The Overnight Guest

The Overnight Guest

by Heather Gudenkauf

Blurb:

True crime writer Wylie Lark doesn’t mind being snowed in at the isolated farmhouse where she’s retreated to write her new book. A cozy fire, complete silence. It would be perfect, if not for the fact that decades earlier, at this very house, two people were murdered in cold blood and a girl disappeared without a trace.

As the storm worsens, Wylie finds herself trapped inside the house, haunted by the secrets contained within its walls—haunted by secrets of her own. Then she discovers a small child in the snow just outside. After bringing the child inside for warmth and safety, she begins to search for answers. But soon it becomes clear that the farmhouse isn’t as isolated as she thought, and someone is willing to do anything to find them.

My Reaction:

It could have been better.  It was going to be a 3-star read for me, but thinking (grumbling to myself) about a couple of particularly annoying points has decided me in favor of knocking off another star.  Two it is!  

The story is told through three different timelines, which I wasn't expecting.  This method of storytelling seems to be almost the default choice for so many modern authors, at least judging by the books I'm reading and listening to, these days.  It's not necessarily a problem, but it's also not very original, at this point.  Sometimes it can lead to annoyance, as well, when it feels like stalling and padding out the plot.  Just when things start to get interesting in one storyline/timeline, you're shoved along to something else, and it's rare that all timelines are of equal interest.  

My minor gripes with this book:

• Wylie is kind of annoying.  I just didn't warm to her.  
• Coincidences abound.  (I can't really get into these without venturing into spoilers.)
• Characters make some monumentally stupid choices. (Again, spoiler territory...)
• Predictable in spots.  I must confess that one of the major twists never occurred to me until right before the reveal, but others are very obvious.  I suppose it's difficult to write something that's genuinely unpredictable without leaving your reader annoyed that you misled or hid information... But it's silly when characters don't see what's right in front of their eyes!
• Bad guy is a bit of a caricature. 
• Having Wylie say that Dateline is her favorite TV show?  Blatant pandering.

My final "issue" was with the way the audiobook narrator chose to voice some of the characters.  Some of the voices just irritated me.  Going into who and why would be spoilery, so I'll leave it at that. 

If you don't mind some really dark subject matter and can overlook some honestly idiotic decision-making, it's fine for mindless "entertainment" (though it feels wrong to describe it as entertaining), but it's not as good as I'd hoped.  

SPOILERS FOLLOW.

SPOILER

ALERT

!!!

So, what were the things that annoyed me so much that I knocked another star off my rating?  

First, Wylie tells Becky she's locked Suspect #1 in the shed, so they're safe.  Well, Becky knows who her captor was, but for some unknown reason she waits (and waits and WAITS) until the real Bad Guy shows up to tell Wylie that Suspect #1 isn't guilty.  That's just stupid writing.  Yes, Becky's been through it, has possibly suffered a concussion, and is likely somewhat in shock, but still... She's able to communicate and reminisce about the past, so I'm not buying that she couldn't find a way to process this information and speak up.  

Worse, even when Becky eventually says, "No, that's not the guy; THIS is the man who's held me prisoner for 20 years," Wylie tries to talk her out of it!  I'm sure it's just a misunderstanding.  It's so easy to forget the identity of the man who has held you captive for two decades, raped you throughout that period, impregnated you multiple times, beaten you, etc.  These things can be so confusing!  

Then there's the issue that Becky could have run away long before she finally did.  I just... What?!  She is able to pick the lock (or something) to her door and could have run away long ago, from my understanding.  She wasn't suffering from Stockholm syndrome, but her captor has lied to her, telling her no-one cares she's gone, he has eyes everywhere in town, etc.  (Would she really believe that?!  She was 12 or 13 when she was kidnapped, and seemed fairly savvy...)  

I know that people can be brainwashed and forced into a type of submission that is difficult to fathom if you haven't lived through it, but I find this whole thing impossible to comprehend.  She wants to leave.  She (finally!) plans to leave, even going so far as slowly gathering supplies and hiding them until the great escape can go forward.  But what is she waiting for?  Instead of just getting the heck out of there at the first opportunity, she waits.  For no apparent reason.  She waits until the storm of the century arrives to try to escape, making things much more difficult than they needed to be.  

It's mind-blowing, in a bad way.  

Anyway, putting that aside, when she finally decides it's time to leave, the door isn't an option, but no biggie.  Her young (5-ish?) daughter kindly points out that they can get out through the window.  And apparently that works.  I'd assumed the basement window they kept mentioning was a tiny sliver that wouldn't possibly be large enough for the woman to fit through, and she simply had stopped looking at it as a possibility, years ago, forgetting that the child could use it to get out, then come unlock the door from the other side... But no, it's big enough for a grown woman, so she would have fit through it easily as a young teenager.  

I'm sorry, but that is ridiculous.  Bad Guy never thought, "Hm.  I should probably board up that window or something..."  If there were explanations for these bizarre plot elements, they needed to be included in the book.  I'm not going to do the work for the book and make up reasons for implausible behavior.  

And that's not even getting into the dumb final confrontation scene(s) where characters almost intentionally put themselves in harm's way for no good reason.  Ugh!

The Escape Room

The Escape Room

by Megan Goldin

Blurb:

In the lucrative world of finance, Vincent, Jules, Sylvie, and Sam are at the top of their game. They’ve mastered the art of the deal and celebrate their success in style―but a life of extreme luxury always comes at a cost.

Invited to participate in an escape room challenge as a team-building exercise, the ferociously competitive co-workers crowd into the elevator of a high-rise building, eager to prove themselves. But when the lights go off and the doors stay shut, it quickly becomes clear that this is no ordinary competition: they’re caught in a dangerous game of survival.

Trapped in the dark, the colleagues must put aside their bitter rivalries and work together to solve cryptic clues to break free. But as the game begins to reveal the team’s darkest secrets, they realize there’s a price to be paid for the terrible deeds they committed in their ruthless climb up the corporate ladder. As tempers fray, and the clues turn deadly, they must solve one final chilling puzzle: which one of them will kill in order to survive?

My Reaction:

Eh... No.  This didn't do it for me.  

I finished this a while back and am just now getting around to writing my review, but here's what I do remember:  This didn't impress.  

The escape room element is essentially a bait and switch; there is no escape room, and the "puzzles" are negligible.  Worse, the characters are cardboard cliches of Bad Rich People, and I defy anyone to actually care what happens to the group trapped in the elevator.  Unfortunately, even the "heroine" is utterly unlikeable and dismal to spend time reading about.  She's just boring!  

The last bit of the book was laughable and completely unconvincing, but at least something was happening then—a character was doing something (other than whining or being obnoxious 24/7)—so it was more interesting to read, even if it was basically the same thing you've seen unfold dozens of times on page and screen, except this time it was even more unbelievable than usual.  

Nitpicky things that bugged me more than they should have:

• Descriptions of nearly every single character's clothes and hair.  Seems so amateurish... A little of it?  Fine.  It can reveal something about a character to know how they present themselves, but after a while, it was just dumb.  I don't care what they're wearing!  I don't care if some random character has red hair!   
• Characters in the elevator sometimes can't see a thing; at other times, when it should still be pitch dark, they manage to see just fine, even observing glances between other characters!  It changes based on what the author needs at the moment, either a stress-inducing situation to push a character closer to the edge or the chance for one character to spy on another.  Irritating inconsistency. 
• OH MY GOSH.  Yes, we get it.  High-flying investment bankers are apparently all evil.  (Talk about an easy, risk-free target, though.  Few will jump to the defense of an investment banker!)

The next bit is slightly spoilery.  (Slightly.)  So be warned... (Or better yet, make the decision now to spare yourself this book and just read the slightly spoilery content.)

This description of what's-her-name's apartment after she's been unceremoniously ejected from the high life is just...SIGH...:

"I rented a small room on a short-term lease in a dingy apartment above a burger joint.  During the evening rush, the whole apartment smelled of grease.  When I went to job interviews, I had to spray myself with perfume so that my clothes wouldn't smell like a grill.  My roommate, Fiona, was a college dropout whose deadbeat friends hung out in the living room on a semipermanent basis, watching television at full volume.  I'd wake up in the morning to an apartment smelling of stale cigarette smoke as well as grease, and littered with dozens of empty beer cans.  Dirty plates filled with cigarette butts were scattered around the room.  The bathroom stank like a public urinal, filled with the stench of sour urine from guests too drunk to aim properly."

...This is just ridiculous.  

First, she was employed for years on a high salary (and she got some sort of severance package), yet she's reduced to this?  I know there are supposed to be reasons for her inability to afford anything better, but to put it bluntly, I'm not buying it.  

Second, this wallowing, "poor me" attitude is just miserable to read and makes me strongly dislike this character.  

Third, all of the book seems to be like this, like there's no middle ground.  Whether it's clothes, jobs, apartments, or anything else, there's either luxury or the scum on the bottom of the barrel.  Either you're a high-flying wunderkind surrounded by the trappings of wealth and privilege (but working your tail off 18 hours a day, of course), or you're barely one step above homeless, with zero prospects for employment except some crappy minimum wage job working for a loan shark.  I'm sorry—what?!  She has a fancy degree.  She's (supposedly) brilliant (though evidence is in short supply).  She's worked for a couple of years at a famous bank (or whatever it is).  Yeah, yeah, she has no references, but don't insult my intelligence by asking me to believe she can't do better than this!  It's crazy.  She could easily have gotten even a basic job in retail, put in some effort, and been earning much more than that, but no.  No references?  You're stuck earning minimum wage with a scummy loan shark—and consider yourself lucky you're not digging ditches, instead, missy!  (This plot point really bugs me, in case you couldn't tell.)

Later on—because our heroine has no gumption at all—she's still living in the dump with her druggie roommate, and we get this gem:  

"I'd fall asleep to the smell of greasy fries cooked in rancid oil which wafted into the apartment from the fast food joint downstairs..." 

Truly a LOL moment.  Oh, you thought greasy smells permeating her room and clothes wasn't bad enough?  Well, what if I told you it was the smell of disgusting greasy fries cooked in rancid oil?  What's next?  I'm surprised there weren't descriptions or roaches or rats.  

...Hm.  What else?

Here's a bit I noted:

"They were like capitalist soldiers in their two-thousand-dollar suits, pressed razor-sharp.  ... But no one gets to make the kind of money those four did without tarnishing his soul."

Everyone who's rich is evil, then?  Is that true for famous actors, musicians, and athletes, too?  Don't get me wrong—I'm not a fan of Wall Street types.  They don't need me to defend them, but the idea that anyone who makes a lot of money must have sold their soul is just stupid.  

"They thought I was no better than the janitor who mopped their urine splatter off the restroom floor.  I consoled myself with the thought that they'd find out soon enough who I was and what I was capable of."

First of all, what's with this disgusting obsession with urine?  Second, are you saying that you are inherently "better" than the janitor?  Why?  Because you're (probably) more intelligent and better educated than the janitor?  That's a bit elitist of you, Miss "I Hate Capitalism (Now That They Kicked Me Out of My Fancy Job)".  The janitor might be a better (and happier) person than you are, regardless of their social status.  

And then that ending.  As I said before, this is not something I can take seriously.  It's just a little too out-there to be realistic, but at least it's more fun to read than the plodding pace and depressing crap of the rest of the novel.  (But how did she manage to buy/rent an obviously exorbitantly expensive home, engage a maid and chauffeur, etc. in such a short space of time?  That bit makes no sense at all, unless I missed something.)

I did find it interesting that our heroine, who was so judgmental about the insider-trading-funded ill-gotten gains of her former colleagues was perfectly okay with stealing the money for her own use.  It seems clear that she's planning to live in the lap of luxury for the foreseeable future, funded entirely by that money.  Isn't that a bit... unethical?  

I do wish we had been able to see her reaction to the news that her little prank ended in death.  Would she be quite so smug then?  

Ragdoll

Ragdoll

by Daniel Cole

(Edited) Blurb:

William Fawkes, a controversial detective known as The Wolf, has just been reinstated to his post after he was suspended for assaulting a vindicated suspect. Still under close scrutiny, he's called to investigate a gruesome discovery dubbed "The Ragdoll"—a body made of the dismembered parts of six victims.  

Further complicating matters, Fawkes' reporter ex-wife has anonymously received photographs from the crime scene, along with a list of six names and the dates on which the Ragdoll Killer plans to murder them. The final name on the list is Fawkes.  

Wolf and his fellow detectives are faced with a daunting challenge and a looming deadline ticking away the rapidly dwindling hours of his life.

My Reaction:

Hm.  This one had a disappointingly "blah" conclusion.  I started out feeling ambivalent, then decided to stick with it, because there was just enough entertainment value to keep me reading.  Also, there were so many glowing reviews that I thought maybe it would surprise me...  It was okay for a while—not amazing, but readable—and I was holding out hope for some insane twist.  (I even had a couple of pet theories that came to nothing.)  Unfortunately, the end of the book (and specifically the identity of the killer) failed to impress.  

I was able to overlook the predictable, two-dimensional characters and the many, many cliches while I still held out hope for an interesting reveal and wrap-up, but as soon as the killer was unmasked (which in my opinion came too early in the book, extinguishing all interest), it was all downhill from there!  I sort of skimmed from that point on, because I just didn't care what else happened.  

For much of the book, the killer is portrayed as possessing an almost supernatural intelligence and ability to predict behavior, but when you finally meet the mastermind, it's a massive let-down.  I didn't believe that he could have arranged and divined all of that and then turn out to be so terribly incompetent at the end.  He was just... boringly predictable and cliched.  Exactly like the other cardboard characters (so I shouldn't have been surprised, really).  

There are more books in this series, but I'm not interested.  I guess this is a three-star book for me, but I almost feel that 3 stars paints too positive a reaction, based on how I feel after having just finished the book.

The Talisman

The Talisman

by Jonathan Aycliffe

Blurb:

A statue, unearthed in ancient Babylon during the course of an archaeological dig, is transported to London. Once there, it quickly exerts an evil influence over those with whom it comes into contact; an influence which threatens to spread throughout London and beyond, and which pits the living against the dead in a battle for all mankind.

My Reaction:

This was a three-star read for me.  I've enjoyed some of this author's horror in the past, but it doesn't always land.  This one was right in the middle—effective in spots, but not quite there.  

There are elements of classic horror here, such as Rosemary's Baby, which is a good thing (in my opinion, at least), but ultimately it's just too flat and meandering.  It's like a less interesting and less compelling version of those old classics.  For much of the story, we're getting the second- or third-hand version of events, and while epistolatory writing can be very effective for spooky or creepy tales, somehow it just doesn't work as well here, for me.  

Perhaps part of the problem is that an element of horror will be introduced, but then it just doesn't ever quite "climax".  It's just... lingering there.  In the background.  Which is becoming progressively more cluttered with "horror stuff".  The story is being pulled in too many different directions, and it doesn't know where it wants to go!  

I also found that this book lacked the proper sense of urgency, especially toward the end.  Something dramatic will happen—something shocking will be hinted at or even discovered—and then in the next scene, the characters act like they've forgotten all about it or can't be bothered to get a hustle on and do something about any of it.  The fate of the world is hanging in the balance (not to mention their own loved ones, friends, and allies), and they decide to have a leisurely (boring) conversation.  Frustrating and unrealistic behavior.  

It wasn't all bad, though, and I actually thought the epilogue was okay.  

(I listened to an audio version of this book, by the way.  Entertainment while piecing a quilt!)

Daisy Darker

Daisy Darker

by Alice Feeney

(Edited) Blurb:

After years of avoiding each other, Daisy Darker’s entire family is assembling for Nana’s 80th birthday party in Nana’s crumbling gothic house on a tiny tidal island. Finally back together one last time, when the tide comes in, they will be cut off from the rest of the world for eight hours.  

Trapped on an island where someone is killing them one by one, the Darkers must reckon with their present mystery as well as their past secrets, before the tide comes in and all is revealed.

My Reaction:

I listened to the audiobook version of this novel while quilting, and found it entertaining... Until I didn't.  

—I loved the setting and the quirky details of the house.  Islands cut off by the tide are always a favorite!

—I loved the fact that it was obviously inspired by And Then There Were None.  

—I was intrigued by the mystery, and unlike some, I didn't mind alternating between the "then" and "now" timelines.  (Though to be honest, I've seen so much of that lately!  Maybe it's time for authors of thrillers to try something different, if only to set themselves apart from the rest.)

So yes, I was enjoying it, to begin with, but gradually a few things diminished that enjoyment.  

First:  
These characters!  Almost everyone is awful.  I know, I know!  You need conflict, and awful characters provide that.  The quality of a book isn't dependent on the likeability of the characters, etc., etc.  Yes, but the fact remains that if too many of your characters are just horrid, reading the book becomes an unpleasant experience.  And yes, I did say that I was happy that it was inspired by And Then There Were None, which is also full of awful characters... Look, I don't know what to say, except that while listening to this, I eventually had had enough of ALL of these people!

Second: 

The writing style was quaint and entertaining, in the beginning, but at some point I started to feel slightly annoyed by the "clever sayings" and "deep thoughts" generously sprinkled throughout the novel, both in dialogue and interior monologue.  Some of them are interesting or thought-provoking, but after a while they felt repetitive and irritating.

Third:

Predictable twists that kind of annoyed me.  I saw some of the twists coming, and I didn't love them.  The main twist in particular is just... Eh.  Maybe it didn't help that there was a similar(ish) twist in the last audiobook I listened to.  Maybe I didn't like it simply because it's so sad. 

Fourth:

Some of the motivations didn't make much sense to me.  To be fair, people's motivations in real life don't always make sense, either, so maybe it's not exactly unrealistic!  Still, it dragged down the end of the story, for me.  I spent too much time thinking, "Really?  Well, okay then!"

However—over all, yes, I liked it.  Despite my misgivings about certain aspects of this one, I think I'll round it up to four stars.  

A few SPOILERY final thoughts:

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I do have a question, though, about what happened to all those bodies at the end of the book!  What's going to happen when someone starts looking for one of these people?  Some of them were employed and would have people expecting them back at work within a few days!

END

OF

SPOILERS