I have a weakness for domestic thrillers. You know the type- they’re all called The Lie, or the Perfect Husband, or well, When I Was You. It’s always about a so-called perfect family with dark secrets, unreliable narrators and incredibly implausible plots. For some reason, the vast majority of ones I stumble across are written by British women.
These are the books I read when I want to shut off my brain, so I go through them pretty fast. This is my latest find- When I Was You.
First person narrator Kelly is writing to someone the entire book- the mysterious “you.” We know things are wrong in Kelly’s life and that she has had troubles with her mental health before (many allusions to an incident involving a stolen baby). But when she makes a new friend with her exact same name and a newborn Kelly is dying to bond with, what could go wrong?
Well this is a domestic thriller so literally everything.
I will say, I had my guesses as to the final twist, and the correct answer was in the rotation, but I hadn’t settled on it for sure before the book revealed it to me. For a domestic thriller, that’s not bad!
Yes the ending was ridiculous. But the book wasn’t horribly written, the plot wasn’t COMPLETELY obvious, and as is the case in 90% of these, the husband was dastardly. What more could you possibly want?
P.S. If you want a lovely domestic thriller that even sucked in my skeptic SO, who always laughs at the ridiculous plots of these books- Best Day Ever by Kaira Rouda. Just trust me.
