Goodreads Rating: 4.16
My Rating: 3.8
Pages: 406
Reviewed by: Nicole
I received this book from HarperCollins as part of a blog tour for this book. It has been a while since I read a phycological thriller and this was a great way to ease back into it. If you can really ease into those. It was a huge hit in England before coming to the states this July. Definitely not a book to read at home alone.
Goodreads Rating:
Catherine has been enjoying the single life for long enough to know a good catch when she sees one. Gorgeous, charismatic, spontaneous - Lee seems almost too perfect to be true. And her friends clearly agree, as each in turn falls under his spell. But there is a darker side to Lee. His erratic, controlling and sometimes frightening behaviour means that Catherine is increasingly isolated. Driven into the darkest corner of her world, and trusting no one, she plans a meticulous escape. Four years later, struggling to overcome her demons, Catherine dares to believe she might be safe from harm. Until one phone call changes everything. This is an edgy and powerful first novel, utterly convincing in its portrayal of obsession, and a tour de force of suspense.
Check out my review after the jump!
I expected a lot of things from this book, but that was only because I was holding it to previous thriller expectations. While this book does create a sense of physical suspense of who is hiding in the shadows, most of the time it is an emotional thrill. Haynes seems to have created her own type of thriller in this book which was great.
I loved that we flipped through the days almost like a diary but not written like one. We would star with one day in 2003 and the next day we would talk about would be in 2007, and I loved that because while it could be confusing you were able to see who she became because of what happened and it raised questions like "Well, we've met all of her friends, but four years later why does she say that she has no friends?" I felt that this was a whole new element of suspense.
I really really didn't like her friends for a few reasons. Unfortunately for you, those reasons will remain in the pages of my journal because it is a huge spoiler alert. I did feel that the most important moment was when Cathy realizes that getting out of an abusive relationship isn't as easy as everyone seems to think that it is. It is so easy to look from the outside and say "Well, just leave" but when you're in it, clearly it is a lot more complex. I loved Stu and how he tried to help her get through this whole thing. I could only imagine how hard it could be trying to help someone wrestle their very alive demons.
What kept this book from being a four was that it did lack the suspense for me. It was cool how it fipped back and forth, and that really did keep me reading, however, because you already have a big sense of what was going to happen, I felt that it was harder for me to be on edge.
I really loved reading this book once I had the chance to sit down and read it (sadly I got sick right after starting it and so I had a listless day where I whined about wanting to read but feeling to sick to). In the end it wound up being a great book that I know I'm going to recommend.
Afterthought: I noticed on my ARC that it said that the film rights have been optioned and I actually have an opinion on that. Generally I hohum about my books being made to movies, but in the end, I still like to see them. I don't think I would want to see this movie for a few reasons. One, it would eliminate the uniqueness of jumping between before and after because that would make for a horrible movie. Two, there would be no way to properly capture the fear and anxiety that Cathy feels through the whole book. There is only so far that music and good acting can take you.
