My Review:Serial meets Ruth Ware’s In A Dark, Dark Wood in this inventive and twisty psychological thriller about a mega-hit podcast that reopens a murder case—and threatens to unravel the carefully constructed life of the victim’s daughter.
The only thing more dangerous than a lie...is the truth.
Josie Buhrman has spent the last ten years trying to escape her family’s reputation and with good reason. After her father's murder thirteen years prior, her mother ran away to join a cult and her twin sister Lanie, once Josie’s closest friend and confidant, betrayed her in an unimaginable way. Now, Josie has finally put down roots in New York, settling into domestic life with her partner Caleb, and that’s where she intends to stay.
The only problem is that she has lied to Caleb about every detail of her past—starting with her last name.
When investigative reporter Poppy Parnell sets off a media firestorm with a mega-hit podcast that reopens the long-closed case of Josie’s father’s murder, Josie’s world begins to unravel. Meanwhile, the unexpected death of Josie’s long-absent mother forces her to return to her Midwestern hometown where she must confront the demons from her past—and the lies on which she has staked her future.
I LOVE LOVE LOVED the first season of Serial so I thought the premise of this thriller sounded so good. And the similarities to Serial were pretty well done - the book vacillates between the first person narrative of Josie and each episode of the podcast reconsidering her father's murder a decade before, with a few reddit posts and tweets concerning the podcast in real time thrown in. Use of faux social media in books is becoming more prevalent every day and I generally like it. This book wasn't necessarily bad but it also wasn't very thrilling. It started out pretty good and I could sympathize with Josie who has tried to create a new life for herself after her father's murder, her mother's disappearance into a cult and her twin sister's betrayal. Obviously, the popularity of the podcast reconsidering whether the man in prison after being convicted of her murdering her father actually did murder him is upsetting, to say the least. All of this had the set up and making of a great book but it just fizzled out. There were too many threads and the author went out of her way to make the journalist authoring the podcast absolutely atrocious. I didn't get a better sense of Josie or any of the characters in the book any better than I did in the first chapter. I think this was an interesting read but it could have been so much more. Hopefully you have better luck!
Are You Sleeping comes out next week on August 1, 2017, and you can purchase HERE.
Nothing good happens after midnight. At least that's what Aunt A used to tell us whenever we begged for later curfews. We would scoff and roll our eyes and dramatically pronounce she was ruining our social lives, but over time I cam to see the wisdom in her words. Trouble is the only thing that occurs between midnight and morning.
oh this one sounds pretty disappointing here. There are some books that just don't work out for everyone. But I do love a good thriller.
ReplyDelete