Saturday 21 May 2016

Book Review - Don't You Cry by Mary Kubica

Amazon UK
Title: Don't You Cry
Author: Mary Kubica
Format reviewed: Ebook
Source: Netgalley
Publisher: MIRA
Publication Date: 17th May 2016 
Rating: 3.5 Stars


In downtown Chicago, a young woman named Esther Vaughan disappears from her apartment without a trace. A haunting letter addressed to My Dearest is found among her possessions, leaving her friend and roommate Quinn Collins to wonder where Esther is and whether or not she's the person Quinn thought she knew.

Meanwhile, in a small Michigan harbour town an hour outside Chicago, a mysterious woman appears in the quiet coffee shop where 18 year old Alex Gallo works as a dishwasher. He is immediately drawn to her charm and beauty, but what starts as an innocent crush quickly spirals into something far more dark and sinister.

As Quinn searches for answers about Esther, and Alex is drawn further under the stranger's spell, Mary Kubica takes readers on a taut and twisted rollercoaster ride that builds to a stunning conclusion.

It took until the last quarter of the book for me to be hooked on it at all, which point I was just thankful I was reading it on a Friday evening with no work the following morning, as couldn't put the remainder down. 

However for the majority of the book I was enjoying Quinn's part of the story about her missing room mate, but just couldn't get to grips with Alex's half, to the extent that I found myself skimming some of Alex's pages as there was so much narrative, but not enough action for my liking. 

It is a story about the disappearance of a house mate, and the appearance of a stranger in another town. From reading the blurb I had my suspicions but it took until a quite far into the book for me to realise the truth of what was actually happening, and it wasn't like I suspected and there are definitely some red herrings thrown in for good measure too. 

The writing was good, I think it's just that I enjoyed Mary Kubica's previous book a lot more and thus was disappointed by this story, however since the last part redeemed itself, I am glad I read the whole book.  I find with psychological thrillers I either love them and find them unputdownable, or like this one I struggle a lot until I find the redeeming features. I'm very slowly learning that I need the blurb to excite or hook me from the start, as those are the books in this genre that I tend to enjoy. 

Obviously books affect everyone in different ways, and it may just be that I wasn't quite in the right head space for this book when I read it. Don't You Cry is an interesting story, some of the characters were really nice, especially Quinn, but yet I found the lack of information about the two girls central to the story frustrating at times, as it made it that bit harder to connect to them. 

Thank you to Netgalley and MIRA for this review copy. This was my honest opinion. 

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