*SPOILERS INCLUDED*
I haven’t read in a while and I used to only read romance novels with happy endings but had to stop bc it makes me DELUSIONAL. My friend is a really big fan of Freida McFadden and she suggested this book to me whilst she read another one of her novels. She hasn’t read this yet which led me to make a Reddit acc just so I can talk about it LOL.
I read this within a couple hours as this was my first mystery/thriller novel and I was eager to find out the ending. The synopsis intrigued me as well. Here are my questions, comments and opinions:
First of all, a part that confused me was when Ms. Swanson comes to see her and threatens to expose who she really is. Why didn’t she follow through and expose her to reporters? That part was left out, a loose thread that I wanted to be tied. Maybe I missed it? I felt like it was important because that would’ve been a MAJOR change in plot if she did, Nora’s whole life would’ve changed. It seemed like it was just brushed under the rug idk.
I had my suspicions for who the killer was. Brady and Phillip for obvious reasons, however I felt like it was TOO obvious so I started thinking outside the box. I had my suspicions on Harper as soon as it mentioned she started to study biology and wanted to be in the medical field but that was the only factor for my suspicion so I disregarded it.
The book started to get really good and I was expecting a serious plot twist. When Nora visits her dad in jail and she asks him who the killer is and he said it was her. Sooooooooo I’m thinking hmmmm, it might be! Like maybe she has some type of split personality disorder and doesn’t recall committing the crimes? He mentioned that she showed signs of being like him especially when he said she used to kill her pet mouses. In the flashback chapters, it never once insinuates that she killed the mouse she got on her birthday. When her dad gifts her the mouse, her mom wasn’t happy but he shrugged it off and said “she’ll be more careful this time.” I thought she was just playing rough or something and pet mouses probably don’t have a long life span. So when the mouse died a week later, all she said was it died suddenly and her mom was upset that it died but she didn’t care. I didn’t think she KILLED them though. I personally wouldn’t care if a mouse died (sorry PETA). Her parents arguing about her needing therapy seemed like a forced detail that didn’t tie in with what was going on based on my opinions of the mouse.
Her flashbacks of Marjorie made me assume that she was the killer trying to get revenge because she was bullied and Nora pretended to take interest in being her friend. Nora tells her they can hang out but she isn’t allowed to tell anyone, it just seemed like she didn’t want people to know because obviously she’s bullied and is an outcast and doesn’t want to be seen with her. When Nora decides to play hunter and prey, she obviously tried to kill her but decided otherwise. That part, again, felt forced because there’s nothing that leads you to believe she wanted to kill her up until they play that game.
It ended up being Harper, which made sense. Her backstory was bleh and was super played out, almost cliché. After the epilogue there were a few pages of her POV. It mentioned a part where Mrs. Kennedy came back to confess to Nora that her husband was actually beating her and Nora gave her something to kill him inconspicuously. Prior to that, in Nora’s POV, Mrs. Kennedy didn’t back to see her (in that time frame). Only Ms. Swanson came to threaten her. The only time in Nora’s POV where Mrs. Kennedy was mentioned was when she came to her workplace to tell her her husband died of a heart attack. Nora was surprised, SAD even. She literally thinks to herself: “he wasn’t murdered he died peacefully” and Mrs. Kennedy even says, “obviously the heart attack has nothing to do with the surgery he had.” Nora also thinks to herself: “even losing a patient for something that has absolutely nothing to do with me or the surgery they had is not a good thing.” It goes back to the idea of her having split personality disorder or she’s literally delusional because it’s revealed by Harper that she helped Mrs. Kennedy kill her husband… so why is she bothered by him dying? Why is she acting oblivious to it? It’s confusing.
IMO the authors intention behind the details weren’t executed properly. Maybe there’s a deeper, metaphorical reasoning behind her style of writing and I just didn’t catch on… I even scrolled back through the book to confirm some details regarding my assumptions. Overall, I give this book a 6.9 🌟 out of 10.
by mindollaz