My Rating: 3.5 stars
After having read and enjoyed Jessica Strawser’s debut
novel Almost Missed You early last year, I was excited when I heard
she would have a second book out. I
remember pulling an “all-nighter” for her first book, as it was such a gripping
read that I couldn’t bring myself to put it down. Not surprising then that I went into her
second book Not That I Could Tell with high expectations, which in
hindsight, I probably shouldn’t have. While
I wouldn’t say that I was disappointed, since I did like the story overall and
the characters were well-developed as well as realistically written, I do have
to say that I definitely enjoyed Strawser’s first book way more. Similar to her first book, this one also
starts off with a mysterious disappearance, this time it is Kristin Kirkland, a
devoted mother of twins who is in the midst of a divorce from her doctor
husband Paul – she and her twins go missing after a girls’ night out with her
friends, other women from the neighborhood.
From there, the rest of the story is spent trying to figure out what
happened to Kristin and why – we get to hear from each of the women who were at
the gathering that night and in the process, we also learn their stories and
eventually, the secrets they were also hiding.
Unlike Strawser’s first book, which was a suspenseful and gripping read
for me, this one by comparisons fell a bit flat – the suspense factor was
nearly nonexistent and there wasn’t a big “twist” that made my jaw drop like
her first one did. Sure, I was curious as
to what happened with Kristin but I felt like for much of the book, the “mystery”
of Kristin’s disappearance ended up taking a back seat to everything else that
was going on in the neighborhood itself and all the issues that the other
characters had to deal with in their lives.
In terms of plot, this one was very much a slow-burn, with not much
action happening for most of the story – it’s not until the last third of the
book or so that the story gained some traction, but even then it wasn’t that
big of a leap. To me, this book leaned
more heavily on the women’s fiction side than mystery / suspense – not necessarily
a bad thing of course, it’s just that I was expecting it to be in the same vein
as Almost
Missed You (which leaned more heavily on mystery/suspense aspect),
which obviously it was not.
Even though I didn’t find this book as compelling as Strawser’s
previous one, I did enjoy the characters quite a bit and appreciated the
different angle she took with their development. The focus of much of the narrative was on Kristin’s
neighbors Clara and Izzy and how they had to juggle coping with their friend’s
disappearance while at the same time working through their own issues – both characters
were realistically drawn and interestingly enough, I was able to relate to both
of them in many aspects, even though their lives were so different. This was a story where I did end up
connecting with the characters, albeit not as much on an emotional level but rather
more empathetically in that I’ve had to deal with some similar issues in the
past, to varying degrees. What really
kept me turning the pages though was the writing, which was fantastic! This was an area that Strawser absolutely
delivered on and something I’ve come to expect from her books.
Despite this book not drawing me in as much due to its
slower pace, it was still a good story and one that I can definitely recommend
as long as the understanding is there not to expect a tautly-written suspense thriller. Personally, I appreciated the more underlying
messages the story brought out about important issues such as domestic abuse
and its impact as well as the attitudes and reactions from society. I also really liked the way the aspects of
motherhood, friendship, relationships in its various forms, etc. were handled
in the story – slightly different perspectives that made the characters quite a
bit more interesting than those in similar stories. Jessica Strawser is one author whose works I
will definitely continue to read!
Received ARC from
St. Martin’s Press via NetGalley
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