I had seen a lot of early rave reviews for this book, so I was excited to see it come up next on my reading list. As with anything that is hyped, there was a high bar to be matched.
I would have to say that for me, the bar was largely met.
Right from the start, Alex was too perfect. I mean, nobody has those many particulars in common with someone on a first date. It usually takes time to find out that many commonalities.
I liked how the author gave us this “warning shot” at the very beginning, because it allowed me to be suspicious of Alex throughout. And there were plenty of other signs along the way.
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This was a good tactic plot-wise, because even when I thought that maybe Alex was right about certain things, he was already untrustworthy, so it became a circular game of who was right and who was overreacting. It kept me off-balance as much as Hannah was.
She was an interesting character. It was obvious that her past colored how she reacted to the events of the story. There’s a saying that people who help other people often have a hard time helping themselves.
Hannah is a social worker – and while she seems to have a good intuition when it comes to her job, she is clearly blind when it comes to her personal life. This is largely due to her past and what she has always dreamt of her life being, but I do believe there was a blind spot where she couldn’t see what Jas was telling her (and what was quite obvious).
I also found myself yelling at her (in my head) to wake up and get a clue because all of the red flags were flying high!
In a way that worked for the plot, because it made it more difficult to know if Alex was telling the truth at any given point, which in turn led to his character being even more questionable. Her constantly making excuses for him only cemented that feeling.
That being said, it does turn out that Alex was right about some things. The whole thing is honestly just a mind twist, and the author does a good job of keeping the reader guessing.
However, I did guess one of the biggest twists fairly early on and had a strong feeling about another one. This ended up being in direct conflict with reviewers who said they had no idea.
I think that’s partly the issue with seeing reviews of a book before reading it, at least for me. Even if there are no spoilers, they can still mess with the perception of the book. I was expecting to be totally in the dark the whole time – but I wasn’t.
The actuality rarely lives up to the hype. I felt the same way about the movie “Beauty and the Beast” (the original animated). Everybody raved about it, said it was amazing, one-of-a-kind, etc.
I’ll admit to waiting to see it until it had been out for a few months (that was the days where movies stayed in theaters longer than three weeks). And while I was enchanted by it, I was partly right. It was beautiful and extremely well-done, but not the “end all/be all” people made it out to be. But I digress…..
I feel the same way about this book. It did teach me a valuable lesson. I think that I will stop reading all other reviews prior to reading a book, as I have a feeling I would have liked it even more if I didn’t have an expectation going in.
Author Bio:
Sue Watson was a TV Producer at the BBC until she wrote her first book and was hooked.
Now a USA Today bestselling author, Sue has written sixteen novels, and many have been translated into several languages. Sue is now exploring the darker side of life with her latest thrillers OUR LITTLE LIES, THE WOMAN NEXT DOOR, THE EMPTY NEST, THE SISTER-IN-LAW and FIRST DATE out on October 16th.
Originally from Manchester, Sue now lives with her family in Worcestershire where much of her day is spent writing – okay, procrastinating, eating too much confectionery, and watching ‘My 600lb Life,’ on the sofa.
For more info visit Sue’s website; http://www.suewatsonbooks.com/
