Thursday, August 10, 2017

The Breakdown

In B.A. Paris’s The Breakdown, Cass sees a car broken down on the side of the road during a storm. After hesitating to help, and ultimately deciding not to, Cass is shocked when she learns the fate of the stranded driver. This shock, combined with a family history of early-onset dementia, leads to Cass’s own mental breakdown.

The premise sounds intriguing, but I found the first 250 pages to be extremely tedious. Paris recounts incident after incident of Cass’s mental demise. Ok, I get it, now move on. The final 100 pages finally pick up, but I’m not sure they made up for the slog of the first two-thirds of the book. This was my first Paris novel--and likely my last.

Thursday, August 3, 2017

The Lying Game

Ruth Ware’s The Lying Game unites four friends seventeen years after their expulsion from boarding school. What brings them back together? A tragic secret on the brink of being revealed. The story is told from the perspective of Isa, on maternity leave after giving birth to her daughter. The big problem with The Lying Game was it was rather boring. Isa was boring. Her worries and concerns felt boring and redundant. The secret, at many junctures, was boring. The reasons the girls were expelled from school and their treatment from the local population seemed artificial and emphasized victim shaming and blaming. Although the book picks up in the last 100 pages, I was disappointed and rather bored for the first 250. If you have read other Ruth Ware, pick this one up. If not, skip it.