Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I'm sorry. I apologize in advance to those who adore this book and admire the author's cleverness and facility with "playing" the reader. YOU MAY LIKE IT. THAT IS OK. We can agree to disagree. If you read this review, you are doing it because you want to hear what I really think and not just the gushings of the author's friends and of people who totally buy into the book, right? Right. SPOILER ALERT. Now, I love a good unreliable narrator, a text that takes you for a spin and you suddenly realize, hey, the narrator is either not understanding what's going on HIMSELF or is presenting only the details he or she wants to present for readers to see him in a good light. You sort of have a double-understanding in texts like that. They are tough to do and very much fun when done right. But this is not what I consider a good novel with an unreliable narrator. If you want an unreliable narrator to take you on a ride, read Philip K. Dick's mainstream novel Confessions of a Crap Artist. This is just . . . I don't know, the author doing obvious maniupulation and lieing to us. I don't mind being "played" as a reader if the payoff is "Of course!" the way it often is in these twisty little passages of novels, but this just made me feel I was playing in a mudbox and I wanted to wipe it off my hands. The first third of the book makes you sympathize with this poor little woman who writes the diary, but then you realize what a lying conniver she is. Slowly you see that you have been almost 100% lied to, not just misled or teased, but tricked. I do not think it is playing fair with the reader. It becomes so obvious what a psychopath she is, and I don't like the husband, either, because he cheats and seems as shallow as a cookiesheet full of stagnant water. I guess the ending serves them both right, but I just couldn't stomach the thing. I did not drink the Kool-Aid. Yuck! I feel as if I wasted time that I could have spent watching re-runs of the Big Bang Theory. You see, those characters are flawed and do things that could be seen as mean or crooked, but you LOVE tham and you understand them and want them to be happy. I just wanted both of these idiots to fall into the abyss. Buh-bye, idiots! Here I have been LIED TO the whole first half of the book and then the plot basically falls apart, because if she did all this setting stuff up and then it turns out she's not dead and she reappears, then who did all this setting up to make it look as if he killed her? Is that not an offense that she would be arrested for after all the publicity about her being killed and such?! They aren't going to pursue charges at all? And now I am supposed to feel all OK about how clever it was and how it justifies whatever? There is not enough NO in the world. I read fiction to make sense of the world, not to be jerked around and fed bull-corn. I read fiction in order to have a vicarious experience that I enjoy. That's why I don't read stuff with excessive gore, explicit endless hump-hump-hump sex, or "inside the mind of a serial killer" because I do not WANT to be in there. I want to be in a fun rollercoaster ride that delivers what it promises. This did not. If you want to read a caper novel where you actually DO root for the criminals--read Donald E. Westlake Grandmaster, any of his books, especially the Dortmunder series. Those books will not leave you feeling ripped off (maybe avoid THE AXE because justice is not done there either and it might make you mad, but the others are great rides.) I just can't recommend that you waste your money and time on this particular book, as clever as the author was for the first part of the book. And there weren't a bunch of typos and messed-up sentences the way you see in lots of indie pubs now. That's the highest praise I can give it, I suppose. Sorry to be a downer. Next time I'm only going to review books I adore and we won't have to go through all of this,. Not recommended. Again, I'm sorry it didnt turn out better for all of our sakes.