paperback, 368 pages
Published Dec. 8, 2020 by Vintage.
Five words that describe this book: Free download from the library. That said, I'm sure fans of Gone Girl or Girl on the Train will enjoy this. Me? I'm not a fan of unreliable narrators, so a protagonist who is regularly black-out drunk is more frustrating than intriguing.
For a book that starts with the main character waking up next to a dead man she's not positive she didn't kill, this was pretty boring. It should have been a thriller and instead it was more of an introspective about a woman who is driven to drinking, and seemingly doing everything possible to make her life harder than necessary. I get waking up, freaking out, and making sure you don't get thrown in jail in a foreign country, but some of the choices Cassie makes in the following days/weeks are just self-destructive and I had little patience for it.
For me, the book didn't get truly interesting until around 85% and then it went from interesting to off the rails pretty quickly. A lot of plot got packed into the last 10% or so and it just became unbelievable. Other reviews seem to suggest this wasn't the author's best …
For a book that starts with the main character waking up next to a dead man she's not positive she didn't kill, this was pretty boring. It should have been a thriller and instead it was more of an introspective about a woman who is driven to drinking, and seemingly doing everything possible to make her life harder than necessary. I get waking up, freaking out, and making sure you don't get thrown in jail in a foreign country, but some of the choices Cassie makes in the following days/weeks are just self-destructive and I had little patience for it.
For me, the book didn't get truly interesting until around 85% and then it went from interesting to off the rails pretty quickly. A lot of plot got packed into the last 10% or so and it just became unbelievable. Other reviews seem to suggest this wasn't the author's best work, and while I believe that, I'm not really inclined to give him another shot.
