My eyes light up at psychological thrillers, True Crime & great literary fiction
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 I listened to the audiobook of this one, and I have to say, from the very first word read aloud, I was riveted. I didn’t have to go back once to catch something I missed, which is a rarity. And this book is so bold and memorable that it will stay with me for a long time.
Ivy moves to the U.S. from China at the age of five, and she develops a middle-school crush on Gideon, a young member of the New England gentry who seems to be the very opposite of her own immigrant family. She also comes to know a boy named Roux, who lives next to her in their lower-class neighborhood. Some years later, when Ivy is a young adult, these two boys - now men - will represent a choice about what her future will be. As a character, Ivy is both infuriating and heartbreaking. I found myself wanting to simultaneously slap her upside the head and root for her. The book seems to be an allegory that explores the push and pull of the immigrant experience: the warring internal impulses to stay true to one’s own culture and ancestry versus the feeling that one must assimilate and disappear into the surrounding culture. But it also has strong similarities to “The Talented Mr. Ripley” in that Ivy is relentless in her need to social climb to the point of self-destruction. She is desperate to ‘rise above’ her Chinese family and worm her way into the New England blue bloods who, to her, signify success and higher breeding. This is primarily literary fiction with some elements of a slow-burning thriller. The main character is unreliable and terribly narcissistic, but she’s such an interesting vehicle for an exploration of issues around race and class.
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 Rose and Fern are twins in their twenties who have a close relationship despite having shared a traumatic childhood. Rose is the responsible one, Fern the quirky one. Fern accidentally did something terrible when they were twelve years old, and Rose helped her cover up the mistake and has kept a careful watch on her ever since. But when Fern decides to help her sister achieve her heart's desire of having a baby, Rose realizes that Fern might make choices that can only have a terrible outcome.
--- This story alternates between the POV of each of the twins. Through Rose’s journal entries, we experience some of the terrible past events the twins shared during their childhood, which included a mother who was narcissistic and mercurial. Fern’s POV allows us to follow her as she navigates her day-to-day existence working at a library and engaging with others while being on the autism spectrum and managing debilitating sensory-processing issues. And it is such a treat to follow Fern around! Her unique character - its specificity, the humor within it, the heart underneath it - makes this book for me! Fern is so lovable, despite her flaws, that I honestly can’t remember the last time I felt myself emotionally connecting this strongly with a character. And Fern’s internal thoughts and interactions with other characters had me giggling out loud. Yes, I fell in love with this character, but everything else about this story is on point! The plotting and pacing is solid, and there are some great twists I didn’t see coming! I can’t elaborate too much more, since I don’t want to give anything away, so I’ll just say that this is a rare suspense novel that made me giggle while, at moments, warming my heart. I also think that in comparison with Hepworth’s last few books, this one is much closer to a true thriller. I ABSOLUTELY loved this book and highly recommend it! This hits the shelves April 13! Thank you St. Martin’s Press for the ARC!  Bree seems to have a picture-perfect life with a loving husband, two teenage daughters, and a new baby boy. But she suddenly faces every mother’s nightmare when her newborn son is kidnapped by an older woman who makes a demand in exchange for her child’s life.
To get her baby back, Bree must complete one small—but critical—task. It seems harmless enough, but her action comes with a devastating price, making her complicit in a tangled web of tragedy and shocking secrets that could destroy everything she loves. -- Overall, this domestic thriller is heavier on the ‘domestic’ and lighter on the ‘thriller’ to me. Unlike Jackson’s last book, Never Have I Ever, which had me on the edge of my seat throughout, this one -- after a strong beginning -- had me sinking into the couch. The start of the story is gripping, with the suggestion that there is some type of witch haunting our main character (Bree), peering in through the windows of her home, but then the pacing slows. There’s a good deal of time spent in Bree’s head, delivering backstory, so the forward action you typically get in a good thriller becomes weighed down. At some point during all of this, as a reader, I lost my connection with her. And once the action begins moving forward again at a better pace, I wanted Bree to be more proactive. Given the genre and the circumstances, it seems like a couple of other characters step in and take action for her too often. I will say that the ending is VERY strong and fun. This story starts with a jolt and ends with a BANG!! Jackson seems to be a master at nailing the start and the close of a great thriller, and I give her mad props for successfully acting as the narrator of her own audiobooks, too!! This could be a good read for big domestic thriller fans who aren’t put off by a slower pace. This hits the shelves April 6! Thank you William Morrow for the ARC!  Alice decides to shoot a documentary film about a ghost town that was left abandoned years ago when everyone there mysteriously disappeared, including her own grandmother and family.
She arrives in the abandoned town with the small crew she’s assembled, including Emmy, her old roommate from college, but as soon as they arrive, mysterious things start happening. --- This story is told through alternate timelines, switching between the present (Now), in which Alice and her crew scout the deserted area, and the past (Then), in the months leading up to the abandonment of the town. Old letters, sent and received by Alice’s ancestors, also fill in parts of her family history. In the ‘Then’ timeline, a good deal of the events are foreshadowed early, but this is by design. It allows you, the reader, to figure out what is going to happen before it’s revealed, and it’s incredibly effective in creating a sense of impending doom. To counterbalance that, the ‘Now’ timeline is edge-of-your-seat shocking and unexpected and full of twists. It’s bold and dramatic and surprising and scary and also, unexpectedly, sad. Alice is a wonderfully flawed main character, and I really appreciate how well-developed the relationship is between her and Emmy. This story has similarities to the work of filmmaker Ari Aster (Midsommar, Hereditary), which I love!! It’s smart horror that doesn’t just entertain and scare, but provides interesting - and at times uncomfortable - social commentary. And just like Aster’s movies, this book is NOT for the faint of heart. I’d say this is perfect for fans of horror, first and foremost, but also those who enjoy psychological thrillers or mysteries. Thank you St. Martin’s Press for the ARC!  This is the follow-up to “The Sympathizer,” a novel that won the Pulitzer, in which a Communist spy goes undercover after the fall of Saigon, then finds himself in a Communist re-education camp.
In “The Committed,” the spy has escaped and is headed to Paris, where he joins a gang of drug dealers. It’s possible to read this as a stand-alone, as I did, without having read “The Sympathizer.” Although I will definitely be going back to read the first novel now! I read this slowly, over a period of weeks, because I needed time to digest it. This doesn’t strike me as a book you could, or should, read in one sitting. Nguyen’s writing is truly bold and unique: it includes fascinating flights of thought amidst slick espionage and the humorous and self-deprecating internal musings of the narrator. Nguyen himself, as a child, escaped Vietnam with his family in 1975. Through his writing, he works through the experiences of refugees, as well as the failings of both capitalism, which works hand in glove with imperialism, and communism. This novel also includes, I believe, a sentence that is over 600 words long and grittily rapturous, weaving through a violent encounter and escape that turns into a drug-fueled journey, both humorous and sublime, that metaphorically travels from the individual identity, to the collective, to a high-flying recognition of the Buddhist concept that all is one, and back again to the hardened and familiar feeling of isolation. I can’t do the writing justice with my silly little summary, so please, just read the sentence -- and the novel -- for yourself. But please go in prepared, knowing that although Nguyen is painting with a full pallet that includes humor and heartbreak, action and suspense, this is first and foremost an exploration of philosophical notions around ideology, identity, war, memory and humanity. Thank you Grove Press for the ARC! |
