Unforgivable by Natalie Barelli is one gonzo of a psych thriller. It starts out as one thing and morphs into another before ending with a touch of “what the heck did I just read.”
It’s all mostly good.
If you’ve read a psych thriller, you know that a common writing technique is to start with a prologue containing an event either A) in the past or B) during the action of the book.
Then it is up to the reader to find out either A) how the event shapes the current situation or B) where exactly the event takes place and why.
In the case of Unforgiveable, the author does something a bit unique. There is no prologue. The book starts with Chapter One, where the narrator talks about something and then says, “but we’re not there yet.”
It’s a clever way to do a non-prologue while allowing the narrator to control the story from the beginning. This is important because later in the book (no spoiler) the reliability of both the victim at the beginning and the narrator are called into question.
But we’re not there yet 😉
The book can be seen as a three-act story: the first lays the groundwork of a soon-to-be-family who has to deal with an obnoxious ex-wife. This actually takes up more than half of the book.
Again, it’s clever, because by the time the author starts throwing some twists around, the reader is invested in the crazy ex-wife thread.
I don’t want to give anything away. So, just quickly, the second act is where the main character (Laura) starts to question everything she thought to be true and the third is…well, where everything else happens.
Apple: http://ow.ly/h4ly50JyPGB
Kobo: http://ow.ly/otVT50JyPBw
Google: http://ow.ly/wHrN50JyTQJ
The author did a great job of making the villain especially toxic. There were times that I wanted to punch her. I thought the male in the middle was a wimp. He didn’t do anything for me. And the narrator was a bit weak as well.
In the “second act,” the author draws out a history between two characters that seemed to essentially come out of nowhere. It could have used a bit more backstory.
And that’s even before the reveals and twists start to appear – THAT is when it really goes gonzo. Additionally, once we get to the event mentioned in the first chapter, the book is essentially over, and it becomes a non-event.
Oh, and just an aside. I noticed this in the author’s previous book Unfaithful. The story takes place in Seattle. But there’s very little that actually identifies the city as such. Additionally, there are too many wrong words.
Americans don’t “ring” people, they “call” them. It’s not “potato mash” it’s mashed potatoes. One doesn’t eat “crisps” at a bar – they eat “chips.” It’s not that hard to do some searches to find the right word for something set in America.
But that’s a personal pet peeve.
The last chapter serves as a prologue, which also only quickly skims over the climax. I wanted that ALL to be much bigger – only because I really hated the villain that much. The character deserved much more to happen, and the reader needed that catharsis.
Unforgivable is still a good psych thriller. You’ll be questioning the reliability of Laura and the other characters. Natalie Barelli has done it again.
Website: http://nataliebarelli.com/
Author Bio
Natalie lives with her family in Australia, where she is forever thinking about new ways of killing people and getting away with it. Before writing full time, Natalie was an IT consultant. Favorite past time? Reading fabulous thrillers, otherwise known as research. And when she’s not absorbed in the latest gripping page-turner, Natalie loves to cook, knits very badly and spends far too much time at her computer.
