Review: Gone Girl (by Gillian Flynn)

My Rating: 3.5 stars

I’ll just say it right off the bat:  my thoughts about this book are of the “outlier” variety so if that’s going to be a problem, my suggestion would be to stop reading this review right here.

Okay, for those still with me, here it goes…. 

First off, I decided to finally pick this book up not because I really wanted to read it, but rather, to satisfy my curiosity. Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl came out back in 2012 and in the 14 years since then, I’ve heard it referred to over and over again, in various contexts, year after year, pretty much endlessly:  this is the book that started the psychological suspense craze, the book that made the whole “twist” phenomenon a household name, the book that made having the word “girl” in the title a surefire hit, the book that single-handedly launched the “cool girl” trend, etc. etc.  Having read my fair share of psychological thrillers / suspense novels over the years (novels which, supposedly, all owe a debt to Gone Girl in some way, shape, or form if they were published after 2012 – at least that’s what I was made to believe), I wanted to finally read this “mother of psychological suspense novels” to, yes, see what all the hype was about.

From a craft standpoint – plot, character, structure, pacing, etc.—this book is indeed brilliantly written (which, I have to make clear, is very different from being “well”-written).  I don’t think it would be an exaggeration to say that this book, the way it is written, can be considered a masterclass on how to write compelling, page-turning psychological suspense, especially in the way that Flynn goes deep into the twisted minds of two truly deranged individuals and picks apart, in detail, what spurs their every thought, feeling, and action. Sure, we may not agree with the way these characters behave throughout the story (though that’s putting it mildly – I was actually disgusted by both main characters for the entire read), but we do come to an understanding of WHY they behave that way.  To be honest, it wasn’t hard to tell from the get go that Nick and Amy were not good people and their toxic relationship was a train wreck waiting to happen – yet by the same token, it was also hard to look away when, ultimately, the train slammed into the wall and created a grotesque mess that seemed impossible to clean up (and yes, despite how miserable I knew the experience would be, I couldn’t help reading on to see if and/or how they clean up the mess).

With all that said however, the main reason why this book didn’t work for me was because I hated EVERY SINGLE CHARACTER.  As other reviewers have pointed out, the story is dark and twisty, with so much violence, abuse, sex, gratuitous cursing, etc. – which, yes, can be a turn off, but for me, the dealbreaker was actually the characters and the horrible, despicable way they behave throughout the entire story.  The characters don’t make any attempt to change, there is no redemption arc, no comeuppance for bad behavior, no remorse or repentance, no repercussions for criminal acts – for pretty much the entirety of the 400+ pages (20+ hours on audio), these characters remain both pretentiously narcissistic and overwhelmingly self-absorbed, to the point that, throughout the entire time I was reading, I felt like there was not a single moment where any of the characters deserved even an ounce of sympathy from me. 

So basically, my overall opinion of this book is that it is very much overrated.  Now, would my opinion of this book be different if I had read this when it first came out 14 years ago?  Perhaps yes and perhaps no.  But the truth of the matter is that, over the past 14 years, I’ve read enough psychological thrillers with “twists” ranging from the jaw-dropping to the “you call that a twist?” variety that, in a way, I’ve pretty much seen it all, at least that’s what it feels like.  To this point, I found the twist in this book to be a bit anticlimactic in the sense that by the time I got to the end of part 1, I already figured out what was going to happen.

One last but very important point is that I chose to listen to this via audio, even though I had a paperback copy available on my shelf.  I’m glad I did so because the audio format proved to be the best way to take in this book.   Of course, the bonus content in the audio book version – including a special chapter written from the perspective of Amy as a child that provides insight into her upbringing and relationship with her parents – is a definite perk, but the real draw is the fantastic performance from the audiobook’s two narrators, Kirby Heyborne and (one of my personal favorites) Julia Whelan.  For me, it is precisely because of the outstanding job by both narrators that I ended up rating this 3.5 stars – if I had just read the book and didn’t listen to the audio version, I seriously would’ve rated this 2 stars or lower.

Review: Five (by Ilona Bannister)

My Rating: 4 stars

This book was wild and honestly unlike anything I’ve read before!  From the first page, we already know that one of the five people waiting on a train platform in London will die.  It is 7:01am and the death will occur within the next few minutes, when the next train is scheduled to arrive.  The main question is, which of the five will it be (and secondarily, will it be an accident or deliberate)?  The premise sounds simple and to be honest, when I first started reading, I was wondering how the story was going to play out – I mean, given that everything is supposed to happen within a few minute timespan, how could the story possibly last the entire 240 pages?   I was definitely intrigued and drawn in by the seemingly simple setup at the start of the story where we are introduced to each of the main characters in a way that breaks the fourth wall, with the reader not only being addressed directly, but also given instructions to pay attention to certain things.  And it turned out that I didn’t have to wait long to find out how the author, Ilona Bannister, manages to turn a five-minute premise into a 240-page story, as, interspersed throughout the train station scene, we are given each of the five character’s backstories. But even here, the execution of the story is not as simple as it may seem, for we learn things about each character during these intervening chapters that will end up having an impact on how we view the train station scene.  Specifically, we won’t be able to help formulating opinions about each of the characters based on what we read about them, and ultimately, this influences our judgement of the story’s outcome – basically, who dies and the deeper moral question of whether they deserve it -- which of course, is not revealed until the last few pages.

This is one of the most interesting, engaging, and uniquely original stories I’ve read in a long time.  As a reader, I definitely felt that I had a vested interest in the story from start to finish, despite the fact that I was able to guess “the death” early on.  With this book, the thrill is actually in the process of getting to the outcome – that is, learning about each character, their vices, their desperation, and, most importantly, the circumstances that brought them to this moment at the train station – and then using everything we learned to justify (or not) the death at the end of the story.  So essentially, this story is a study of the base impulses and instincts that make up human nature, with the reader, then, basically forced to be judge and jury.  This is, no doubt, a clever setup and if I were to look at this book from a writing / craft perspective (i.e.: the brilliant way the story was executed), it probably deserves a 5.  However, I’m the type of reviewer who puts more emphasis on reading experience and how a book or story made me feel -- in this regard, well, I found all of the characters reprehensible and, as such, couldn’t bring myself to like any of them (which, now that I think about it, was probably the author’s point in structuring the story the way she did). Given my frustration with the characters, which did impact my reading experience, but yet still recognizing the brilliance of the story, I figured a 4 was the fairest way to go. 

Overall, this was a compelling and fascinating read that I definitely recommend, especially if you are into slow-burn, character-driven psychological thrillers.  Speaking of which, for me, this was one of the “truest” psychological dramas I’ve read in a long time, in the sense that I actually felt challenged psychologically as a reader, to stop and think and assess, then to doubt and re-assess (and repeat this process, sometimes to no avail). This one definitely requires that you put in the work (both mentally and psychologically), so I would say keep that in mind if you do decide to pick this up.

Review: The Fine Art of Lying (by Alexandra Andrews)

My Rating: 3 stars

The Fine Art of Lying is Alexandra Andrews’s highly anticipated sophomore novel, coming 5 years after her debut Who is Maud Dixon? (which I have not yet read).  I decided to pick this one up due to it being a book club pick and having just finished it literally this morning, I’m honestly not sure how I feel about it.  While the writing flowed well and this was a relatively quick, easy read, I did struggle somewhat with certain aspects of the story as well as the characters (which I will get back to in a bit). 

First, I have to say that I wholeheartedly agree with majority of the reviewers who mention that the thriller / suspense aspect of the book fell extremely flat.  I think for me, the problem was the structure – the first half of the book focused mostly on setting up the background for the crime that eventually takes place, with the main protagonist Clare Bast trying to overcome the “imposter syndrome” she feels after marrying into an uber wealthy family and having to navigate the complicated dynamics that come with it.  Clare ends up having an extramarital affair with a charismatic art dealer and soon finds herself sucked into the unfortunate predicament of being in the wrong place at the wrong time when a murder and robbery take place,  The second half of the story then pivots to focusing on the mystery and, of course, figuring out what happened and why.  The way the story unfolded, the “final reveal” ended up being anti-climactic and the “solving” part pertaining to the murder and robbery lacked any feeling of suspense or thrill.  Sure, there were some surprising moments that I’m guessing were supposed to be “twists” but those were written in a way where the “twist” part barely registered.

Having said all that, one area where I seem to digress from many of the other reviewers is that, despite the lack of suspense / thriller elements, I actually liked the second half of the story more than the first half.  The reason for this has more to do with me as a reader rather than problems with the book itself.  With a few exceptions, I’m overall not a fan of the “rich people behaving badly” trope and unfortunately, this book not only had that in spades, the trope pretty much turned out to be the premise of the entire story.  As such, I could not stand any of the characters in the story and especially not the protagonist Clare, who honestly irritated me to no end because she fit exactly the type of pathetically ridiculous “let me see how many stupid decisions I can get away with making and then berate myself endlessly over those decisions” character that I find frustrating and hugely annoying.  As if that weren’t enough though, what made Clare even more annoying (for me at least) was how she kept trying to find excuses for her behavior and actions, but those excuses were not just ridiculous, but also contradictory and nonsensical. For example – one minute, Clare would be claiming that she was naïve, but then the next minute, she would say that she recognized she was being reckless, but oh well, whatever, she was going to forge ahead anyway knowing full well what the consequences would be; then later, she seems to contradict both of those excuses when she claims that she had merely “let her attention wander” and next thing she knew, she “became someone else” and failed to notice it in time. Clare was, of course, referring to her extramarital affair, which, because it occupied a huge swath of the book’s first half, was the reason why I preferred the second half of the book to the first half.  No, it’s not because Clare was less irritating in the second half (she never stopped being annoying in my opinion), but because the second half was more focused on solving the mystery rather than Clare’s behavior and actions.  Basically, for me, the first half of the story can be summed up as “Clare and her reckless actions makes a trainwreck of her life and even when she recognizes this, she keeps doing it anyway because she doesn’t seem to have the willpower to stop herself from being reckless” (the word “reckless” actually appears so many times throughout the book that I can’t help but wonder whether this is the author’s favorite word?).

Overall, I found this to be an okay read – not great but not horrible either (hence why I decided to rate this one 3 stars, which, for me, is the happy medium).  I think the key with this one is to go into it with the right expectations – meaning don’t expect a thrill ride, but rather a slow-burn literary mystery of sorts that takes time to unravel.  Some parts of the story also requires a bit of suspension of disbelief, but that’s to be expected given the nature of the genre.  I usually enjoy literary mysteries more than suspense/thrillers, but this one in particular didn’t really work for me, mostly because of the unlikeable characters, though of course, this is just me and my specific tastes, so I would suggest also checking out other reviews before deciding whether to pick this up or not.

Review: The Last Mandarin (by Louise Penny and Mellissa Fung)

My Rating: 4 stars 

I must confess that I have not yet read any of Louise Penny’s Inspector Gamache books, not because I don’t want to, but rather because I came too late to her series.  Specifically, when it comes to book series, I’m the type of reader who is very particular about reading the entire series straight through, in order starting with the first book. The problem with this reading method, of course, is that if there are a lot of books in the series, I could potentially be spending months reading the series, which means that I would not be able to get to any of the other books on my already overflowing TBR (exacerbated by the fact that I’m not the type of reader who can read multiple books at one time, with a few very limited exceptions).  Since there are already 20 books (and counting) in the Gamache series, it would take me way too long to catch up – so regardless of how much I want to visit Three Pines, I unfortunately won’t get a chance to do so anytime soon.

Given the above, imagine my delight when I found out that Louise Penny would be collaborating with journalist Mellissa Fung on a new book – a standalone political thriller that would revolve around a Chinese mother and daughter crime-fighting duo.  My first thought was that, finally, I would get a chance to read a Louise Penny book, but at the same time, I was also excited that many elements of the book would be right up my alley: for example -- mother/daughter relationships, Chinese history and culture, Hong Kong setting, generational family story, etc.  I ended up going into this collaboration with high expectations and I’m happy to report that it did not disappoint!

The opening scene is quite gripping, as we are introduced to our two unlikely heroines -- Alice Li, a Chinese American food blogger, and her larger-than-life mother Vivien Li, a world-famous dissident who participated in the Tiananmen Square protests and is now a fierce human rights activist with supporters including the President of the United States.  Alice agrees to meet her mother at a fancy Washington D.C. hotel for brunch, but does so reluctantly, as she has a strained relationship with Vivien due to having to live in her shadow, but also because Vivien’s cold and distant attitude toward Alice created a rift that the mother and daughter cannot seem to overcome.  In the middle of brunch, Alice escapes to the restroom to get a temporary respite from her demanding mother, when suddenly, a series of alarms go off, not just locally, but it turns out, also all around the world, setting off a panic that quickly descends into chaos.  When the signal that triggered the alarms is traced back to China, Vivien (unsurprisingly) and Alice (surprisingly) are summoned to the White House to meet with the President in the hopes of figuring out what is going on.  As the situation continues to escalate with more “attacks” that result in mass casualties around the world, Alice and Vivien find themselves caught up in a battle of wills between two superpowers – the U.S. and China – whose mutual mistrust and misunderstanding of each other run deep (not unlike the mother and daughter’s own relationship).  Amidst the chaos, one thing becomes clear: there will be more attacks, with each one being more catastrophic than the last, and an outcome that no one wants to see happen – a possible declaration of war.  Given the stakes, both Alice and Vivien – along with their respective governments – must figure out a way to work together in order to prevent the next attack (as well as the disastrous outcome that is sure to follow).

Those who follow my reviews will probably know that I’m not a fan of books about politics (especially American politics) and for the most part, if I know that a book will have a heavy political bent, I try to stay away from it as much as possible.  Unsurprisingly then, I’m not keen on political thrillers either, though this particular book is an obvious exception (for reasons I mentioned above).  Indeed, there were moments as I was reading this book that I didn’t have the slightest clue what was going on from a politics standpoint (and I didn’t even try to keep the various characters’ political titles straight).  In addition to the politics though, there was also an underlying storyline related to AI and technology that I wasn’t too keen on either, as this is an area that I understand even less than politics.  While I have to admit that this did impact my reading experience a bit, fortunately the other aspects of the novel related to the mother/daughter relationship as well as the Chinese historical and cultural elements were conveyed in a compelling enough way as to keep my interest continually piqued (and kept me turning the pages to see what happens next).

As I was reading through the reviews, I noticed the reaction to this novel has been a mixed bag so far.  Some love it, some hate it, some feel it is too much of a departure for Louise Penny, some feel the plotting doesn’t work, some feel it’s not action-packed enough, etc. Of course, as with all books, everyone will have a different opinion, though I have to admit that I was a bit surprised by the huge disparity between the “like” and “dislike” – usually the gap between the two is smaller. I cannot speak for others, as we each bring our own respective experiences into our reading, but on a personal level, I felt that there were so many aspects of this novel that were well done.  Now, I must say that I read this one less for the “action-packed political thriller” piece (as I said before, I don’t read too many political thrillers, so can’t really comment on whether Penny and Fung succeed in this area), but rather, I was more interested in the character development (especially the mother/daughter relationship) as well as how the culture (my culture) was portrayed.  In both of these areas, I feel that Penny and Fung definitely delivered the goods.

First, the characters – one of the things that stood out to me with this book is the character development.  Both Alice and Vivien are nuanced characters who may not necessarily be likeable right off the bat, but they evolve as the story progresses and by the end, even though they might not have fully resolved their differences (which, realistically, they probably wouldn’t), they do come to a better understanding of each other so that their relationship becomes less strained.  Indeed, some of my favorite scenes from the story were the ones involving various interactions between mother and daughter.  The reason why I was so drawn to Alice and Vivien – not just their characters, but also the complexity of their relationship – is because, as a Chinese daughter myself, I understood intimately the complicated dynamics between mother and daughter that play out throughout the story.  One example (of many) that best illustrates this is in the opening scene, where Alice notes that when she entered the restaurant, she was 26 years old, but when she got to her mother’s table, she regressed to being 14 years old; as they interacted further, she became 9 years old and then 5, and finally, at the end of her rope, Alice regresses to a 2 year old on the verge of throwing a tantrum.  As I read this opening scene, I was struck by the familiarity of the emotions – specifically, the ever-present undercurrent of tension between mother and daughter – that is a defining feature of their relationship.  A couple chapters later, there is this quote, which is one of my favorites because of how perfectly and succinctly it encapsulates what makes the Asian mother/daughter dynamic so challenging: “[Alice] heard the clicking of her mother’s tongue.  Exasperation.  Disapproval.  Disappointment. The trinity that slowly crushed the spirit of Chinese children.”  For Asian daughters, striving to meet our mothers’ expectations but never getting there is part and parcel of our relationship dynamic, just like their constant criticisms of every aspect of our lives (how we look, how we dress, what we eat, who we hang out with, etc.) is the natural “love language” with which our mothers communicate with us.  This is partly why I was able to relate so deeply to Alice and Vivien’s constant bickering throughout the story – others might find it annoying, but I actually found it refreshing to see the familiar relationship dynamic depicted so authentically in a mainstream novel.

As for the Chinese history and culture portion – as I mentioned earlier, both authors did a great job in this area.  I watched an interview that Penny and Fung did where they talked about all the thought and discussion that went into this aspect of the book and I have to say that it absolutely shows.  Both authors said that one of their main challenges was figuring out how to accurately portray the history and culture portion without bogging down the story with too much detail – which I feel they definitely accomplished (and it was no easy feat considering the multiple settings of the story in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, which each have their own very different cultural nuances). One thing from that interview that stuck with me is when both authors mentioned that the only argument they had while writing this book was about a scene in Taiwan that was originally going to depict people looting, but Fung said that in the culture they are writing about, it would be inaccurate to put that, as looting is not a common occurrence in those circumstances, so they ended up writing that scene differently.  Both authors mentioned in the interview that, with Fung’s Chinese background (and especially with various members of her family living in Hong Kong and China currently), she was very conscious about being culturally true to the place that they were setting a scene in.  I definitely noticed this as I was reading (especially the scenes set in my birthplace of Hong Kong, a city with which I am intimately familiar) and I appreciate the meticulous attention that was paid to getting things culturally right.

Overall, I felt that this was a solid collaborative effort from Penny and Fung, especially given the two authors’ completely different backgrounds and writing styles. While I can’t comment on how this book compares to either author’s previous works (because, as I mentioned earlier, I haven’t read either author’s previous works), nor do I care to comment on the genre aspect (i.e. how well the “political thriller” piece was executed), I really enjoyed the story as a whole.  I’m not sure whether there will be another collaboration in the future with these two authors (who are both great storytellers in their own right), but if there is, I’m definitely looking forward to it!

Received ARC from Minotaur via NetGalley (though I ended up reading a finished copy).

Review: Missing Sister (by Joshilyn Jackson)

My Rating: 2.5 stars

I’ve read several of Joshilyn Jackson’s previous novels and liked them all well enough, so I picked up her newest work, Missing Sister, with a certain amount of anticipation, especially after reading the interesting premise and understanding that this would be another novel in the thriller / suspense category, which she has been pretty solid in judging from past books I’ve read.  Indeed, this one started out fine – a bit slow burn, yes, but I was okay with that because I figured Jackson was setting up the backstory and the pace would pick up later once the action started happening (more on this later). Though with that said, I do have to say that, from the start, I honestly did not like the main character Penny Albright – not only did she come across to me as perpetually immature and frustratingly whiny, she was also entirely unconvincing as a police officer.  The entire time I was reading, I couldn’t shake the impression of Penny as a petulant teenager playing make believe cop -- her character is actually in her late twenties, I think, but she talks like a 15 year old (sorry, but it’s hard for me to take a cop seriously who constantly describes another person as sitting “crisscross applesauce”). Of course, it also didn’t help that Penny as a character was written in a way that I typically can’t stand – the “damsel in distress” type who is forever justifying her every thought and action (which, because the story is narrated in first person, felt like she was endlessly debating with herself in her head), constantly berating herself and putting herself down (she actually calls herself “dumb” and “stupid” on multiple occasions), and then backing all that up with one nonsensical decision after another (after another, after another, ad nauseam).  But Penny wasn’t the only annoying character – interestingly enough, every character in the story actually frustrated me in some way, which unfortunately made it difficult for me to stay invested in the story, since being able to connect with at least one of the characters (or, minimally, feeling like I want to root for them) is crucial for me and I didn't find any of that here.

Annoying characters aside, I was hoping the story would at least be enough to make this a worthwhile read for me, but unfortunately, I also had issues there as well.  Technically, the entire story didn’t work for me, but the plot was especially problematic, as it had way too many holes in it, to the point that it became distracting.  Speaking of distractions, I also felt that there was a lot of unnecessary “fluff” that bogged the story down – things such as stretched out descriptions of minute details (there was one scene that literally spent paragraphs describing everything the character sees within the half second it took to turn their head), drawn-out conversations about irrelevant things that seemed to have nothing to do with the story, and weird scenes where characters seem to be hallucinating and blubbering nonsense one minute but then speak coherently and seem completely fine the next minute. Overall, so much of the story didn’t make sense and I found myself having to suspend disbelief for so long that I ended up skimming large chunks of the story because I couldn’t bear the ridiculousness any longer.

With all that said, there were some bright spots, such as the set up in the opening pages, as well as the reveal at the end, which I didn’t figure out – but as a whole, the story was difficult to follow (because the writing was all over the place) and the frustrating aspects outweighed the non-frustrating ones too much for me.

While this book was a definite “miss” for me, it hasn’t put me off from reading Jackson’s other works -- though admittedly, I will probably be more selective in terms of choosing which ones to read (maybe I’ll stick with the historical-themed stories instead of the mystery / thrillers).

Received ARC from William Morrow via NetGalley.

Review: My Husband's Wife (by Alice Feeney)

My Rating: 4 stars 

It is not lost on me that we are almost halfway through the month of February and so far, I have only finished 1 book (compared to the 10 books that I read in January, which was definitely a record for me).  Though with that said, I am not actually complaining, as I kind of already knew that my reading life would take a hit this month due to how busy I would be with several birthdays to celebrate (both within my family and among close friends), various Lunar New Year festivities to attend, and of course, watching the Olympics (specifically the figure skating events, since I’ve been a fan of the sport since the 1980s).  So basically, not getting to as many books this month isn’t a bad thing at all, it just means that I will need to do a bit more catching up next month, which is totally fine by me.

One book that I wanted to make sure I got to this month was Alice Feeney’s latest thriller / suspense novel My Husband’s Wife, which actually came out in January.  Feeney has been an “auto read” author for me ever since I read and was blown away by her debut novel Sometimes I Lie – so much so in fact that, without realizing it, I’m now actually a completist of her works (that is, until her next book comes out).  Prior to reading this newest work, I had seen several reviews which said, essentially, that this was Feeney’s best book to date – an assessment which, having read all her books, I can’t really agree with.  Yes, this book was good and I would definitely rank it in the top 5 amongst her works, but I hesitate to use such a superlative as “the best book she’s written” so far. One thing I CAN agree on however is that this book is definitely Feeney’s most intricately plotted to date – though yes, just like with her previous books, there will also be some moments where suspension of disbelief is necessary in order to truly “enjoy” the reading experience.

When I first picked up Feeney’s newest book, it actually did take me quite a while to get into the story.  The first third or so of the book consists of chapters that mostly alternate between the first-person perspectives of the two main female protagonists, Eden Fox and Olivia Bird (“Birdy”) – two characters that I honestly did not like and could not stand (as I mentioned in my review of Feeney’s previous books, she seems to make her characters more and more unlikeable with each book).  In fact, the annoyance was so palpable this time around that I was actually tempted to DNF (which, for me, is a rare occurrence) – but of course, since this is Feeney after all, I pushed through my initial frustrations and started really getting into the story at about the midway point.  That’s also around the time that I realized there was a pattern to the way Feeney ends and starts each chapter (the first sentence of the new chapter is a variation of the last sentence of the previous chapter), which I initially thought was interesting but didn’t fully appreciate its significance until I got to the end of the book and figured out the way it connected seemingly disparate aspects of the story together.  I don’t want to say too much more about this, as I don’t want to give any part of the story away, but I mention this as something worth paying attention to while reading if possible.

In terms of the twists and turns, there were plenty of them this time around, and as expected from Feeney, several of them were brilliantly executed.  With this being the 8^th book of Feeney’s that I’ve read, I’m plenty familiar with her style by now, so I knew better than to take any part of the plot at face value.  Despite being able to figure out a good portion of the ending early on (I’ve learned to read some of the textual clues that Feeney drops throughout the story), I was still quite surprised by some of the “twists” that I definitely didn’t see coming. For me, this is part of the “fun” of reading Feeney’s works – on the one hand, being familiar enough with her style to be able to pick up on certain clues the first time around that other readers new to her books might have missed, while on the other hand, still being surprised by particular elements of the ending and “big reveal.” 

With all that said, for those thinking about picking this one up, especially if it’s your first experience with Feeney’s works, I would suggest diving in with a clear mind and just going along for the ride without trying to dissect things too much.  While I eagerly await Feeney’s next book, I can’t help but wonder what type of twisted, mind-boggling adventure she will have in store for us next.  Hopefully we won’t have to wait long!

 

Review: Gone Before Goodbye (by Reese Witherspoon and Harlan Coben)

My Rating: 3.5 stars

Before I go into my thoughts on this book, one thing I feel compelled to start with is that I’m a bit of a cynic when it comes to books written by celebrities and/or other famous public figures who are very much “not” authors.  Part of this could be because I’m a writer myself and understand how much work (blood, sweat, tears, and sacrifice) goes into writing something worth reading – in a sense, writing is an activity bordering on “sacred” for me, so I can’t help feeling disappointed when I see celebrities attach their names onto books that they didn’t actually write themselves, but they are given all the credit for it (yes, I’m looking at you, ghostwritten celebrity memoirs).  Now before I get attacked by any fans, I need to make it clear that I am not saying that’s what happened here, since, to Reese’s credit, she has been very forthcoming from the getgo about the fact that she did not write this book herself, rather it is a “collaboration” with established author Harlan Coben. Further, Reese has said in interviews (as well as in the Acknowledgements pages at the back of the book) that she provided the “seed of an idea” for the story and Coben was the one who turned it into “a fully fleshed-out, page-turning thriller” – so yes, I acknowledge that this situation is not on the same level as those ghostwritten books where the “real” author is given little to no recognition.

With that said however, I will be honest in saying that, after finishing this book, I can’t help but wonder about Reese’s involvement in its writing – specifically, did she write some of it or none at all?  The reason I say this is because the entire novel felt very “Coben-esque” in the sense that it read very much like a plotty action thriller with too many macho male characters, too few underdeveloped female characters, and tons of action scenes involving gun fights, helicopters, car and motorcycle chases, death-defying stunts, etc.  In other words, the book seems to be geared more toward Coben’s fans than Reese’s.  I also can’t help but be reminded of a question that had come up back when the Reese Witherspoon/Harlan Coben collaboration was first announced:  given that Reese’s Hello Sunshine media brand “puts women at the center of every story across all platforms” (this is from the blurb on the book’s back cover) and the books she chooses for her Book Club are all written by female authors, why would she choose a male author to collaborate with for her debut novel?  Doesn’t this contradict what Reese tries to do with her brand?  Indeed, judging from her book club picks (for the record, I’m not a Reese fan, but I do follow her book club because majority of the books she chooses to feature happen to fit my reading tastes), I was expecting Reese’s debut novel to be a collaboration with a female author (perhaps one she has featured in her book club) and more in the vein of a high concept literary suspense / thriller with a strong female protagonist at its center.  Turns out I had the wrong expectations.

Don’t get me wrong – this book had an interesting premise and I would say that I did “enjoy” it overall, but it didn’t blow me away.  There were the expected twists and turns (Coben is a seasoned suspense / thriller writer after all), though as usual, I was able to figure most of the plot points out early on, so the suspense portion was a little lacking.  Also, the ending kind of left me scratching my head -- it felt anti-climactic to me given how “action-packed” the rest of the story was (though it could be that I just didn’t “get” the ending).

In any case, this was an overall entertaining read that I’m sure fans of action thrillers will love, but if, like me, you’re not keen on action thrillers, then you might want to temper your expectations if you decide to pick this one up.  Also, one last thing to note is that, given the premise, there are a lot of details related to the medical and technology fields throughout the book – personally, I felt it was a bit much and at times, the technical jargon kind of bogged down parts of the plot, but again, this could just be me not being into the “science-y” stuff…my guess is that this won’t be  a problem for most folks who decide to read this one.