The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels

I have (thankfully) pushed most of this book out of my mind but here I am, reminding myself, so I hope you appreciate it. I've read mixed media books before – like Rules for Vanishing by Kate Alice Marshall – but this is the first book (that I've read) with no normal narration/dialogue. The story is told solely through Whatsapp messages, emails, and text messages. It's like a musical where they sing all the lines – even the dialogue to each other is lightly singing. Either you like it or you don't. With this one I didn't but that was more the characters.

The book follows two true crime authors, Amanda and Oliver, as they try to work together and against each other to solve the titular case. I was immediately drawn to the book because it mentioned a cult and I love cults (they fascinate me). Both of them annoyed me so much. It's fine that they were rude to each other (though I didn't really get why), I just had no interest in it. It's true that it would be difficult to create/learn their personalities through this type of medium; but it's not impossible. It just wasn't the case here. They had no personality (in my opinion) and I didn't care about anything they did or said.

I then hoped that if I didn't like the authors, I might like the case – it is mysterious, cults, possibly paranormal? It wasn't so mysterious as just utterly confusing. I don't mind mysteries where you have to think but I also want to enjoy them. I couldn't make heads or tails of this and I could definitely tell that I didn't want to try to understand and possibly solve it.

The cult members also didn't seem like they had any personalities; which is sad because cult leaders are basically always charismatic and charming – that's how they lure people in. This cult leader wasn't at all charming. I was so annoyed that there wasn't a paranormal twist to it. It would've improved the book, if only a bit. Perhaps explained why they were drawn to the cult leader even if he had no personality.