Cannonball passport: Thank you to my friend Lydia for the recommendation!
Oh literary thriller you say? Hints of The Secret History? Hahaha no it’s already in my cart and I’m going to read it. There are a few “it’s quite like x” statements that lead to me immediately jumping on a bookwagon, and The Secret History is definitely high up on that list (if I had to think of others, definitely…Pride and Prejudice retellings, anything friends/enemies-to-lovers, and anything Naomi Novik writes, apparently).
Having never read Makkai’s other opus (The Great Believers–I know, I know, I’m getting to it) I don’t have much to compare against. But as a standalone book, I…liked this one? Seems like most people had an issue with how clueless our main character Bodie was about the nuances of getting into a potentially mistaken conviction of a Black man for the murder of a white girl some ~20 years ago. Like. You don’t say? That there could be some issues at play???
Bodie as a podcasting teacher at a two week summer camp at a posh college is probably the most believable part of this whole story. I know so very many of these sorts of programs, and they are all equally ridiculous in my opinion (and stuffed to the brim with students eager to have their resumes stand out when it comes time to interview/apply for the selfsame schools). That she can then make legitimate strides in a decades old cold case based on nothing but some hunches and with no one other than a ragtag team of Scooby Doobie Doo gang-esque high schoolers is next level. But I suppose I’m not looking for a next-level mystery with small clues I could have picked up along the way. As I think I’ve demonstrated again and again, I have no ability to do so. A tense book (albeit somewhat long) that keeps me engaged without being too onerous? Sign me up.
