Reviews

I honestly did not like this book AT ALL. From the first few chapters I had guessed every single “twist” and the book just dragged from there. Clara’s reasoning for things & the jumps she makes from her kid having nightmares to her husband being murdered (?????) are insane and unbelievable. There isn’t a single likeable character or interesting plot point in this book. Highly recommend avoiding this one, I had to push through to finish it just so I could move on to another book.

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1.0

A *complete* miss for me. I figured out several key twists long before they were revealed, and I pretty much hated Clara. Complete review to come.

Full review:

Every Last Lie is a book that seems to be suffering from a bit of an identity crisis. On the one hand, the books hints at dark secrets, but on the other, it doesn't want those secrets to be *too* dark, lest the characters become unlikable. It probably goes without saying is that the end result is the book falls flat, and at times it even delves into ridiculous territory. There will be a fair amount of spoilers in this review, so read at your own risk.

I'll say right off that my biggest issue with this book is the characters, particularly Clara and Nick. I couldn't stand either of them, which isn't the determining factor in whether I like a book, but I could almost sense the author straining for me to like them. As a couple, they're nauseating. Every time Nick waxed poetic about his wife it came across as cheesy rather than endearing. And Clara has such a huge blind spot when it comes to her husband that it's a wonder she can see anything at all. On their own, they're no better.

Let's start with Clara. The book wants me to sympathize with her as a grieving widow, and while that coupled with the possibility of her having some form of postpartum depression or postpartum psychosis did allow the book to stretch its credibility, it's way too over the top in the end. I could understand Clara latching on to the idea of Nick's death not being an accident, particularly given Maisie's actions. However, Clara becomes unhinged, in a way that would have worked if this book wanted to go all the way to the dark side. This book doesn't want to go there, though, and so even though Clara repeatedly neglects her children to the point of abuse, acts out in ways that should have made the people around her feel a lot more alarmed for her state of mind, and eventually resorts to violence, I felt I was supposed to sympathize with her. The worst, most egregious example of this is when she loses all control with Izzy, her mother's caretaker. *Of course* Izzy turns out to be a thief, because otherwise the reader might be appalled by the fact that Clara brutally beats her. I also found it just ludicrous that Clara gets self-righteous about what her children shouldn't be exposed to, but ultimately stops beating Izzy only because Maisie sees her doing it. Oh, I'm sure *that* won't cause the poor kid any lasting trauma. I also rolled my eyes so hard at the detective who doesn't even do so much as call social services when an unwashed, unhinged new mother covered in blood (blood she outright says isn't her own) shows up at the police station with her two kids in tow--even though he suspects she assaulted Izzy. How does this woman not end up arrested?

Nick isn't much better. Clara's father issued all kinds of warnings about him, and it turns out he was right. There are varying degrees to Nick's sins, but since there's a whole laundry list of them, I ended up outright hating his character. There are his sins of omission, which range from mild (not telling his wife about an ex-girlfriend making a reappearance in his life) to outrageously awful (not telling his wife about said ex's suspicions about her son's parentage, not telling his wife about the malpractice suit being brought against him, not telling his wife about losing their entire savings, not telling his wife about... Yeah, seriously. I haven't even listed all the things he neglects to tell his wife about.) Clara's dad is straight up right about Nick being bad news, there's no doubt about that. The worst part is, after all the terrible things he does, the author pretty much gives him an out by making him win big after betting on a sporting event (because, ya know, what spouse *doesn't* want their spouse exposing them to potential further financial disaster by engaging in sports betting), thus recovering the entire savings he lost. Yep. I'm not making that up, sadly.

The mystery, such as it is, isn't a mystery at all. Oh, there are so many red herrings all over the place you'll think you're out to sea, but that does not a plot make. I think there's an argument to be made that this is more psychological suspense in that it deconstructs how a wife deals with grief rather than it being psychological suspense of a criminal nature, but that's not what this book is promising. Instead, I slogged my way through hundreds of pages of poorly developed secondary characters who exist only to move the plot along (Hello, neighbor who abuses his wife. How you doing, skeezy best friend who only seems like he's going to be helpful to his best friend's grieving widow.), overwrought passages about dealing with grief, nauseating depictions of a husband star-struck by his wife, and a protagonist who's so dense and so off her rocker that it's hard to read for all the eye-rolling her actions induce. I recommend skipping straight over this one.