Who Haunts You
Ratings2
Average rating3.5
I received an ARC of this title through Netgalley. These are my thoughts.
I have a bad habit of thinking early on I can predict my eventual star rating. So much can happen between that first impression and the end. Stories can stumble, or find their footing, and endings can elevate or cast the story down into the bowels of ... somewhere.
I spent a lot of this story thinking it was for sure at least 4 stories. I found a misspelled word here or a misused word there, but – overall – it read really nicely and I was invested. I wanted an explanation for various intriguing developments and so the pages turned themselves.
The main character was very likeable and provided autism representation. I welcomed that choice and also thought it added to the story in terms of her having to deal with biases. We had a plot where she was always under the best of circumstances going to be unable to provide evidence for things she knew to be true, and that's before adding people mistrusting her ability to perceive events correctly. I felt that was an honest way to go.
Unfortunately, the ending didn't hold up or satisfy or, really, work. It's quite possible the author could explain it in a way that would make it hold together, but I don't see how. In the end, at least two conflicting things have to be true, and that makes no sense – severe cognitive dissonance. The alternative is that both these things are false, and with a main character with autism, I'm not liking the implications.
After I read this book, and felt a general dissatisfaction and sense that the ending didn't hold together, I took a bath and thought about it. And I kept remembering what felt like inconsistencies or a dropped plot line. This is a short book, a novella, and while I like that length that doesn't mean I always think it works. I think this story needed more pages, and so when it feels like there are dropped plot points I think that's wasted real estate.
Anyhow, I'm thinking about all this, and even though I'm in the tub I think about the rabbit hole of the TV Tropes page, and the trope called Fridge Logic. It's basically where the you finish a story, go about your life, and all of a sudden a thought pops up into your head about how something you accepted in the story makes no sense.
I think the ending only works at all, a little, if you don't think about it. And if you can reconcile it all, that holds a creepy message. This is disappointing considering I was so very into this story most of the way, to the point of discussing with my husband how I couldn't wait to find out what was going on.
That this is a 3 star book for me after the ending is a testament to how much pleasure I took in most of it. And how disappointed I was in the end/ending. I would love to read more by the author, but I think I'd read reviews first to make sure the story holds all the way through.
