altlovesbooks
Added to listLibrary Book Clubwith 2 books.
Added to listFictionwith 91 books.
Added to listMysterywith 38 books.
I refuse to give this the thriller tag, because it's not all that thrilling.
Nora is a neuroarchitect (yeah, I had to look that up too) living in Brooklyn with boyfriend Jack. She's...not exactly estranged from her family, but near enough to it. Her father, Liam, dies suddenly from falling off a cliff at his California home. Whoops. Brother Sam contacts Nora, suspicious about the cause of death being ruled an accident, and whisks Nora away to do some whirlwind investigating in California. What's covered in this book is the complicated history of this family, Nora's reluctance to form attachments with anyone around her, and everyone's extensive backstory which doesn't usually play a part in the eventual resolution of their father's death.
This was way more of a family drama than it was either a mystery or a thriller. The plot moves at a glacial pace, so if you're here for the 'what happened to Liam' portion of this story, settle in for the long haul. I feel like the author tried to do too much with this story, and should have leaned into either a total family drama and left the murder mystery out of it, or a total murder mystery and left the rest of the family baggage out. As it is, we bounce between ideas a lot during the bulk of this story, and it takes forever for any one of the ideas to reach something close to a conclusion.
I also kind of didn't like Nora as a character either. She has commitment issues, and large parts of this book are her mental thoughts about how she should call boyfriend Jack to check in, continues to not do so, actively ignore his texts, and generally treats what seems like a great guy terribly. The relationship drama included in this book felt entirely unnecessary.
Kind of a miss with me. It's short though!
I refuse to give this the thriller tag, because it's not all that thrilling.
Nora is a neuroarchitect (yeah, I had to look that up too) living in Brooklyn with boyfriend Jack. She's...not exactly estranged from her family, but near enough to it. Her father, Liam, dies suddenly from falling off a cliff at his California home. Whoops. Brother Sam contacts Nora, suspicious about the cause of death being ruled an accident, and whisks Nora away to do some whirlwind investigating in California. What's covered in this book is the complicated history of this family, Nora's reluctance to form attachments with anyone around her, and everyone's extensive backstory which doesn't usually play a part in the eventual resolution of their father's death.
This was way more of a family drama than it was either a mystery or a thriller. The plot moves at a glacial pace, so if you're here for the 'what happened to Liam' portion of this story, settle in for the long haul. I feel like the author tried to do too much with this story, and should have leaned into either a total family drama and left the murder mystery out of it, or a total murder mystery and left the rest of the family baggage out. As it is, we bounce between ideas a lot during the bulk of this story, and it takes forever for any one of the ideas to reach something close to a conclusion.
I also kind of didn't like Nora as a character either. She has commitment issues, and large parts of this book are her mental thoughts about how she should call boyfriend Jack to check in, continues to not do so, actively ignore his texts, and generally treats what seems like a great guy terribly. The relationship drama included in this book felt entirely unnecessary.
Kind of a miss with me. It's short though!
Added to listAudiobooks Readwith 153 books.
I'm no stranger to books about conditions in North Korea, so it's hard for me to say that I didn't really enjoy the presentation of this one. We get the story of Shin, escapee from Camp 14, the only one so far who was born in the camp and who managed to escape. We learn a lot about conditions within Camp 14, but only from Shin's perspective. From the author's commentary, it sounds like his position within the camp was actually fairly privileged, which makes this even tougher to read knowing that even worse things were undoubtedly happening elsewhere. Shin reveals what it took for him to survive, the indoctrination he underwent that warped his view of the people around him, and how he finally broke through it all and escaped.
It's a powerful story, but the author notes early on that Shin wasn't very forthcoming initially, and even after telling his story to the author, changed it at least once. He also comes off as being very disconnected and uncaring about what was going on around him, but it's hard to say if that was the author's voice retelling Shin's story, or a disassociation from what was happening on his part. Either way, it was hard connecting with the story being told.
Finally, I had a hard time with the author acting as a narrator during Shin's story, where we'd suddenly get some North Korean backstory related to something Shin said in the middle of his story. Maybe Shin's story would've connected with me more if we didn't keep having asides in the middle of things.
It's still a powerful book, these small issues aside. Even if only a portion of what Shin said is true as told, it still shines an important light on the terrible conditions within North Korea.
I'm no stranger to books about conditions in North Korea, so it's hard for me to say that I didn't really enjoy the presentation of this one. We get the story of Shin, escapee from Camp 14, the only one so far who was born in the camp and who managed to escape. We learn a lot about conditions within Camp 14, but only from Shin's perspective. From the author's commentary, it sounds like his position within the camp was actually fairly privileged, which makes this even tougher to read knowing that even worse things were undoubtedly happening elsewhere. Shin reveals what it took for him to survive, the indoctrination he underwent that warped his view of the people around him, and how he finally broke through it all and escaped.
It's a powerful story, but the author notes early on that Shin wasn't very forthcoming initially, and even after telling his story to the author, changed it at least once. He also comes off as being very disconnected and uncaring about what was going on around him, but it's hard to say if that was the author's voice retelling Shin's story, or a disassociation from what was happening on his part. Either way, it was hard connecting with the story being told.
Finally, I had a hard time with the author acting as a narrator during Shin's story, where we'd suddenly get some North Korean backstory related to something Shin said in the middle of his story. Maybe Shin's story would've connected with me more if we didn't keep having asides in the middle of things.
It's still a powerful book, these small issues aside. Even if only a portion of what Shin said is true as told, it still shines an important light on the terrible conditions within North Korea.
Added to list2025 Favoriteswith 1 book.
Added to listFantasywith 133 books.
"Drinks. Jokes. Laughter. At the end. I promise."
I'm not going to bother with a full review here, because how do you review the 5th book of a series that encompasses as much as this one does? All I'll say is that if you've read this far, this book is a worthy pause. I hope Brandon Sanderson did a few victory laps after finishing this one, because he deserved it.
"Drinks. Jokes. Laughter. At the end. I promise."
I'm not going to bother with a full review here, because how do you review the 5th book of a series that encompasses as much as this one does? All I'll say is that if you've read this far, this book is a worthy pause. I hope Brandon Sanderson did a few victory laps after finishing this one, because he deserved it.
