Why do the best books of the year always come out so early? Now I have nothing to look forward to...

STUNNING. Is it weird that I’m proud of Alexis Schaitken for writing such a great novel? A gorgeous trashy beach read that’s neither trashy or for the beach. Page turning, tear-inducing, poignant and bold af. Who knew a true crime novel about a juicy 1990s Lifetime movie of the week fable would result in profound deliberation about racism, classism, family, love, honesty and fear? I loved this book, highly recommend, and the narration is a SYMPHONY OF PERFECTION.

8 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

I’d rather be alone with my thoughts...

I’ve given this book over five hours and oh how I wish I had that time back. Seven hours left and I’m out. Not only is there no mystery as your outright told who did wary on, there is so much jumping around and seemingly useless information given that I can’t force myself to pay attention. The loooooooong list of narrators should have been my first clue. I’ve listened to hundreds of books over the years and never had more than a couple narrators. This production is bizarre.

Skip it and save your credit.

4 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

Saint X

This book was so scattered. I couldn’t keep the characters straight. After trying to read it for some time, I was lost.
Margaret Bates

3 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

This was not what I expected

The book started out good but then lost its momentum. There was a lot of information about the island & not enough answers about the death. To be honest I almost gave up 1/2 way through. I would not give it a thumbs up. to many questions left un answered.

1 personne a trouvé cela utile

Familiar fictionalized true crime story with not much “meat”

Very similar to the Natalie Holloway circumstances but it had potential as a fictional work. The writer has a nice cadence and prose-like flow but I felt she didn’t take us far enough to fully engage the character development and the unfortunately the plot didn’t take us far enough either. The ending is strange also, no spoilers here, I’ll just say it seems to come out of left field from a new POV. I’d really give it 2.5 stars overall and only 1.5 for the story.

Terrible, flat, monotone narration. So depressing

I can not speak to the story since I can't get past the first chapters without wanting to jump out of a window. Like thick mud. So dreary. Awful.

It’s just SO good!

Love loved this book so much, highly recommend to everyone. You won’t regret the purchase! I need to form my own book club just to discuss and unpack everything! Wow!

Disappointing

I was excited by the reviews of this book, which promised insightful consideration of race and class alongside a more nuanced story of a girl gone missing than we usually get. It was definitely trying to be different but I ultimately found the book really disappointing and plodding and fast forwarded through most of the last chapters. The author just did not build the characters or the plot robustly enough even as she used wayyyyy too many words for repetitive descriptions of the minutiae of their lives. I was also honestly pretty disappointed by the authors rambling and navel gazing reflections on privilege, which reminded me of books like the Help that ultimately are really only interested in their white characters. Her descriptions of the black characters rang falsely to me and ultimately were left with a big pile of white guilt but no road forward. Wish I had skipped it!

Slow at times and disappointing

I find myself at the end of the book and still confused about what happened. Though we have spent 90% of the book following Clive and his life story, it turns out he was not involved in her death and doesn’t know how it happened. While his story is engaging it’s not relevant to how Alison died. And in fact it’s still not clear to me how she died. The blood boy, the second most obvious choice is also not the killer. Though he is upset and ashamed of his behavior that night, he still left her alive. So how and when she went to the island and was killed in the waterfall pond —I guess we are to infer that it was just an accident. Suicide might have been more interesting.

The main character Claire/Emily is abnormal in many ways. It was hard for me to sympathize with her as she lets her life spiral down into obsession with the man who ultimately was not the reason for or part of her sisters death. I had truly wished for more intrigue and less meandering critique of white families, which seemed to me a bit like a black comedians parody of “white folks”.

I did finish the book. I was drawn to finish it. But once done I’m just unsatisfied.

Amazing variance in these reviews

My wife and I both tried for many hours to make our way through this book on a recent road trip.
The writing is good in that words, sentences, paragraphs are put together well. However there is just too much of it - too many words. This book goes on and on and on and on with prose that is not compelling. We quit the book once after several hours on our outbound drive. On the return drive we tried it again and didn't last nearly as long as the first try.