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This can be an effective storytelling device, but in this case, waiting for the private investigator heroine to get to where the reader is at the beginning of the story feels interminable. After Josie flees the scene of whatever happened, Alix repeatedly asks Josie if Erin is okay and Josie says she is. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.
Why do you think Josie imbues this relatively ordinary coincidence with so much importance and meaning? The Netflix show ABOUT the podcast is cleverly and neatly interspersed into the narrative, and I kid you not, every time one of these sections popped up, I could almost SEE the drama unfolding before me. Unfortunately, Josie isn’t content to just complain about her own husband … Alix’s husband is also subject to Josie’s scathing opinions. The characterisation is excellent and I’m going to say little about either Alix or Josie as that is one of the joys of the book to discover for yourself! The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for your discussion.
She lives in north London with her husband, two daughters, two cats, two guinea pigs and the best dog in the world.
Although she wants to help her, Alix fears that this case may be far more involved than any she's explored in her podcast thus far. The plot twists, turns and barrels it’s way at a fast pace to a good ending which isn’t neatly sewn up but which feels real as, let’s face it, life frequently isn’t tied up in a pretty bow. Alix gives the key she found to the police, who discover Brooke’s body in a garage on Josie and Walter’s property. LJ: Honestly, I think the biggest enemy that I can see of people who’ve tried to start writing novels is overthinking.To say this one threw ALL of my preconceived notions out of the window COULD be the understatement of the YEAR! At the end of a particularly sinister and AMAZING horror movie, I always have that moment where I'm GRATEFUL to leave the theater, blink in the sunlight, and feel part of the less ominous real world.
Josie ponders her life and choices throughout the novel, at one point wondering how she might leave her family and live elsewhere. The podcast only comes alive as a script when it’s used as part of the Netflix documentary and it was that documentary that really formed the structure of the book, not the podcast itself.Louise is a woman I feel a very strong bond with, although we don’t see each other much, I absolutely get her, and she makes total sense to me. When Josie proposes she be a guest on Alix's podcast to tell the story of her life, Alix is curious about this strange woman. Lisa Jewell has been around the scene for a while now: this is her ELEVENTH thriller after making the transition from romance novels.
The author ventures into some very dark and disturbing themes in this novel (grooming, pedophilia, sexual abuse of a minor, trauma and mental health) and I’m not comfortable with the way those topics were presented. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. This book is no different, and the multiple povs really give us insight into the various narrators inner thoughts and feelings while the tension ramps up around them. There are a few aspects that I had to overlook up until this point, behaviors and lack of affirmative action in the characters that I don’t think would play out the way it did in the book in real life, but understandably needed to be done to progress this particular story.Alix does podcasts, and Josie worms her way into Alix's life and asks her if she would like to tell Josie's story in a podcast. Shortly after, they bump into each other again outside of the school that Alix's children currently attend, and Josie's attended years ago. The reader knows this isn’t going to end well, but when the inevitable twist came, I had to pick my jaw off the floor…it was brilliant.
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