Published: April 2013
Source: NetGalley
The most relentless, deeply disturbing thriller writer since Jeffery Deaver and Gillian Flynn
For years, best friends Sarah and Jennifer kept what they called the “Never List”: a list of actions to be avoided, for safety’s sake, at all costs. But one night, against their best instincts, they accept a cab ride with grave, everlasting consequences. For the next three years, they are held captive with two other girls in a dungeon-like cellar by a connoisseur of sadism.
Ten years later, at thirty-one, Sarah is still struggling to resume a normal life, living as a virtual recluse under a new name, unable to come to grips with the fact that Jennifer didn’t make it out of that cellar. Now, her abductor is up for parole and Sarah can no longer ignore the twisted letters he sends from jail.
Finally, Sarah decides to confront her phobias and the other survivors—who hold their own deep grudges against her. When she goes on a cross-country chase that takes her into the perverse world of BDSM, secret cults, and the arcane study of torture, she begins unraveling a mystery more horrifying than even she could have imagined.
A shocking, blazingly fast read, Koethi Zan’s debut is a must for fans of Karin Slaughter, Laura Lippman, and S.J. Watson.
My Thoughts:
Oh, how I struggled to give this book a rating. For me, this is one of those books that I think had the potential to be much better than it actually was. I loved the concept, and for me the first half of the book was great - fast-paced, gripping, impossible to put down. But somewhere around the halfway point, I started feeling like the book would have benefitted from much tighter editing.
Many of the situations the characters found themselves in just felt increasingly implausible and I found myself struggling to suspend my disbelief. Sarah, who has suffered from severe agoraphobia for ten years, suddenly starts flying all over the country with the aid of nothing more than her own sheer strenth of will. She is meeting and questioning strangers, staying at unfamiliar hotels, driving down isolated dirt driveways and generally seeming to forget that she has crippling anxiety. FBI agent Jim (who might as well be a cardboard cutout, for all the characterization he is given) constantly shares classified information with Sarah about her own case and generally does nothing to prevent her from running her own investigation. There were also several things about the girls' case that I couldn't believe no one had investigated ten years ago. I just kept thinking that so much of what happened was so unlikely.
I liked the beginning of the book so much that it was difficult for me to admit to myself that I was enjoying it less and less as it went on. But the book just became increasingly full of convenient situations. I also felt like while the first half of the book was very well-paced, the second half tried to cram in way too much information and became very choppy. I liked the idea of the big reveal at the end but didn't feel like it had the impact that it could have, if the set up had been better crafted.
All in all this one hovers between a 2.5 and a 3 for me. It was an enjoyable read but I definitely think it could have been a much, much better book if it had undergone some changes before publication.
Also, this is not the author's fault but please, please can we stop comparing every thriller to Gone Girl. It's just setting everyone up for disappointment.
Have you read this one? What did you think? I've noticed that it seems to have very love/hate ratings on GoodReads.
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