited the story.
The plot is very stagnant. It could have been a more character-driven story except that I didn’t really like any of the characters, including the protagonist. I wasn’t at all compelled to care about what happened to any of them.
I didn’t find the twits to be that exciting or believable. It’s not very thrilling or suspenseful and there isn’t really much of a mystery either.
There are some themes that could have been interesting, like girlhood, growing up, friendships, and college life. But they are counterbalanced by mundane events and tedious characters.
The writing style was sometimes trying to do too much, the metaphors get a bit distracting.
I finished this book five days ago, I’m coming back to write my review and, honestly, I’ve already forgotten everything about it. That’s just not a great look.
This was definitely a flop, considering that her previous two books were actually really good.
If you’re new to this author, I’d recommend starting with one of those instead because I’m convinced that this one is just a fluke.
If you are reading this and thinking about DNFing, don’t worry, you aren’t missing out on anything – it doesn’t get better. The ending isn’t at all satisfying. By the time we finally get to any reveals or twists, we were so bogged down and detached that we just didn’t care.
I still consider her one of my favorite thriller authors, and will continue to read her releases. Not sure what happened with this one but I’m really sad about it.
Disclaimers:
Huge thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for gifting me an early copy of this amazing story! I voluntarily read and reviewed this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
Have you read this book? Planning to add it to your TBR?
Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!
I love a good book discussion. 🙂
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