Reviews

If I Die Tonight by Alison Gaylin

ignited_redqueen75's review against another edition

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4.0

The reason I gave this a 4 star rating instead of 5 star rating is personally it is a bit of a slow burn for my taste and many parts fully frustrated me. I mean in part it was a good frustration because the author had me completely reeled in but at the same time an annoying frustration. The book definitely has it shares of twist that I absolutely did not see coming and what I was imagining wasn't even close. I would still highly recommend this book to anyone that loves to read thrillers.

This book touched on a lot good real life topics such as bullying, suicide, and teenage high school stress that gives you a perspective most people tend to brush under the rug and ignore. As a parent I can imagine and understand the frustration Jackie must have felt when it comes to her boys in this story, it is a lot to swallow.

stephstegink's review against another edition

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4.0

Slow start but got into it about 1/2 way!

susan___'s review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

the ending was wild

gkelch's review against another edition

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2.0

Eh. Fairly predictable and didn't live up to the hype.

teresaalice's review against another edition

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4.0

I thought I knew the ending of this book less than halfway through. Turns out, I did not. And that is a good thing.

ginnygrace's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0


Expand filter menu Content Warnings

celjla212's review against another edition

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2.0

2.5 STARS

Jackie is a single mom of two teenage sons: Connor, the youngest, is mostly obedient and helpful to his mom, but Wade, who used to be his mom's sidekick, has been secretive and seems to have a dark cloud hanging over him for the past several months. When a classmate dies, Wade is implicated in the accident and soon the little town turns on him and his family. But if he didn't do it, and he won't reveal the truth to his own mother, how can he clear his name and stop his life from being ruined?

From the beginning, I wasn't as into this mystery as I could have been. Teenage boys hiding something is nothing new, and some of the plot points seemed very obvious to me. I also thought the progress was very slow, and this wasn't helped by the author throwing in all kinds of relatively useless information about the characters.

So we have a washed up rocker named Aimee, who claims that she was robbed after a show one night by a teenage boy in a black hood. When Liam, the victim of the story, tries to stop the robbery, he is hit by Aimee's car and dies. There are multiple suspects including Aimee herself, and it's like extracting teeth to get any of the players involved to tell the truth about the night of the accident.

I didn't like how the mother, Jackie, basically ALLOWED her son to be so shady and hide things from her. Yes, I know, teens will do that, but when someone has died, the kid doesn't GET to have secrets anymore. I also wouldn't have sent him to school in such a situation, but Jackie did. There were some bad parenting decisions made for the majority of the book. I also felt that Wade was highly overdramatic, and when the truth finally came out about what he'd been keeping from his mother, it wasn't as serious as the life or death situation he was trying to take the blame for instead. I couldn't believe the kid would rather go to prison than tell his mom the truth.

The author does a fine job of making you suspect that maybe Wade really did kill Liam, but there are so many other characters involved in the incident of that night that your attention is thrown in a lot of different directions. In the end, there is a deus ex machina that really just brought the story to a rather bland ending.

I know this is a thriller, but I didn't feel any thrills at all. I would recommend avoiding this one as it's quite forgettable.

misskiwi's review against another edition

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Boring

meringues's review against another edition

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dark mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

alliehwilliams's review against another edition

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4.0

A new must-read author for me, yay!