Holy crap this started out rough. I almost quit it a bunch of times. It’s one of those books where it feels like the main character creates a lot of her own problems.
Maris is a psychologist, mom, and wife. She had a drinking problem for many years. She quit cold turkey after a scary incident where she almost drunk drove with her kid. Since then (in her words) she’s been “white knuckling” her sobriety. She doesn’t ask for help, and she doesn’t let people know she’s struggling. I get that to a point, but man you need to reach out for help sometimes!
THEN – she starts randomly blacking out. The first time she’s really scared, but then she kinda brushes it off as a leftover from her drinking. I get that she blamed herself, but she never once talked to her DOCTOR husband about her random blackouts and how she’s struggling.
She finally lands in the ER after a blackout in the car, and she finds out from her doctor that there are a few other women who are having blackouts. This is where things get interesting. I got less frustrated at this point because she was at least working with a few other people. They figure out kinda sorta what’s going on, but not after another woman’s memory is nearly completely erased.
There’s also a whole sideplot where Maris is writing articles about a college kid who got off easy for a rape (think Brock Turner). There’s another girl who you think was raped by him in the past, and she’s trying to catch him messing up again so he can be punished. This all fits interestingly into the whole story.
In the end, I liked this book, but dude it was a rough start!