The Promise
I was provided an Advanced Reader's Copy of this book from NetGalley for my honest review.
I have been reading a lot of romances lately, so I was pleasantly surprised when this book showed up on my Kindle. A good psychological thriller would be a nice change of pace.
Anytime a book starts out with a paragraph like this..
"I think I put my hand over her mouth.."
'Don't say that. Don't even think that. You wouldn't have done that.'
They sit very still in this room full of blood and sorrow- girls whose pulses burst in their veins and boom inside their ears. Their heads. Somewhere a clock ticks. A bird calls..
Three Girls. One dead.
You have to automatically be sucked in. The Prologue was very intriguing. It had me guessing, it kept me on the edge of my seat, and automatically the wheels were turning in my head wondering where this story would go next.
The story is about three girls who went to a Catholic boarding school together. Carol, Beth, and Sally were attached at the hip, and formed a pretty tight bond. Their friendship lasted all the years of school, with something pretty traumatic happening when they were 14 that forever changed the course of their life.
The story is told in both past and present tense from three different points of view. Beth, Carol, and a private investigator named Matthew. I was so confused in the first few chapters trying to remember who it was, when it was taking place, and what was going on. Eventually I got myself sorted out, but the story was kind of lackluster for a while.
I wanted to like this story so much, it started out so well. It pulled me in from the start, and then it was just so hard to finish. I felt like there was just so much explaining to do, and so much back and forth between people and time. The middle of the story just felt like it was dragging on and on and it really didn't pick up the pace until about 65%-70% of the book, and then it all felt really rushed. I don't know if I would have liked it better if It was only from one or maybe two point of views, or even just starting from the beginning and making its way into the present time. I don't really understand the need for Matthew's point of view, I didn't really feel his impact on the story. It would have made more sense to me to use all three girls points of view if the author felt the need to have the story coming from three different sources.
I didn't really connect with any of the characters. Carol seemed really scatterbrained, it was obvious she was mentally unstable. Her point of view was told through diary entries, and a lot of times they didn't really make much sense to me. I didn't connect with Matthew at all, because, as I said before, I didn't really understand his purpose in being in the story in such a large role. Beth, I assume, is to be considered the main character. Most of the book is told in her point of view. She was not a bad person, or a bad character, I just didn't really feel any emotional connection to her like I sometimes find myself doing with characters in the books I read.
The big mystery that the whole story was surrounding was really not as BIG as I anticipated. After the author made you wait so so long to get to the big reveal, it was kind of a disappointment. There were a few other parts after the big reveal that were a little more shocking to me. There isn't really too much I can review on this without giving it all away, but I won't lie and say the BIG reveal was exciting, because the book was so hard to read. I just could not find myself getting into the story at all.
Overall I'm going to give this book 2 STARS. This is no disrespect to the author, I will actually still seek out some of her books and give her another try, this story was just not for me. I felt like everything was so drug out, and when you finally got to the excitement it was really rushed.
I have been reading a lot of romances lately, so I was pleasantly surprised when this book showed up on my Kindle. A good psychological thriller would be a nice change of pace.
Anytime a book starts out with a paragraph like this..
"I think I put my hand over her mouth.."
'Don't say that. Don't even think that. You wouldn't have done that.'
They sit very still in this room full of blood and sorrow- girls whose pulses burst in their veins and boom inside their ears. Their heads. Somewhere a clock ticks. A bird calls..
Three Girls. One dead.
You have to automatically be sucked in. The Prologue was very intriguing. It had me guessing, it kept me on the edge of my seat, and automatically the wheels were turning in my head wondering where this story would go next.
The story is about three girls who went to a Catholic boarding school together. Carol, Beth, and Sally were attached at the hip, and formed a pretty tight bond. Their friendship lasted all the years of school, with something pretty traumatic happening when they were 14 that forever changed the course of their life.
The story is told in both past and present tense from three different points of view. Beth, Carol, and a private investigator named Matthew. I was so confused in the first few chapters trying to remember who it was, when it was taking place, and what was going on. Eventually I got myself sorted out, but the story was kind of lackluster for a while.
I wanted to like this story so much, it started out so well. It pulled me in from the start, and then it was just so hard to finish. I felt like there was just so much explaining to do, and so much back and forth between people and time. The middle of the story just felt like it was dragging on and on and it really didn't pick up the pace until about 65%-70% of the book, and then it all felt really rushed. I don't know if I would have liked it better if It was only from one or maybe two point of views, or even just starting from the beginning and making its way into the present time. I don't really understand the need for Matthew's point of view, I didn't really feel his impact on the story. It would have made more sense to me to use all three girls points of view if the author felt the need to have the story coming from three different sources.
I didn't really connect with any of the characters. Carol seemed really scatterbrained, it was obvious she was mentally unstable. Her point of view was told through diary entries, and a lot of times they didn't really make much sense to me. I didn't connect with Matthew at all, because, as I said before, I didn't really understand his purpose in being in the story in such a large role. Beth, I assume, is to be considered the main character. Most of the book is told in her point of view. She was not a bad person, or a bad character, I just didn't really feel any emotional connection to her like I sometimes find myself doing with characters in the books I read.
The big mystery that the whole story was surrounding was really not as BIG as I anticipated. After the author made you wait so so long to get to the big reveal, it was kind of a disappointment. There were a few other parts after the big reveal that were a little more shocking to me. There isn't really too much I can review on this without giving it all away, but I won't lie and say the BIG reveal was exciting, because the book was so hard to read. I just could not find myself getting into the story at all.
Overall I'm going to give this book 2 STARS. This is no disrespect to the author, I will actually still seek out some of her books and give her another try, this story was just not for me. I felt like everything was so drug out, and when you finally got to the excitement it was really rushed.
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