August Reads

Umm…I realized the other week I haven’t done a book post since January! How bad is that? I’ve actually done a lot of reading since then, but most of them just weren’t that noteworthy.

Last week, I finished the book I Let You Go by Clare Macintosh. The first time I heard about this book was actually on a subway ad while we were in Toronto back in May. The ad said that it was the new “Gone Girl” or “Girl on the Train”. Even though I loved both Gone Girl and Girl on the Train, I hate how all psychological thrillers are compared to those two books nowadays. Nonetheless, the ad still sucked me in because I love psychological thrillers. I wanted to buy it as soon as we got home from Toronto, but I had other books to finish off first.

This is actually a tough book to give a synopsis or review about without giving away the twists, but here is my attempt: After a terrible car accident that results in the death of 6-year-old Jacob, Jenna Gray moves from Bristol to a coastal town in Wales to escape the memories from that day, while the police work on solving the crime. Arriving at Penfach, she finds a rundown cottage by the sea and attempts to start her life over again. Things are slowly starting to piece themselves together again, but her past soon catches up with her.

There are two storylines in this book – Jenna’s story of her past and present, and the story of the detective who is trying to crack the case, a man named Ray Stevens who is having his own issues at home with a belligerent teenage son and a wife who resents him for working all the time. I found the beginning a bit slow, which disappointed me at first as psychological thrillers are typically page-turners. However, as I read farther, I found that the plot started to suck me in. It’s cleverly written, and I found myself wanting to know how all of the story lines intertwined together. There were definitely moments when I found myself holding my breath in anticipation!

I would say that if I had to rate my ability to guess the twists in any plot, I would give myself a 6/10, and the ones in this book definitely took me by surprise. This story veered off into something I wasn’t expecting at all. It’s an easy book to read in the sense that the story line is not complicated; however, emotional-wise, it’s quite a heavy book (as most psychological thrillers are), and there were parts that were uncomfortable to read. One thing that bothered me was that one of the twists (which had crossed my mind by the middle of the book as being a possibility) was way too farfetched and definitely made me roll my eyes. Part of me feels like the plot as a whole is a bit of a stretch, but at the same time – so are books like Gone Girl and Girl on the Train. I suppose psychological thrillers aren’t meant to be realistic! Nevertheless, it was still a good read.

The author, Clare Macintosh, had a background as a police inspector before beginning to write in 2011, and I Let You Go was inspired by a crime that she had seen while on the job. Apparently, she has another book that came out in 2015, but won’t be available in Canada until 2016. I can’t wait to read it!