Sordid, unrealistic, and unredeemed.
Whole lotta dead girls in this rural Kansas family.
Lane Roanoke returns to the farm where she grew up after her grandfather calls to say her cousin Allegra is missing. The two were raised by their grandparents because their mothers were either dead or “gone,” as are all their aunts, great-aunts, and a cousin. “Roanoke girls never last long around here,” explains Allegra when Lane arrives at age 15, shortly after her mother’s suicide. “In the end, we either run or we die.” You won’t be left wondering what the source of the problem is. As Lane says to her “fiercely handsome” grandfather soon after her return, “Well, you’d be the one to know…. You were screwing her.” Since Allegra had the habit of carving words into the furniture and woodwork, Lane is certain she will find a clue somewhere if she looks hard enough. And she does! RUN LANE is carved into the abandoned vanity in Allegra's bedroom! Instead of taking that advice, she spends the rest of the book hanging around the incest ranch with her horrific grandparents, meeting up with her old running buddies in town, and ripping off her pants here and there for an old flame. Lane eventually finds the key to Allegra’s fate in a ludicrous way, at which point a back story so nefarious it’s almost funny comes spilling out. In her acknowledgments, the author thanks her grandparents for showing her the joys of small-town life, but, unfortunately, the book traffics in the most vicious stereotypes and rumors about the people who live it. That includes the old boyfriend she hooks up with, an auto mechanic brutally abused by his auto mechanic father; the dumb but loyal local cop; and, most problematically, Lane herself. She's beautiful, trashy, and full of self-loathing, which she works hard to deserve but which fails to make her an interesting character.
Sordid, unrealistic, and unredeemed.Pub Date: March 7, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-101-90666-8
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 21, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2016
Though the novel eventually begins to sag under the weight of all its plot elements, fans of the psychological thriller will...
A pathological liar, a woman in a coma, a childhood diary, an imaginary friend, an evil sister—this is an unreliable-narrator novel with all the options.
"A lot of people would think I have a dream job, but nightmares are dreams too." Was it only a week ago Amber Reynolds thought her job as an assistant radio presenter was a nightmare? Now it's Dec. 26 (or Boxing Day, because we're in England), and she's lying in a hospital bed seemingly in a coma, fully conscious but unable to speak or move. We won't learn what caused her condition until the end of the book, and the journey to that revelation will be complicated by many factors. One: She doesn't remember her accident. Two: As she confesses immediately, "Sometimes I lie." Three: It's a story so complicated that even after the truth is exposed, it will take a while to get it straight in your head. As Amber lies in bed recalling the events of the week that led to her accident, several other narrative threads kick up in parallel. In the present, she's visited in her hospital room by her husband, a novelist whose affections she has come to doubt. Also her sister, with whom she shares a dark secret, and a nasty ex-boyfriend whom she ran into in the street the week before. He works as a night porter at the hospital, giving him unfortunate access to her paralyzed but not insensate body. Interwoven with these sections are portions of a diary, recounting unhappy events that happened 25 years earlier from a 9-year-old child's point of view. Feeney has loaded her maiden effort with possibilities for twists and reveals—possibly more than strictly necessary—and they hit like a hailstorm in the last third of the book. Blackmail, forgery, secret video cameras, rape, poisoning, arson, and failing to put on a seat belt all play a role.
Though the novel eventually begins to sag under the weight of all its plot elements, fans of the psychological thriller will enjoy this ambitious debut.Pub Date: March 13, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-250-14484-3
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2018
Fans of Gillian Flynn and Paula Hawkins will find this comfortingly familiar despite (or maybe because of?) the shocks and...
In Pinborough’s (Behind Her Eyes, 2018, etc.) twisty, decade-spanning, multivoiced thriller, everyone has secrets: teenager Ava; her mom, Lisa; and Lisa’s best friend, Marilyn.
On the surface, all three women fulfill the roles expected of them, and they support and love one another, but they don’t truly know each other. Ava, a competitive swimmer, is finishing up her exams and sneaking around with her first boyfriend while overly protective mom Lisa is about to clinch a big contract at work—and maybe even go on a date with a handsome millionaire client. Marilyn has been dealing with headaches at home, but she’s still game for a shopping trip to outfit Lisa for that big date. Soon, however, they will discover that someone else in their lives has a secret much darker than any they carry. This person is a murderer who is stalking a childhood friend who, they believe, betrayed their deepest trust. There are a lot of plot twists and reveals within the novel, some of which are surprising, some of which are expected. Pinborough weaves several different time periods and several different narrative voices to create layers of character and conflict, but the characters are types often found in psychological thrillers, and while their problems are often relatable, at least at first, they aren’t particularly engaging. It’s clear which decisions, and which silences, are going to get them into trouble, and yet, as people do, they carry on anyway. The one element that sets Pinborough’s novel apart from the slew of similar thrillers is the emphasis on female empowerment and the power of female relationships. These women need no one to save them, no knights in shining armor or handsome cops. As Marilyn succinctly puts it, “Fuck. That. Shit.”
Fans of Gillian Flynn and Paula Hawkins will find this comfortingly familiar despite (or maybe because of?) the shocks and turns along the way.Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-285679-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 17, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
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