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cheskasarchive's review
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
it was hard for me to get through the book and i think there were unnecessary scenes that were placed. it took me literally days to get through. i still finished it because i was still curious of what really happened.
darcislibrary98's review against another edition
4.0
I, Witness |
I couldn’t put this psychological thriller down.
At 18 years old, Kate Reynolds pleads guilty to murdering her best friend Naomi at a party. Heavily drunk and on drugs, her diary entries around that time had a lot of hate filled messages towards Naomi. She confesses to guilt, cause everyone is saying she did it. Six years later, she is released and wants to prove her innocence. Kate doesn’t have the most conventional family and not everything is as it seems.
Madison Attallee, an emotionally damaged, ex-policewomen now turned Private Investigator helps Kate reveal the truth. Madison struggled to be a wife to Rob and a mother to their daughter Molly. This case is just what she needs to turn her life and Kate’s around.
Mackay creates captivating Pov chapters of some of the characters and their own stories and struggles. What you see on the surface isn’t always the truth. Couldn’t get through the pages fast enough to get to the bottom of the mystery.
4/5*
#nikimackay #madisonattallee #mystery #murder #pyshologicalthriller #thriller #family #dysfunctional
#bookstagram #bookshelf #bookblogger #bookreview #books #bookstagrammer #bookshelves #igreads #goodreads #booklover
I couldn’t put this psychological thriller down.
At 18 years old, Kate Reynolds pleads guilty to murdering her best friend Naomi at a party. Heavily drunk and on drugs, her diary entries around that time had a lot of hate filled messages towards Naomi. She confesses to guilt, cause everyone is saying she did it. Six years later, she is released and wants to prove her innocence. Kate doesn’t have the most conventional family and not everything is as it seems.
Madison Attallee, an emotionally damaged, ex-policewomen now turned Private Investigator helps Kate reveal the truth. Madison struggled to be a wife to Rob and a mother to their daughter Molly. This case is just what she needs to turn her life and Kate’s around.
Mackay creates captivating Pov chapters of some of the characters and their own stories and struggles. What you see on the surface isn’t always the truth. Couldn’t get through the pages fast enough to get to the bottom of the mystery.
4/5*
#nikimackay #madisonattallee #mystery #murder #pyshologicalthriller #thriller #family #dysfunctional
#bookstagram #bookshelf #bookblogger #bookreview #books #bookstagrammer #bookshelves #igreads #goodreads #booklover
sssaaarrraaahhh's review
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
sarahrara's review against another edition
4.0
Also published on my blog.
Audible version, narrated by.. a whole bunch of people.
This is the story of a young woman – Kate – just released from prison, where she served time for killing her best friend Naomi at a party 6 years earlier. However, Kate is not convinced she actually committed the crime (she doesn’t really remember what happened that evening due to trauma and substance abuse) and sets out to clear her name, to get a clean slate. She hires PI Madison Attalee, former police officer and the woman who first talked to Kate at the crime scene 6 years earlier.
I adored Madison from the get-go. She’s the typical hard-boiled PI with a good heart buried under the tough exterior, but somehow she manages to completely defy cliché, and feels like a real, larger than life person right from the start. She’s of course flawed, but all her mistakes in the past seem understandable and don’t make her any less likeable IMO. She’s tough, she’s fair, she’s kind, she’s interesting. And from what I understand (this book being referred to as Madison Attalee #1 on Goodreads) there’s more Madison to come. Which I for one am excited about – count me in!
So, back to the story. Kate moves back to her home town, something Naomi’s mother is none too happy about, so she sets out to ruin Kate’s life as she perceives Kate ruined that of her daughter. And Kate’s family don’t seem too thrilled about her return either. Her father cut contact with her shortly after she was arrested, her brother has only sent her letters seemingly out of duty, and her sister is in a mental institution.
There’s a pretty big cast of varied characters here, most of which are hiding something, which makes it quite interesting. You get chapters from different POVs, the main ones being Kate and Madison. These are also the most fleshed out characters, though I think Mackay did a good job of giving everyone a believable personality and kept characters from getting two-dimensional.
You can guess at some things and you may be right, but I definitely did not think it was easy to figure the whole thing out early on, as it was cleverly written and there were some good twists. I did however figure out the last twist fairly early, in fact I had a suspicion in that direction almost from the beginning, but that didn’t really ruin anything.
I thought this was a really enjoyable and solid crime novel, even more impressive given that it’s a debut. And my two biggest crime novel pet peeves were mostly avoided: random crazy person kills people because they’re crazy (no real motivation or explanation), and characters doing extremely dumb and reckless stuff like going to confront the killer without telling anyone where they are.
There were a couple of times when the timing of things was off (like saying something happened x time ago and then y time ago) – I thought first it might be that I wasn’t paying proper attention to the audio book so I rewound a few segments but it still didn’t really make sense. Not a huge deal though. It’s a very strong 4 and I’d definitely recommend it, the only other minor thing I have to say against it was that I felt it got a bit rushed during the last bit.
A note on the narration: there were different narrators for the different POVs, which I thought worked fine for the most part. My favourite was the woman who narrated Madison – she really sounded the part. My problem was that the male narrator towards the end of the book was super sarky and made like really whiny voices when he was narrating what the other characters said. I can sort of understand why, it does fit the character, but it definitely partly ruined the suspense for me during what was one of the more suspenseful parts of the novel.
Audible version, narrated by.. a whole bunch of people.
This is the story of a young woman – Kate – just released from prison, where she served time for killing her best friend Naomi at a party 6 years earlier. However, Kate is not convinced she actually committed the crime (she doesn’t really remember what happened that evening due to trauma and substance abuse) and sets out to clear her name, to get a clean slate. She hires PI Madison Attalee, former police officer and the woman who first talked to Kate at the crime scene 6 years earlier.
I adored Madison from the get-go. She’s the typical hard-boiled PI with a good heart buried under the tough exterior, but somehow she manages to completely defy cliché, and feels like a real, larger than life person right from the start. She’s of course flawed, but all her mistakes in the past seem understandable and don’t make her any less likeable IMO. She’s tough, she’s fair, she’s kind, she’s interesting. And from what I understand (this book being referred to as Madison Attalee #1 on Goodreads) there’s more Madison to come. Which I for one am excited about – count me in!
So, back to the story. Kate moves back to her home town, something Naomi’s mother is none too happy about, so she sets out to ruin Kate’s life as she perceives Kate ruined that of her daughter. And Kate’s family don’t seem too thrilled about her return either. Her father cut contact with her shortly after she was arrested, her brother has only sent her letters seemingly out of duty, and her sister is in a mental institution.
There’s a pretty big cast of varied characters here, most of which are hiding something, which makes it quite interesting. You get chapters from different POVs, the main ones being Kate and Madison. These are also the most fleshed out characters, though I think Mackay did a good job of giving everyone a believable personality and kept characters from getting two-dimensional.
You can guess at some things and you may be right, but I definitely did not think it was easy to figure the whole thing out early on, as it was cleverly written and there were some good twists. I did however figure out the last twist fairly early, in fact I had a suspicion in that direction almost from the beginning, but that didn’t really ruin anything.
I thought this was a really enjoyable and solid crime novel, even more impressive given that it’s a debut. And my two biggest crime novel pet peeves were mostly avoided: random crazy person kills people because they’re crazy (no real motivation or explanation), and characters doing extremely dumb and reckless stuff like going to confront the killer without telling anyone where they are.
There were a couple of times when the timing of things was off (like saying something happened x time ago and then y time ago) – I thought first it might be that I wasn’t paying proper attention to the audio book so I rewound a few segments but it still didn’t really make sense. Not a huge deal though. It’s a very strong 4 and I’d definitely recommend it, the only other minor thing I have to say against it was that I felt it got a bit rushed during the last bit.
A note on the narration: there were different narrators for the different POVs, which I thought worked fine for the most part. My favourite was the woman who narrated Madison – she really sounded the part. My problem was that the male narrator towards the end of the book was super sarky and made like really whiny voices when he was narrating what the other characters said. I can sort of understand why, it does fit the character, but it definitely partly ruined the suspense for me during what was one of the more suspenseful parts of the novel.
noveldeelights's review against another edition
4.0
Six years ago, Kate Reynolds was sent to prison for the murder of her best friend, Naomi. Despite pleading guilty, Kate says she’s innocent. She returns to her home town, the scene of the crime, and enlists the help of private investigator, Madison Attalee, to find out what really happened that night.
Boy, oh boy, I do so enjoy stories involving dysfunctional families and this one really takes the cake. With family secrets galore and skeletons in various closets, I quickly found myself caught up in a web of deceit and I couldn’t help but feel sorry for a number of characters and all the things they went through.
I took to Madison Attalee right away. Recently divorced and having lost custody of her daughter, everything is pretty much a struggle. But despite the immense load of baggage she’s carrying around on her shoulders, she’s quite a no-nonsense character with a potty mouth, who made me chuckle quite a bit with her self-depricating and dry sense of humour.
The theme of motherhood and bad parenting is woven throughout the story. I sometimes found myself getting increasingly frustrated with some of the characters’ behaviour concerning their children. Ah, the longstanding nature versus nurture debate. That’ll never get old.
"I don’t believe in evil people as such. I don’t think it’s born, which means it must be created."
There were quite a few perspectives in this story and part of me feels maybe things would have benefited a bit more from having a few less. That is not to say it wasn’t executed well or broke the flow in any way. It’s more of a personal preference. Nevertheless, all these chapters give an incredible insight into how pretty much everyone is affected by the choices that were made in the past.
I, Witness is incredibly suspenseful and intriguing. The chilling prologue pulled me in right away. It took me a while to figure out how to fit the pieces of the puzzle together but it all led to the most satisfying conclusion. I thoroughly enjoyed this first instalment in the Madison Attalee series and I can’t wait to see what kind of case will land in her lap next.
Boy, oh boy, I do so enjoy stories involving dysfunctional families and this one really takes the cake. With family secrets galore and skeletons in various closets, I quickly found myself caught up in a web of deceit and I couldn’t help but feel sorry for a number of characters and all the things they went through.
I took to Madison Attalee right away. Recently divorced and having lost custody of her daughter, everything is pretty much a struggle. But despite the immense load of baggage she’s carrying around on her shoulders, she’s quite a no-nonsense character with a potty mouth, who made me chuckle quite a bit with her self-depricating and dry sense of humour.
The theme of motherhood and bad parenting is woven throughout the story. I sometimes found myself getting increasingly frustrated with some of the characters’ behaviour concerning their children. Ah, the longstanding nature versus nurture debate. That’ll never get old.
"I don’t believe in evil people as such. I don’t think it’s born, which means it must be created."
There were quite a few perspectives in this story and part of me feels maybe things would have benefited a bit more from having a few less. That is not to say it wasn’t executed well or broke the flow in any way. It’s more of a personal preference. Nevertheless, all these chapters give an incredible insight into how pretty much everyone is affected by the choices that were made in the past.
I, Witness is incredibly suspenseful and intriguing. The chilling prologue pulled me in right away. It took me a while to figure out how to fit the pieces of the puzzle together but it all led to the most satisfying conclusion. I thoroughly enjoyed this first instalment in the Madison Attalee series and I can’t wait to see what kind of case will land in her lap next.
shellscharlotte's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
kriedesel's review
4.0
Four out of five stars. I really developed a love/hate relationship with this book. Especially some of the main characters. The storyline kept me going though.
whatsclairereading's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0