Read this as part of CBR14 Bingo: hot. Colleen Hoover is the hottest writer out there right now.
(Zoolander movie voice) That Colleen Hoover is so hot right now.
Seriously, I keep hearing her name in book circles (is that the same Colleen who writes historical fiction? No that’s McCullough), seeing her books literally EVERYWHERE (this one I kept getting confused with the popular and similarly titled YA historical thriller “Code Name Verity”) and getting recs from my friends to a random sex worker whose interview I read. I literally cannot escape Colleen Hover, despite having no idea who she is or what she writes. So I think to myself: I gotta check something out.
Apparently written early in her career, this domestic thriller is thin on characters but packed with suspense. I see the genesis of what would become a good writer but I couldn’t connect with the leads enough to feel it…and that was before the epilogue delivered a twist with over five pages of exposition.
But the journey to get there entertained. Hoover writes some harrowing scenes well. I audibly reacted to a few and I rarely do that with fiction. So it sticks at 4. If I think about how ridiculous it is for more than a few minutes, I’ll drop it to 3. Yet I got what I came for.
Also, if this is your gateway to domestic thrillers, I beg you to pick up Megan Abbott and/or Laura Lippman in the future, especially if you want something more than women drooling over a man.
