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tectonicplate's review
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder
Moderate: Rape
thisroundsonme's review
dark
fast-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? Yes
2.0
A book you can read in a day or two. Book about a drive by dad who doesn’t know it. Flawed understanding of his own family and life.
dreaming_ace's review
3.0
I am giving this a 3 because it is well written but in terms of my enjoyment of the story I would probably give it 1 star.
The main character is a creepy manipulative gaslighting miss-treater of women (his sisters, mother, wife, daughter, co-workers …) who tries to explain these characteristics away through paternalism which almost makes all his behaviors throughout the whole story even worst.
Personally if a character is going to be creepy manipulative and gaslighting I would prefer they were doing so for power, or money, or revenge or something tangible, instead of being creepy manipulative and gaslighting under the false pretense it was better for the women in their lives.
Personally for me by the time we get to the end the ending is not shocking at all, he has been a horrible person over the course of the whole book and no matter how much he says he is a "good man" he never is.
This is the type of book that I have to go on a long walk after reading in order to decompress.
The main character is a creepy manipulative gaslighting miss-treater of women (his sisters, mother, wife, daughter, co-workers …) who tries to explain these characteristics away through paternalism which almost makes all his behaviors throughout the whole story even worst.
Personally if a character is going to be creepy manipulative and gaslighting I would prefer they were doing so for power, or money, or revenge or something tangible, instead of being creepy manipulative and gaslighting under the false pretense it was better for the women in their lives.
Personally for me by the time we get to the end the ending is not shocking at all, he has been a horrible person over the course of the whole book and no matter how much he says he is a "good man" he never is.
This is the type of book that I have to go on a long walk after reading in order to decompress.
monicamjw's review
dark
medium-paced
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.5
annalokshin's review
2.0
took me such a long time to even get into this book because about 70% of it just seemed like background information to me. i will say the author did a good job of creating a depressing and pity inducing atmosphere, but again, the beating around the bush before getting into the actual plot was too much for me. i would forget things are even supposed to happen plot wise while reading and find myself wondering “why am i reading about this man’s midlife crisis for 150 pages again?”
i was in for some mystery and thrill, not an autobiography. however, the last little chunk of the book hit me out of nowhere and was actually quite disturbing. a very weird read for sure. still not sure how i feel about it
i was in for some mystery and thrill, not an autobiography. however, the last little chunk of the book hit me out of nowhere and was actually quite disturbing. a very weird read for sure. still not sure how i feel about it
magyklyxdelish's review
2.0
Wow this was a pretty big let down.
I’m all for slow burn thrillers but I would say 98% of this book was just boring and mundane buildup to what was a very predictable conclusion that didn’t effect me nearly as much as it was supposed to.
The parts of this book that were supposed to come off as creepy just came off as weird. I not only didn’t “like” the main character, I didn’t care about him one way or another. He was just this boring person whose life and thoughts moved the pages along. For such a short book it honestly dragged for me so much.
Now with writing, I’m not super picky. There’s really only a couple things that bother me. This book however has brought attention to a new annoyance in writing I didn’t know existed. Apparently writing a book where literally ALL of the dialogue has ZERO quotation marks, even when there’s a conversation going on between 3-4 people...well I would say it’s annoying, but it’s honestly just weird. I can’t imagine why anyone would do that? It brought confusion to parts where there didn’t need to be?
Even getting past the lack of quotation marks and having to guess when the conversation ends and the inner dialogue begins, I can’t get over how bored I was.
This isn’t a book I would read again or recommend, but to each their own.
I’m all for slow burn thrillers but I would say 98% of this book was just boring and mundane buildup to what was a very predictable conclusion that didn’t effect me nearly as much as it was supposed to.
The parts of this book that were supposed to come off as creepy just came off as weird. I not only didn’t “like” the main character, I didn’t care about him one way or another. He was just this boring person whose life and thoughts moved the pages along. For such a short book it honestly dragged for me so much.
Now with writing, I’m not super picky. There’s really only a couple things that bother me. This book however has brought attention to a new annoyance in writing I didn’t know existed. Apparently writing a book where literally ALL of the dialogue has ZERO quotation marks, even when there’s a conversation going on between 3-4 people...well I would say it’s annoying, but it’s honestly just weird. I can’t imagine why anyone would do that? It brought confusion to parts where there didn’t need to be?
Even getting past the lack of quotation marks and having to guess when the conversation ends and the inner dialogue begins, I can’t get over how bored I was.
This isn’t a book I would read again or recommend, but to each their own.
amylittleford's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
Firstly, I'd like to thank Netgalley and Cornerstone Press for the eARC for an honest review. I also found the audiobook on the Libby app (library app).
You can probably see from my rating that I didn't enjoy this book. We have Thomas, the MC and narrator who is telling us his story and trying to figure out where he went so wrong. This is supposed to be a dark and gripping novel of psychological suspense but it completely missed the mark for me. Most of this book is learning about Thomas' life and his 'girls' which included his wife, daughter, twin sisters and mother. I would really love to know how many times in this book 'my girls' is written because I bet it is too many times - also half the time it isn't clear which of his 'girls' he is talking about which is very frustrating. Of course this is from Thomas' POV so most of what we are learning isn't real or how it actually happened. Don't get me wrong, I love a good unreliable narrator, and have recently read very good ones. This was not it.
Nothing happened in this book. I wasn't gripped at all. Even the ending when we learn why Thomas is in prison did nothing for me - I didn't care about the characters. They were all barely formed with no personalities. Half the things that are actually happening in Thomas' life that he isn't telling the reader never come to light and are just briefly mentioned that cause the downfall of his perfect family life. This is very slow paced but everything that happens is brushed over so it just feels like words about this family rather than a book with plot and character and meaning behind it. I don't think the narration of the audiobook helped.
A lot of the time, Thomas would lose focus and go off on a tangent about anything else, like the opera or his past. These things would come out of no where and would really drag and added nothing to the book. I get the reasoning behind it and how it shows us the mind that we are getting an insight into but I didn't enjoy it. I could say that all the characters are quite odd but that could also just be how Thomas sees them. I know I wouldn't have been able to get through it if I didn't have the audiobook. It looks like this is the only book Ani Katz has written - the writing is of good quality but the plot and characters weren't developed enough for me to enjoy.
You can probably see from my rating that I didn't enjoy this book. We have Thomas, the MC and narrator who is telling us his story and trying to figure out where he went so wrong. This is supposed to be a dark and gripping novel of psychological suspense but it completely missed the mark for me. Most of this book is learning about Thomas' life and his 'girls' which included his wife, daughter, twin sisters and mother. I would really love to know how many times in this book 'my girls' is written because I bet it is too many times - also half the time it isn't clear which of his 'girls' he is talking about which is very frustrating. Of course this is from Thomas' POV so most of what we are learning isn't real or how it actually happened. Don't get me wrong, I love a good unreliable narrator, and have recently read very good ones. This was not it.
Nothing happened in this book. I wasn't gripped at all. Even the ending when we learn why Thomas is in prison did nothing for me - I didn't care about the characters. They were all barely formed with no personalities. Half the things that are actually happening in Thomas' life that he isn't telling the reader never come to light and are just briefly mentioned that cause the downfall of his perfect family life. This is very slow paced but everything that happens is brushed over so it just feels like words about this family rather than a book with plot and character and meaning behind it. I don't think the narration of the audiobook helped.
A lot of the time, Thomas would lose focus and go off on a tangent about anything else, like the opera or his past. These things would come out of no where and would really drag and added nothing to the book. I get the reasoning behind it and how it shows us the mind that we are getting an insight into but I didn't enjoy it. I could say that all the characters are quite odd but that could also just be how Thomas sees them. I know I wouldn't have been able to get through it if I didn't have the audiobook. It looks like this is the only book Ani Katz has written - the writing is of good quality but the plot and characters weren't developed enough for me to enjoy.
alexisrt's review
4.0
Thomas Martin is a successful ad executive with a pretty wife, a daughter he loves, and a nice house on Long Island. Sounds great, right? Well, we know from the outset that it doesn't end well.
The initial setup of the book doesn't leave too much of a mystery: Something tragic happens to Thomas' family--and since it's a first person crime/thriller, you know the narrator can't be completely relied upon. That doesn't seem to be a huge recipe for success, or at the very least seems like it will be a retread, but Ani Katz generally makes it work.
It's a short book, a little over 200 pages, so it moves fairly briskly; I finished it in an evening. Although the general trajectory is predictable, Katz writes it well enough to keep you hooked and make you unsure exactly how and when things will happen. Although you know that Thomas has to be an unreliable narrator, he isn't a consistently unreliable one: you don't know how his self-perception is divorced from reality, and the degree isn't consistent. He seems to have been happily married, a good employee, a loving father, and there's independent evidence of that, such as promotions at work.
And yet, the seeds of toxic masculinity are there--the odd descriptions of the women in his life, referring to his wife and daughter as his "girls", his family history. The brevity of the book means that some aspects are only sketched out or hinted at, and character development was part of the fun for me.
(As a Long Island native I have a soft spot for books set there and particularly enjoyed the unnamed shout-out to the Walt Whitman Mall, where I spent so many hours as a teenager.)
The initial setup of the book doesn't leave too much of a mystery: Something tragic happens to Thomas' family--and since it's a first person crime/thriller, you know the narrator can't be completely relied upon. That doesn't seem to be a huge recipe for success, or at the very least seems like it will be a retread, but Ani Katz generally makes it work.
It's a short book, a little over 200 pages, so it moves fairly briskly; I finished it in an evening. Although the general trajectory is predictable, Katz writes it well enough to keep you hooked and make you unsure exactly how and when things will happen. Although you know that Thomas has to be an unreliable narrator, he isn't a consistently unreliable one: you don't know how his self-perception is divorced from reality, and the degree isn't consistent. He seems to have been happily married, a good employee, a loving father, and there's independent evidence of that, such as promotions at work.
And yet, the seeds of toxic masculinity are there--the odd descriptions of the women in his life, referring to his wife and daughter as his "girls", his family history. The brevity of the book means that some aspects are only sketched out or hinted at, and character development was part of the fun for me.
(As a Long Island native I have a soft spot for books set there and particularly enjoyed the unnamed shout-out to the Walt Whitman Mall, where I spent so many hours as a teenager.)
msalexisshea's review
1.0
I’m sorry but no to this book. I like “edgy” books but this guy sucked. Hated it.
smashton12's review
4.0
Well that was a terrible (in a good way) foray into the mind of a complete narcissist. The narrator was insufferable, but that’s the point, I think. I would love to see this done as a movie in the style of the scene from 500 Days of Summer where the events play out alongside each other as “perception” and “reality”.