My Rating: 3 stars
Technically,
this book came in at just a little under 3 stars for me, but it was close
enough that I decided to just go with that rating. For me, this one was able to stand out as a “better
than average” beach read mostly through the way that the author Mary Kay
Andrews was able to incorporate a bona fide mystery into the story that
actually did keep my interest but didn’t dive too deep as to overwhelm the rest
of the story. I also liked the cast of quirky,
unconventional characters and how most of them came from complicated, dysfunctional
backgrounds – I especially liked the main character Drue Campbell, who is
trying to put her miserable life back together after enduring several hardships
in a row, such as being fired from her job, a life-changing injury, and her
mother’s death. I like how she is
portrayed so differently from the “heroines” we usually encounter in books of
this genre – Drue is tomboyish, too nosy for her own good, and at times can be
difficult to get along with, but at the end of the day, she’s a good person with
a flawed personality who is trying her best to turn her life around. With all that said though, one thing that I
felt was lacking in terms of characters was that we don’t really get to know
the other characters in the story, since all the action revolved mainly around
Drue and most of the time, there didn’t seem to be much of interest going on
with everyone else.
In terms of
the writing and structure of the story, it was a bit all over the place in that
I felt like this book was trying to be too many things at once – i.e. mystery
novel, crime thriller, rom-com, feel-good beach read, etc. -- to the point that,
in the end, it didn’t really know what it wanted to be. For me, there were moments where I felt the
story lost focus a little, some parts that were a bit dull and predictable and caused
my attention to falter at times. To be
honest, I actually felt the story arc involving the decades-old missing person
case (which was interspersed sporadically throughout the story) was a lot more
interesting than the main story – it was actually written better too! In fact, I found myself skimming certain
sections of the main story and skipping ahead to the parts that talked about the
case from the past. As for the writing, I found it a bit
inconsistent in that there were sections which came across as overly descriptive
and didn’t seem to fit in well with the story, while in other sections, the
writing felt a little too simple, which to me, made the story not flow as well
as it potentially could have. I also
felt it was odd the way Drue got involved with the Jazmin Mayes case and seemed
to come across as more competent than the detectives who had spent years investigating
the case. It also seemed a bit far-fetched
that an “amateur sleuth” like Drue would be allowed to poke around haphazardly
on her own as much as she did without repercussions and even have access to information
that seemed to always be readily shared with her.
I would say that all in all, this was a decent read that
did sustain my interest for the most part, but I felt had the potential to be
much more than what it turned out to be.
This is my first time reading this author, so I don’t have a reference
point in terms of how this one stacks up to her previous works, but I would be
willing to read more from her and possibly explore her other books in the
future.
Received ARC from
St. Martin’s Press via NetGalley.
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