Book review of The One That Got Away, by Simon Wood

The One That Got Away, by Simon Wood

The Summary:

Graduate students Zoë and Holli only mean to blow off some steam on their road trip to Las Vegas. But something goes terribly wrong on their way home, and the last time Zoë sees her, Holli is in the clutches of a sadistic killer. Zoë flees with her life, changed forever.

A year later and still tortured with guilt, Zoë latches on to a police investigation where the crime eerily resembles her abduction. Along with a zealous detective, she retraces the steps of that fateful night in the desert, hoping that her memory will return and help them find justice for Holli. Her abductor—labeled the “Tally Man” by a fascinated media—lies in wait for Zoë. For him, she is not a survivor but simply the one that got away.

With an unforgettable heroine, a chillingly disturbed psychopath, and a story that moves at breakneck speed, The One That Got Away is thriller writer Simon Wood at his finest. [via Goodreads]

The Review:

This book was fairly good. It starts with the main character, Zoe, trapped by the killer, and making a choice that would change the next fifteen months of her life. I love Zoe, even though she is more than a little self-destructive. I feel like she matures throughout the course of the book as well as prior to the book’s beginning. The Tally Man is an interesting character – more than once I found myself empathizing with him and understanding his motives a bit more than I would like. This story doesn’t leave any loose ends, and it has an ending that I think most people will enjoy, or at least feel is a good end to the whole thing. My only minor complaint is that the author has set the story in the Bay Area of California, but he somewhat regularly (and possibly unconsciously) uses British English words or phrases in place of American English ones – things like referring to the detectives as inspectors or labeling cartons instead of boxes. It’s not difficult to figure out, just out of place. Overall, I enjoyed this book.

The Rating: 

Pros: 

• Great story
• Likable protagonists
• Oddly relatable murderer

Cons: 

• Some language inconsistencies

Would I recommend it? Yes, if you like mysteries or thrillers, this is a solid choice.

Book review of The Prettiest One, by James Hankins

The Prettiest One by James Hankins – A Thriller

The Summary: 

When Caitlin Sommers finds herself alone in a deserted parking lot with blood on her clothes and no memory of the past few months, it seems like one of the nightmares that have tormented her for years…but it’s all too real. Desperate to learn the truth about where she’s been and what has happened to her but terrified of what she may find, Caitlin embarks on a search for answers. Her journey takes her from the safe suburban world she knows to a seedy town she’s never heard of, where a terrible truth from her past lies hidden—a truth she can’t quite remember yet can’t completely forget. [via Goodreads]

The Review: 

It took me a while to decide what I wanted to write about this book. On the one hand, the book was not that bad. It moved a little slowly, but not so slowly I had to put it down. The plausibility of the story is low, but authors don’t have to stick to the likely scenarios in order to tell a good story. I think the problem is that Hankins gave his main character a highly rare condition and gave the rest of the circumstances she encounters an even more impossible set of circumstances – and then didn’t even give the reader a satisfying journey with the main character. Caitlin is hard to like, her two companions are even less likable, and after everything, the ending was incredibly unsatisfying. Overall, I feel like my time would have been better served reading almost anything else at my disposal.

The Rating: 

Pros:

• Unique story

Cons: 

• Weak storytelling
• Implausible story
• Bad ending

Would I recommend it? No, it’s unlikely I would.

Happy reading!