Nothing redeemable about this book, from plot to narrator!

The last hour of this book was some of the worst storytelling I’ve ever heard. First and most importantly, the narrator earns less than one star. After 20 babes and 6 teachers were tragically gunned down at Sandy Hook Elementary School, the VERY LEAST you can do is ensure you correctly pronounce the town where they lived their short lives. How hard is it to check on something like that — not to mention, it’s pronounced as it’s spelled — NewTOWN, not Newton. We don’t live in a Boston suburb. Maybe that seems overly sensitive but if you’re going to reference that horrific tragedy in your book, please respect and honor the dead by ensuring the narrator accurately pronounces the name of the town impacted. An inexcusable and indefensible error imo. The story was tolerable until that last hour. It moved very slowly and nothing could prepare me for how absolutely ridiculous the end of this book actually was. It’s such a dumb, unrealistic dialogue. “I love you and nothing you do will ever change that…. You’re still my son and I love you.” Are you serious?? Way to use the most cliched lines ever written in thousands of books and movies. The whole book was just a bunch of mixed up, random plot lines all poorly executed and thrown at a dartboard hoping something would stick. I highly recommend skipping this one. It was a wasted credit and a waste of time — disappointing in every possible way.

2 people found this helpful

Very twisty!

I don’t understand why this book has so many meh reviews. I really enjoyed it especially considering all the twists. I love a book that keeps me guessing!

Not great

Started off solid but then the characters got annoying, repetitive and just unlikeable. Too much thesis-type dissection at the end.

Hmmmm...

I'm struggling here. The novel starts out with a dynamic "splash," so to speak. From that point, things got confusing, then odd, maddening, and ridiculous. I was really fascinated with this story at the beginning. By the time it finished, I was depressed and realized that only one person felt anything good had occurred from all the events of the story. Not exactly the happy ending I would have preferred... although I can't imagine a happy ending coming from this book regardless.

Amazingly, I don't even feel that the book fits in a particular genre. It started out like a thriller, then seemed to be a psycho-thriller, then unraveled, in my opinion. It bears some hallmarks of the old Alfred Hitchcock stories in terms of shock factor, but Hitchcock never wrote anything like this. I'm having a hard time determining who I would recommend this book to. Perhaps nihilists would enjoy it.

Too many poorly done shock factors.

This is a good base story line but was overdone and just ridiculous by the end. You’ll be disappointed when it’s over.

Meh

I didn’t like how the entire story of the dog snatcher was abandoned and not carefully explained. The narration was great.

Interesting story concept

The idea of the story was thought provoking and overall, I enjoyed the book but I felt like it could have gone deeper with such a serious subject idea. I would have loved to hear the viewpoint from Isaac’s perspective.

Excellent

It is not what it seems! What a twisted story. I enjoyed every page. Interesting, entertaining, and unexpected.

Couldn’t get into it

the plot sounded interesting & unique so I was excited to start but the writing is very juvenile and bland. I want an author to pull me in & make me FEEL it with their descriptions, this will not do that for you.

Disappointing

This is the first book I’ve “read” by this author and I just don’t think the writing is for me. There was nothing I liked about the story but narration was really good so maybe someone else might really enjoy it.