Blogtober Day 1: Spooky TBR

Happy Blogtober Everyone!

October is (unsurprisingly) when I read the most scary stories. Even in years when I choose not to read horror novels specifically, it’s still the month when I read more stories about ghosts and witches and goblins. It’s unsurprising, then, that my TBR for this month consists mostly of horror stories and other Halloween-y type books. I also tend to read a lot more anthologies in October for some reason, so there are a few books on this list that are collections of short stories.



A Secret History of Witches by Louisa Morgan. The description on Amazon is as follows:

“Brittany, 1821. After Grand-mère Ursule gives her life to save her family, their magic seems to die with her.

Even so, the Orchires fight to keep the old ways alive, practicing half-remembered spells and arcane rites in hopes of a revival. And when their youngest daughter comes of age, magic flows anew.

The lineage continues, though new generations struggle not only to master their power, but also to keep it hidden.

But when World War II looms on the horizon, magic is needed more urgently than ever – not for simple potions or visions, but to change the entire course of history.”

The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror 2018 Edition edited by Paula Guran

This is an anthology of, as the name says, dark fantasy and horror. The 2019 edition won’t be released until November, so I’ve been saving the 2018 one for this year. I like short scary stories, partly because of my love for Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark from when I was a kid and partly because I sometimes find fully length horror novels a little boring.

Nightmare Escapade: A Horror Anthology by Waylon Piercy

At some point, everyone fears the dark, and the things that lurk within it! 
In these eight stories, people are forced to confront their personal horrors, and no one emerges unscathed. 
The little boy who is convinced that something sinister stalks him…
The weary soldier who runs afoul of a terrifying stranger…
The man whose vacation is disturbed in a most unwelcome fashion…. 
The former cop who finds himself caught up in the search for a missing child…
The young woman who finds herself trapped in a dark cellar following a tornado…
These people, and others, each embark on their own dark journeys within these pages. Join them, won’t you? 



The Scarred God by Neil Beynon

Anya longs to follow in the fabled footsteps of her warrior grandmother. But when the forces of the corrupt Scarred God raid her village, she fears she doesn’t have the stomach to wield the cold steel. Captured, her only path of escape is to commit an unthinkable act of bloodshed…

Guilt-ridden over her first kill, Anya vows to rescue those still held for sacrificial slaughter. But before she can set the captives free, she must survive a bewitched forest by tying her fate to its shadowy guardian. To defeat the Scarred God, the unlikely pair seek a rival deity whose twisted motives could lead to the realm’s liberation… or its doom.

Can Anya unleash her inner hero before the vengeful gods destroy the world she loves?


I’m not sure if the last one really fits with the theme of the others, but the premise does intrigue me and I’m hoping to read it sometime this month.

Those are my TBRs for October. What are yours?

The Mechanoid Cries Within

The Mechanoid Cries Within is a 2019 science fiction novelette by Brock T.I. Penner. The cover art was done by Pete Linforth. It was independently published by the author on September 4, 2019. The Mechanoid Cries Within is available for free by signing up for the author’s newsletter. The plot synopsis is as follows:

“RJ-A4A, a sentient and once free mechanoid finds himself kidnapped and sold into slavery to a wrathful owner, Davis. Surrounded by a wasteland of razorsand and rednecks who would torture him with glad, he spends his days toiling on Davis’s farm. RJ develops a bond with Davis’s lonely son, Lucien and his human-appearing mechanoid caretaker, AN. Out of desperation, he concocts a plan to escape the farm, the planet and slavery itself. All it would take is to manipulate AN and the boy into doing what he wants.”

I found the premise of the story very interesting when it was first brought to my attention. Robots, androids and cyborgs in science fiction are nothing new, but very rarely do we see sci-fi stories being told from the robot’s perspective. Usually, the perspective comes from either humans, or an alien race substituting for humans, and robots are either side characters, happy to serve humanity, or villains trying to end humanity. Very few stories show the robot’s perspective or depict a nuanced view of humanity from said robot. RJ doesn’t hate humanity, he doesn’t want to wipe humanity out or enslave them, he just wants to be free. He wants his freedom and for his intelligence to be acknowledged as more than just lines of computer code.

The Mechanoid Cries Within is a story with a lot of potential. The premise is interesting, the three core characters, RJ, AN and Lucien, are compelling. I also enjoyed the smaller-scale story being told. The setting is contained solely to Davis’s farm, the stakes are, by all accounts, very low but the conflict makes it feel bigger. While there’s a lot of potential, the execution is fairly average. I found it difficult to follow in some places, needing to go back and reread to understand what was going on. I think this issue comes from there not being a clear separation between past and present. The story is mostly framed as RJ being forced to retell the story of something that happened, which makes the transition back and forth a little jarring. I feel like there are elements that would work better if the story was a little bit longer and more fleshed out. The word count is roughly 9,500 words, which is a very low word count for a completed story.

The Mechanoid Cries Within is a story I’d recommend it to a science fiction fan, looking for something quick to read.

Rating: 3.4 stars

The Woman In Cabin 10

Source: Amazon

The Woman In Cabin 10 is a 2016 thriller written by Ruth Ware. It was published by Scout Press, a division Simon & Schuster. The novel was a New York Times Bestseller and was named one of the best mystery books of 2016 by The Washington Post.

The premise of the novel is as follows. Lo Blacklock, a journalist for a travel magazine, is given a long-awaited, potentially life-changing assignment. A week on a small luxury cruise vessel through Norway. At first, the trip seems like a dream come true, but as the week continues, Lo witnesses something terrifying: a woman being thrown overboard. The only problem is that all the passengers remain accounted for, and the ship continues on its journey as if nothing happened. Lo then tries desperately to convince someone, anyone, that something is amiss.

The story starts off slow at first. The book opens with Lo being the victim of a burglary, and around thirty pages are dedicated to her having that experience, getting her locks changed, replacing a few of the stolen items and feeling traumatized about a man breaking into her house. Since the robbery winds up being significant later, I understand having that be the opening of the story. However, I personally felt like the sections about her buying a new phone and getting her locks fixed weren’t needed. Those details had no real significance to the plot and felt like unneeded filler.

Eventually, though, Lo goes off on her cruise where the main plot begins. A successful businessman married to a wealthy philanthropist has decided to start his own, exclusive luxury cruiseline to see the Northern Lights. She, along with other journalists and a few investors, are invited on the maiden voyage in a bid to earn good publicity and raise interest in the experience. She has a brief, random encounter with the woman in the cabin next to hers, number 10. She doesn’t see the woman at dinner later, and when she hears a body being thrown overboard, assumes the worst. Soon after, she’s informed that the cabin next to her was empty and no one, guest or staff, is unaccounted for. The bulk of the novel consists of Lo trying to figure out what happened and prove that the cabin was occupied and the woman did go missing to anyone who’d listen.

The mystery did intrigue me at the beginning. Was the woman a stowaway? Did Lo see what she thought she saw? Was this part of some conspiracy? How could a body have been thrown overboard and no one be missing? Those questions all occurred to me as I read. I became even more curious as, bit by bit, all the evidence she has either goes missing or is destroyed. It begins to look like this whole thing is a big cover-up.

My curiosity was diminished once lo really starts investigating. Her “investigation” consists of talking to the staff, asking them the same basic questions and receiving the same answers. For some reason, she doesn’t think to talk to more than one or two other guests, and when she does talk to them, she tries to be sneaky about it and ends up not asking anything relevant or likely to get results. The whole investigation part is pretty boring and repetitive. I still wanted to know what happened, but the story dragged on during this part.

All of my suspense went away once she finds herself captive and at the mercy of someone responsible for the mystery. I stopped being anxious, and started getting confused. There was a death, but it wasn’t who she thought. There isn’t one person acting alone on the ship. The death being covered up really doesn’t need to be. The “bad guy’s” plan doesn’t really make sense once its all explained. Once she works out what happened, the rest of the novel consists of Lo trying to figure out a way to get away from her captor and somehow reveal what really happened. Of course, those attempts are somewhat thwarted by finding herself in an unfamiliar place and not knowing who can and can’t be trusted.

I can’t really go any further in this review without discussing Lo herself. Lo, or Laura, isn’t a likeable character. Even before she stumbles upon this mystery, she’s rude to people she’s never met before, even ruder to her own boyfriend and a little conceited. On top of that, she’s somewhat of an unreliable narrator. She suffers from anxiety, due to the burglary, and takes medication for another condition, Unfortunately, her mental state makes her unreliable, and its even remarked on in the story that her medication, combined with alcohol, could have side-effects, leading a character to dismiss her. Her behavior is wildly erratic as well, since she goes from being livid at her ex-boyfriend, who’s on the trip because the story needed more drama I guess, to apologizing to him for reacting sensibly to something he does to her.

To be honest, I found this book to be fairly average. It has exciting moments, interspersed with stretches where it drags on. As stated earlier, I found the emphasis on the burglary to be a bit excessive and unneeded. It also irked me that the argument made, by a crew member, that everything was fine and Lo hadn’t seen a murder, was that she was projecting about the burglary. Later, he brought up that she was on medication and she maybe saw or heard something that wasn’t there as a result of that. The trope of “Character has mental illness, is therefore crazy and not to be believed by other characters” is insulting and I hate having to read it.

Overall, it’s an okay book. The mystery had potential for an interesting reveal or twist, but instead it followed the same plot as other stories with a few details changed. I wanted to like it, but there were too many moments when I got annoyed at the story itself, rolled my eyes and pushed through to finish the book. There was a lot of potential here, and Ware has been clearly inspired by Agatha Christie’s novels, but the potential hasn’t been realized. It’s a good book if you need something to read on a flight or a train.

Rating: 2.3 stars

Liebster Award Nomination

WHAT IS THE LIEBSTER AWARD?

The Liebster Award is a peer recognition award for up and coming bloggers, and the rules are as follows:

1)Thank the blogger who nominated you.

2)Answer the questions from the person who nominated you.

3)Nominate 5-11 bloggers who have less than 200 followers.

4)Tell your nominees through social media.

5)Ask 11 new questions for your nominees.

Millennial Book Review is on its third month now. It’s an honor to be nominated for this award! I will use this nomination to support other new bloggers out there!

I’d like to thank Chocoviv at https://chocoviv.home.blog/ for nominating me for this award.

Chocoviv’s Questions

Where did you last travel to?

Avon, North Carolina

Pumpkin spice latte or plain coffee?

Plain coffee, I’m a simple girl.

When did you start your blog?

End of July of 2019

Who is your favourite superhero?

Green Arrow, hands down.

If you could meet anyone famous, dead or alive, who would it be and why?

J.R.R. Tolkien (I am a nerd, I know that). And I’d want to thank him for writing such amazing works.

Savoury or sweet?

Sweet, definitely

What is the last book that you have read?

The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware

What is the last movie that you have watched?

Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse

Movie theatre or home theatre?

Home Theater

Favourite colour?

Royal blue.

Do you prefer to travel by plane or cruise ship?

Plane since I’ve never been on a cruise ship before.

My Nominees:

https://edilchristian.wordpress.com/

https://kariblogsonline.com/

https://inherthoughtszw.blogspot.com/

https://thedanishnomads.com/

https://nilyme.wordpress.com/

My Questions:

Chocolatey or Fruity?
If you could travel anywhere, where would it be and why?
Favorite movie of all time?
What’s your favorite holiday?
If you were a superhero, what would your power be?
Favorite pasttime?
If you had to be dropped into one fictional world, which one would you choose?
Dogs or cats?
What’s your secret talent?
What’s one thing you’ve always wanted to learn how to do?
What trend do you wish would just go away?

Top 5 High Fantasy Series

Despite the fact that, at time of writing, most of my reviews are for some form of thriller, thriller actually is not my favorite literary genre. Fantasy, more specifically high-fantasy, is my favorite genre to read. Given that I needed a bit of a break from reviews for a little bit, I’ve decided to write about my five favorite high fantasy series.

By definition, high fantasy is defined as fantasy fiction set primarily in an alternative, entirely fictional world, rather than the real world. The fictional world is usually internally consistent but its rules differ in some way from those of the real world. Low fantasy, by contrast, takes place in the real world but has the inclusion of magical elements. The Mortal Instruments series is low fantasy; The Hobbit is high fantasy.

5) Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin

The novels, beginning with A Wizard of Earthsea, take place in a world that is mostly ocean with humanity living on small islands. The world is inhabited by humans and dragons, with some humans being wizards or sorcerers. Unlike the other series on this list, humans and dragons are the only notable species that live in this world.

The first novel begins with a young boy, known as Duny but later named Ged, learning he has innate magical power. His aunt teaches him the little magic she knows, and one exhibition of his power gains the attention of a powerful mage. Unfortunately, Ged inadvertently releases a shadow creature. The rest of the novel follows Ged as he attempts to get ride of the creature plaguing him.

Earthsea is unique from two standpoints. One is the shifting of perspectives. There isn’t one protagonist across the series, unlike most book series. Characters from later books interact and meet characters from earlier novels, but the story isn’t focused on Ged and Ged alone. The second aspect that I feel makes Earthsea unique is its central theme about balance. Wizards in this world are meant to keep balance between the magical forces. Bad things don’t necessarily happen because someone evil causes it, they happen because they go against the balance that needs to be maintained. When I read this series, I found the concept of good and evil being more about choice than innate nature intriguing.

4) The Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini

I wasn’t aware of this series existence until the first two books, Eragon and Eldest had already been released. I read those two very quickly and eagerly awaiting the third novel Brisingr and later the fourth and final book Inheritance.

Taking place in the fictional world of Alagaesia, it chronicles the tale of a farmboy Eragon, who finds a dragon egg while hunting and becomes the first Dragon Rider since the evil king Galbatorix killed all the others one hundred years earlier. Eragon is then swept up a journey to end the evil king’s reign and restore the order of Dragon Riders.

The Inheritance Cycle has a lot of similarities with, and clearly the author was inspired by, older works, most notably J.R.R. Tolkien’s works. Alagaesia and many of its inhabitants are similar to Middle Earth and the different races of beings that live there. While the worlds may be the same, the plots differ quite bit. Eragon’s journey isn’t about defeating an ultimate evil, its about overthrowing a corrupt leader. The conflicts between the protagonists and antagonists in Eragonand the other novels in the series, begin on a more personal level than most fantasy novels.

3) The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis

Some of you may believe this entry is cheating, since each book in the series starts with the main characters in the real world. However, given that the entirety of each book’s action and plot take place in the fictional land of Narnia, I’ve decided to include it.

The Chronicles of Narnia was actually the first high-fantasy series I read. A great deal of my love for it is no doubt a result of nostalgia from my childhood. These books will always hold a special place in my heart for being my introduction to fantasy as a genre. The allegories between events in Narnia and Christian theology are a lot more obvious as an adult, and Lewis has been criticized for some harmful stereotypes others have noticed in the novels, but this piece is neither the time nor the place to discuss that.

The world is expansive. There are different creatures throughout the world. There are humans, talking animals, minotaurs, sprites, and dozens of others. Magic exists in Narnia and the rules within the world are easy to understand and they stay consistent throughout There is the essential battle between Good and Evil, in various forms, throughout the series.

2) A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin

I think we all knew this one was going to be on here. No discussion about fantasy is complete anymore without mentioning A Song of Ice and Fire due to the popularity of Game of Thrones. (Just as an aside, I will only be discussing Martin’s novels here, and not any events from the television series). I’m not sure what I can say about Westeros that hasn’t already been said, but here we go.

Martin gives the reader a rich, expansive world with hundreds of unique characters. Of all of the fantasy worlds mentioned in this piece, Martin’s uses magic the least often. Magic does exist, but it only seems to come up in certain situations and can only be performed by certain characters. A Song of Ice and Fire first gained popularity due to how shockingly events played out. No characters are safe, anyone can be killed, which went against the common trope in fantasy that the protagonist wouldn’t and couldn’t get killed, regardless of how dangerous of a situation they found themselves in. The series popularity stems from the world, but mostly in Martin’s ability to shock readers and avoid tropes of the fantasy genre.

Another thing worth noting is that, outside of the threat of the Others/White Walkers, there isn’t a main villain or some greater evil that needs to be defeated. There are plenty of “bad guys” but outside of the Others, they’re all ordinary people. While a lot of the world is clearly inspired by Tolkien’s work, including some character archetypes, the themes of the novels center around human conflict as opposed to the battle between good and evil.

1)The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

I really don’t think there was ever another option for my favorite fantasy series. While I have read all of these series more than once, The Lord of the Rings is the one I read the most often. Tolkien is the father of modern fantasy. Many of the tropes, themes and aspects of other fantasy worlds are based on, or at least inspired by, Tolkien’s works. Any discussion about lore and world-building would be incomplete without mentioning how much time, effort and thought went into creating the world of The Lord of the Rings. He created multiple constructed languages, and created multiple dialects each language. Middle Earth doesn’t just have a very long history going back thousands of years, it has its own creation myth.

But enough about how in-depth the lore goes, or how much effort and detail Tolkien put into his works. Let’s talk about the works themselves. The Lord of the Rings isn’t just my favorite fantasy story, its my favorite story period. The central conflict is a battle between good and evil, the quintessential need to defeat evil. Sauron is a pure evil force that can’t be reasoned with, can’t be talked down and the Fellowship needs to succeed because if they fail, the world falls into darkness. There isn’t a Chosen One, just a group of people banding together because they must and because defeating Sauron is what’s right. Even as the world gets darker, and evil gains a little more of a foothold, there’s never a point where there’s no hope. Even after members of the Fellowship get separated, they remain part of the same story, and impact the journey the others are having. They are one part of an ongoing story.

Tolkien changed the way fantasy was written, and unfortunately, that meant a number of the themes in his writing were ignored or swept under the rug in other works. When a work is compared to Tolkien, it usually refers to the worldbuilding, but not the core themes. The Lord of the Rings is about more than just elves, dwarves, talking trees and defeating evil. It’s about having hope, despite seemingly insurmountable odds. It’s about power, and how absolute power corrupts absolutely, and a little power corrupts a little. Mostly, its about how the smallest person can change the course of the future.

Those are my favorite high fantasy series. What are yours?

Where the Crawdads Sing

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Where the Crawdads Sing is a 2018 novel by Delia Owens. It was published by G.P. Putnam’s Sons. It’s topped The New York Times Fiction Best Seller list for 20 non-consecutive weeks in 2019. The book was selected for Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine Book Club within two months of being published and Barnes & Noble named it one of the best books of 2018. It can be purchased here from Bookshop.org or here from Amazon.

The novel follows the life of Kya Clark, the so-called “Marsh Girl” who’s become a local legend in the town of Barkley Cove, North Carolina. Intelligent and sensitive, she’s lived most of her life alone in the marsh, mostly isolated from people and connecting with nature instead. In 1969, former football star Chase Andrews is discovered dead and the locals immediately being to suspect Kya.

The novel unfolds in two timelines. One depicts Kya’s life following her mother abandoning the family and describes her childhood and young adulthood growing up alone in the marshes. The second timeline explores the investigation of Chase’s death and the trial that follows. While the second timeline has some great moments, its in telling the story of Kya’s upbringing where Owens’ talent shines. She doesn’t simply tell the reader about the marshes, but transports them there. The rich imagery creates a vivid picture of a setting most readers would never witness personally, but somehow it feels familiar. I often find it difficult to full immerse myself in the setting of a book easily, but Where the Crawdads Sing is a rare exception. I found myself wanting to read more about the beautiful, yet sometimes eerie, land.

While the descriptions of the marsh, and the wildlife within it, are spectacular, they pale in comparison to how Kya is written. When I first picked up the book, I thought the premise would be too sad for me. Kya is a child when she is left pretty much on her own, save an alcoholic and often absent father. Others might use such a situation to tell a depressing story about what the loss of human connection can do to one’s mind. Owens is not others, though. While Kya is very obviously alone, I rarely felt a hopeless sense of loneliness. She is isolated from the town, but thanks to a handful of people, she’s not completely alone. Even when she was at her lowest, there was never a feeling of desperation or despair.

While many in town look down on the “marsh people” and sneer at the “Marsh Girl”, Kya is one of the most intelligent characters portrayed. She may have only gone to school for one day, but she knows and understands the animals and plants in the marsh better than anyone else. Kya is reclusive, yes, but its not entirely by choice. She was abandoned by her parents, her siblings, the school system, and a town that made no attempt to aid her, but the marsh, nature itself, did not. Her isolation might’ve been forced at first, but it becomes clear later on that she remains in the marsh by choice.

The book is touted as being somewhat of a murder mystery, but that isn’t the focus on much of the plot. The story centers around Kya and her coming of age in this strange situation. It’s Kya’s story, the murder investigation just happens to tie into that story. The bigger story is about survival and the resilience necessary to survive despite hard circumstances and seemingly no chance of the situation improving. As I mentioned earlier, this story has sad moments, but thanks to Owens’ writing and a well-crafted plot, it isn’t a sad story.

Now, its time to discuss a few tiny complaints I have. They are minor, but in order for this to be a balanced review, I can’t only talk about the positive aspects of Where the Crawdads Sing. The story does drag a little bit in certain parts, especially when Kya’s journey first begins. The prose is still praise-worthy, but some of the passages describing the world of the marsh are a little longer than they need to be. The same goes for different scenes of Kya trying, and failing, to make food the way her mother used to. The biggest letdown for me is how the murder investigation, and subsequent trial, is resolved. It wasn’t badly written, it wasn’t that it didn’t make sense, it was just kinda boring. The courtroom drama seemed as odds with the world the rest of the book created and felt tacked on. The ending was somewhat middling as well. It was a natural, but sadly boring, way to end Kya’s story. Rather than give the reader an ambiguous ending, Owens went for a finite ending, which doesn’t feel quite right for a character as independent and free-spirited as Kya.

 Where the Crawdads Sing is one of the best novels I’ve read this year. It’s a story about survival, love, desperation and hope. It’s a fantastic coming-of-age story that also delves into deeper themes about prejudice, humanity and our connection to nature. I enthusiastically recommend it to anyone slightly intrigued by its premise.

Rating: 4.7 stars  

Dark Places

Source: Barnes & Noble

Dark Places is a 2009 thriller by Gillian Flynn, whose other works are Sharp Objects and Gone Girl. It was published by Shaye Areheart Books. It was listed on the New York Times Best Seller List for fiction within a month of its publication date. The New Yorker named it one of the best books of 2009. Roughly six years later, a move adaptation starring Charlize Theron was released.

The summary of the book is as follows: Libby Day was seven when her mother and two sisters were murdered in the “The Satan Sacrifice” of Kinnnakee, Kansas. She survived, and later testified that her brother Ben was responsible. Twenty-five years after the murders, a group of true-crime fans contacts Libby and invites her to meet with them so they can question her for details. Many don’t believe Ben was the murderer and are searching for evidence that will clear his name. Libby, meanwhile, has fallen on hard times and hopes to make some quick cash off of the family tragedy. She makes a deal with the club, she’ll start looking for answers and report what she finds to them, for a fee. As her search takes her around the Midwest, some painful truths resurface and she finds herself once again on the run from a killer.

The narrative unfolds in two timelines. One timeline shows Libby’s journey in the present, digging into the truth of what happened that night and reconnecting with some of the others who may have hidden the truth years earlier. The other timeline is the story of what happened in the past, depicting the 24-hour period leading up to the murders. The perspective of the “past” chapters shifts between Libby’s mother Patty and her brother Ben. Patty’s chapters show the desperate situation the family was in financially before the murders and her desire to simply help her family. Ben’s POV chapters add dimension to his character and explain a few of the decisions he makes that are pivotal to the mystery at the center of the story.

While having a story, more specifically a mystery, being told in two timelines can be beneficial, I don’t think that style works as well as it could have in Dark Places. Given that the reader already knows what happens in January of 1985, there’s plenty of detail that could be omitted without effecting the plot. We already know Patty and two of her children are killed. We know Ben is arrested for the killing. Having two timelines is a solid tactic for introducing red herrings or revealing previously unknown facts, without having an exposition dump, but it isn’t used very effectively here. There is an entire subplot that unfolded in 1985, which revolves around 15-year-old Ben being accused of a crime, that serves as a rather heavy-handed red herring and I would say it has no real impact on the story as a whole if it didn’t further Patty’s narrative about trying to keep the family farm together. There was potential in Dark Places, but that potential wasn’t fully realized.

The novel is well-written, Flynn’s prose is fantastic as it is in all of her works. She does an excellent job of making the reader sympathize with, or in the very least like, characters that shouldn’t be likeable. Ben allegedly killed his family. Libby is using, and has used, the deaths of her mother and sisters to make money. There is a club called The Kill Club that’s fascinated by true crime to the point that not only do they decide to investigate murders for themselves, but they contact survivors and relatives of the victims, which is bound to reopen old, and painful, wounds. None of these characters should make you want this novel to have a fulfilling conclusion, an intriguing answer to the mystery, but thanks to Flynn’s writing chops, you do.

Let’s discuss the conclusion for a moment. As the novel’s premise suggests, and some earlier parts of this review imply, Ben was not the person who killed his mother and sisters. I know that is a spoiler, but it’s a spoiler that shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone. Television, films and literature have all taught us by now that if someone’s looking into a case after its been solved, the police caught the wrong person. The reveal of Patty’s real killer’s identity is underwhelming in my opinion. It isn’t an out-of-nowhere reveal, but there also aren’t quite enough clues sprinkled through out that tease or foreshadow the ending. In fact, the few clues that exist led me to a much different, and darker conclusion. Something that really bothered me about the truth of what happened didn’t relate to Patty’s death, but the deaths of the two daughters. The motive behind Patty’s death is clear in hindsight, and teased beforehand. The same isn’t true regarding the two daughters, Michelle and Debby. They die for different, and much worse reasons. My biggest criticism about the revelation, however, lies in how it happens as an act of chance. A character says something, reveals information they shouldn’t know, and that’s how the murder is solved. After reading 316 pages of what happened right leading up to the murders, and Libby trying to solve the murders, the whodunit is revealed when a character lets the wrong thing slip out. It’s not a bad way to have the revelation happen, it just doesn’t fit with this story.

Despite how critical I may seem, I enjoyed Dark Places. It was a well-written, intriguing story. Not my favorite of Flynn’s but that’s in no way a point against it. Dark Places, in my mind, is at a disadvantage, because I will compare every novel of Flynn’s against Gone Girl, and this novel, unfortunately, doesn’t stack up quite as well. It’s a good book, but one I found to be a little boring. It’s a quick read, and perfect for a day sitting on the beach or to enjoy on a plane or train. I would definitely read it again.

Rating: 3.5 stars

The Wife Between Us

Source: Barnes & Noble

The Wife Between Us is a 2018 thriller written by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen. It was published by Pan Macmillian. The New York Time Book Review called it “a fiendishly smart cat-and-mouse thriller”, Glamour’s review stated “Buckle up, because you won’t be able to put this one down” and Publishers Weekly referred to it as “jaw dropping. Unforgettable. Shocking”.

A one-sentence description of the plot is that wealthy man’s jealous ex-wife becomes obsessed with her replacement, a younger, more beautiful woman he’s about to marry. Many other reviews cite a very compelling description from the book itself:

“When you read this book, you will make many assumptions.

You will assume you are reading about a jealous ex-wife.

You will assume she is obsessed with her replacement – a beautiful, younger woman who is about to marry the man they both love. 

You will assume you know the anatomy of this tangled love triangle.

Assume nothing.”

While I won’t begrudge anyone’s opinion, I can’t say I fully agree with the reviews I’ve mentioned above. The narrative is captivating at first. Unfolding through alternating POVs between Vanessa, Richard’s ex-wife, and Nellie, his young fiancé, the first half of the novel reads very well. The suspense builds as Vanessa gets more desperate and makes her way closer to confronting Richard’s new fiancé. Nellie’s fear about a woman who can’t seem to leave her alone, or move on with her life is palpable. The tension continues to build and build to the point where you wonder exactly what will happen when Nellie and Vanessa cross paths.

Then, the twist happens. Halfway through the narrative, a first twist is revealed. It shifts the narrative so that the reader is forced to reevaluate everything occurs up to that point. Unfortunately, the first twist is where the story falls apart. All of the tension built up to by that point washes away and the novel becomes a fairly adequate, by-the-numbers, drama. I would barely call it a thriller since, after that first twist, there’s very little suspense going on. More twists follow, each meaning less and less in terms of the narrative.

The novel is over four hundred pages, but there’s a lot of nothing that happens. Some of the filler in the story, or sidebars to explain certain details, are probably meant to make later twists mean more, or ramp up tension fail to do so. The story doesn’t need to go from one massively important scene or revelation to another, but way too much of the second half of the book is taken up by Vanessa reflecting on “what went wrong” with her marriage, which isn’t hard to figure out.

The novel is very trope heavy. Vanessa is a divorcee living a sad existence after her marriage falls apart. As soon as the divorce happens, her whole life loses meaning and she winds up living with her aunt and working in retail. Nellie is a naïve girl who’s caught up in this whirlwind romance with a successful businessman who gives her everything she could ever want. Richard is suave, powerful and lures Nellie in, despite hiding a secret. My biggest complaint when it comes to tropes is in Vanessa’s behavior towards Richard’s new fiancé. Her actions depict her as a crazy ex-wife which makes it even harder for her to pull off the one thing she’s trying to do. I’m really tired of reading the crazy ex-wife trope or the use of mental illness (its implied by Richard that Vanessa’s mentally ill because her mother was) as a plot device to explain why a character shouldn’t be trusted.

I think my main issue with this novel is how much hype surrounded it. The book was recommended to me by a coworker who claimed I’d enjoy it if I enjoyed Gone Girl. More than one book this year has been pitched to me in the same manner. I heard the same sales pitch last year about a number of books. I feel like the phrase “the next Gone Girl” is thrown around too liberally. Gone Girl was a fantastic thriller. Far too many subpar thrillers published in the following years are equated to it, and I for one think the comparison does an injustice to Gillian Flynn’s work. By saying The Wife Between Us is on the same level, I began reading with very high expectations, and was ultimately disappointed by the story I wound up reading.

The Wife Between Us is a good book, it isn’t fantastic and the narrative treats the plot twists like they are smarter than they really are. If someone asked me “is this book good”, I’d say yes. If I was asked “would you recommend it”, I might say yes, depending on my mood.

Rating: 3 stars.

Behind Closed Doors

Source: Amazon

Behind Closed Doors is a 2016 novel by B.A. Paris. It was published by St. Martin’s Griffin and was both a New York Times and USA Today bestseller. According to the description, it is a “psychological thriller you can’t miss!”

The novel focuses on Grace and Jack Angel. He’s a well-respected attorney focusing on domestic violence victims, while she’s a homemaker. From the outside they seem to have it all. As a tagline on the cover asks however, is this the perfect marriage or the perfect lie? Obviously, with a question like that posed, the answer becomes obvious. Things with the Angels are far from perfect, Jack is not the benevolent attorney, dedicated to saving women from their abusers that he seems to be. The novel centers around Grace trying to figure out what to do about her husband and how to remove herself, and her vulnerable sister Millie, from his sphere of influence.

The narrative unfolds in two timelines: past and present. This shows how Grace meets Jack and they get together while also contrasting it with the life she’s now living. The first chapter, which depicts a dinner party the Angels are hosting, does a fantastic job of filling the reader with a sense of doom and dread. Within a few pages, Grace’s actions and behaviors reminded me of The Stepford Wives. She’s the perfect hostess, the perfect cook, dinner goes down without a single mistake or flub, but at the same time, there’s an underlying fear of what would happen if dinner wasn’t perfect, if she wasn’t the charming hostess. I don’t like using other works to describe a feeling I get, but Stepford Wife was the only way I could describe it. Any work that invokes that comparison instantly gives the impression that either something is about to go horribly wrong, or it already has.

While the beginning creates a sense of dread, once it becomes clear the secret that’s being kept, the rest of the suspense drops off until the climax of the story. The tension in the first few chapters isn’t carried forward as effectively as I would’ve liked. Grace’s desperation is well-crafted and as the story progresses, the feeling of helplessness convinces the reader, or at least this reader, that she might not be able to get away. I’m not sure if I would quite qualify it as a thriller, mostly because there isn’t enough suspense. The actions of Grace and Jack propel the story forward, as opposed to a building up of tension.

As I alluded to earlier, and as the novel makes clear, Jack is hiding a huge secret. I will admit that the secret Jack hides and his motives aren’t quite what I predicted they might be when I read the synopsis of the book, I didn’t completely miss the mark. I went into the book expecting Jack’s secret to be that he’s a domestic violence attorney who, ironically, beats his wife. I expected him to be an abuser who hides behind the façade of someone advocating for abuse victims. That isn’t what his secret is, but he chose his profession deliberately and it isn’t to help others. Another thing I did not expect was the importance Millie, Grace’s 17-year-old sister with Down Syndrome, played in the story. She ended up being a much more important character in the conflict than I anticipated. Millie is smart, she’s resourceful and, despite her dislike of George Clooney, which has a purpose in the story, she’s a good character. Behind Closed Doors is one of the few books have read that has characters with Down Syndrome or another developmental disability that are well-written and multifaceted.

Now, it’s time to discuss some parts and elements that I wasn’t a fan of. There are two chief complaints that I haven’t touched upon yet. One is relatively minor, another related to a huge aspect of the story and plot. My minor complaint is about clichés in this type of work. It’s a psychological drama about the relationship between two people. As an easy way to show that Jack is a psychopath, and how psychopathic he is, he gets Grace a puppy and later kills it. This is the fourth book I’ve read this year where the first sign that the abusive or psychotic husband is abusive or psychotic is that he kills the dog. It does prove Jack’s a monster, but there were plenty of other, more creative, less obvious ways, to show that. Now, to my main complaint, Jack is apparently a supergenius, or psychic. By the time Grace learns the truth about him, he’s already planned for any and every possible contingency to make sure she can’t leave. Even events that are seemingly out of his control, he’s accounted for. The narrative shows only Grace’s perspective, so some aspects might be amplified for dramatic effect because she’s so scared, but his ability to predict any and everything that could happen gets a little annoying. Another thing I found incredibly frustrating is the fact that no one questions his behavior about certain things. No one apparently finds it weird that Grace can’t even go to the bathroom in a restaurant unless he waits outside the door for her. Not every character dismisses it, but far too many chalk it up to them being “so in love”. That behavior, and everyone’s dismissal of it, is part of why Grace is so desperate but it isn’t realistic in the way some of his other behavior is.

The central story is compelling. The twists and turns the story takes are also worth complimenting. Jack is a one-dimensional evil man, but that’s all he needs to be. Grace and Millie are both well-rounded and while I didn’t have a great opinion of Grace at first, as the story unfolds, her behavior had me saying “you’re an idiot, just leave” less and understanding her actions more. Behind Closed Doors is a great book, it’s not a fantastic one. I would recommend it but I don’t see myself gushing about it or insisting that everyone I know read it immediately.

Rating: 3.3 stars

One of Us is Lying

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One of Us is Lying is a young adult novel by Karen M. McManus. It was published in 2017 by Random House. Everyone I know who has read it describes the premise as “The Breakfast Club” meets “Pretty Little Liars” which is a pretty on the nose depiction. The book can be purchased here from Bookshop.org.

The non-spoiler-y summary is as follows: On a Monday afternoon, five students, a brain, a beauty, a criminal, an athlete and an outcast, walk into detention. An hour later, only four walk out. Simon, the outcast and the creator of a gossip app about the school, dies during detention. It’s soon revealed that his death was no accident. The four students in detention with him are the prime suspects and everyone has a motive. More people wanted Simon gone than didn’t.

What unfolds is a complex murder-mystery taking place in a modern high school. One of the strongest points of the book, and the most appealing, is this backdrop of a suburban high school. Unlike traditional mystery novels, a la Sherlock Holmes, the investigation takes place in our time. Simon’s death gains national attention and the investigation unfolds surrounded by, and impacted by, the 24-hour news cycle and the current trend to sensationalize everything. It’s on national news, a 48 Hours-like television program does a piece on the murder while its being investigated. The plot isn’t just impacted by news sources; there’s the added perspective of social media and the role it plays in hew news spreads and how stories are covered. It becomes clear, with some minor characters, that the death doesn’t matter much to them, but the attention the story gains is what they care about.

The novel unfolds through alternating point-of-view segments of the four suspects: Bronwyn (the brain), Addy (the beauty), Nate (the criminal) and Cooper (the athlete). While I’m not always a fan of narratives with alternating POVs, it works extremely well here because it gives the reader a chance to see the murder, and its aftermath, from more than one perspective. Not only does this provide possible motives for every character, but it also allows the reader to understand why a particular character wouldn’t have killed Simon. No one character is presented as being squeaky clean or obviously guilty. While the characters are all archetypes common in media aimed at teenagers, they aren’t one-dimensional, which is refreshing for the reader and adds depth to the story.

One of my favorite aspects of this book is how the characters’ lives are changed by this common event. Others become immediately suspicious of them, but that’s not the only outcome of Simon’s death. The murder, the investigation, the press coverage, the four students trying to solve what happened leads to each individual coming to some kind of realization, whether its about self-acceptance or getting a toxic person out of their life. The murder investigation is obviously a huge plotpoint, and their lives may never be the same, but smaller problems arise, less important details come to life. Despite the fact that they’re all suspects, and that each character only knows their truth about what happened, they are brought closer together by this event and try to work together to determine what exactly happened.

Now, let’s discuss the plot without spoiling the ending. I enjoyed the death itself, mostly because it posed an interesting mystery. Simon doesn’t get shot or stabbed. There isn’t a power outage and when the lights turn back on, he’s dead on the floor. He dies, everyone in the room sees it, but no one’s able to figure out what happened. How he died, and how the killer is able to kill him, is just as compelling as trying to figure out who did it. The revelation of how Simon died, and who killed him, is equally compelling, and unlike some novels, the answer doesn’t come out of nowhere, nor does there need to be an extensive amount of exposition given, for it to make sense. It also isn’t glaringly obvious up front who’s involved with what happened.

While I find McManus’s novel great overall, I do have some minor complaints. A few of the secrets the main four characters want to keep hidden are a bit cliché or overdramatized. Some of that could be chalked up to teenagers having heightened emotions, and everything feeling like a huge deal in high school. Simon, our murder victim, has plenty of enemies and people who aren’t sad to see him die which feels a little bit of a cop-out, but that could just be me. There were a few scenes in the book where a character’s actions seemed a bit over the top or their words didn’t sound like something a normal person would say. Again, this is just my opinion but those scenes kind of took me out of the story a little bit. I found the treatment of one character after her secret gets out, because of course the secrets are revealed, was a little heavy-handed but I’m also picky about the specific topic it covered. My dislikes are mostly related to small details, and not major aspects to the story.

Rating: 4 stars