Read as part of CBR14 Bingo: recommended. This book was recommended by author May Cobb, whose “My Summer Darlings” is one of the best things I read this year. I was looking for a female-focused thriller with a similar lack of inhibition.
Ok, right off the bat, this book is bonkers. If you looking at the premise and expecting any degree of verisimilitude, give this a hard pass.
But it’s the willingness to lean into its bonkers-ness (?), to go over the top and just keep climbing that made it so entertaining. It definitely earns the Desperate Housewives label.
Also, while these characters aren’t especially deep, Jeneva Rose had a way of making me care about them in spite of myself. It helped that the one sharing the future perspective: Jenny, was only tangentially tied to the main group of “friends” (more like frenemies) so the reader felt like they could catch a quick breath before getting back into the wildness of the story.
I remember what NYT writer Wesley Morris once said admiringly of the TV show Empire: that all of its characters were the horniest on television and would sleep with anything, any time. That’s how I felt about this one, the backstabbing, the manipulation, the scheming, the sex. It’s glorious and it knows it.
I’m singing its praises, I know but I still can’t give it more than 3-stars. Perhaps its the snob in me but I need my thrillers to be tethered somewhat to reality. This read like a Jackie Collins fever dream. And it was (that’s fine). But it gives the book a hard ceiling.
Nevertheless, it crashes the ceiling as hard as possible. It’s a fun book and I recommend the curious to try it, especially if you’re looking for a trashy palate cleanser.
