★★★☆☆ | Mystery-Suspense | Digital | Borrow | StoryGraph | Goodreads
A reading web site recommended this book as a literary mystery with an unbelievably great plot twist. The story opens with hit and run murder of a five-year-old boy while his devastated mother cradles her son’s dead body. Tough subject matter for a grieving parent, but I persevered.
When I got to the big plot twist, it was a little too clever. It felt dishonest. The villain in the story is a one-dimensional sociopath with little backstory. I had no idea how this person became so evil, which made the character unbelievable to me. I had a hard time connecting with any of the characters in this story.
Highlights
Gradually, without my noticing, my grief has changed shape; from a raw, jagged pain that won’t be silenced to a dull, rounded ache I’m able to lock away at the back of my mind. If it is left there, quiet and undisturbed, I find I’m able to pretend that everything is quite all right. That I never had another life.
Most people had one of two reactions when they lost someone: either they vowed never to move house, keeping rooms exactly the way they’d been left, like some sort of shrine; or they made a clean break, unable to bear the thought of living every day as though nothing had changed, when in fact their whole world had shifted.