WeaveReads

I hate giving one star reviews, but this book nearly ended up on my DNF list… and I hardly EVER do that! I didn’t take notes while reading — partly because I was flying through it, and partly because I was annoyed — so this review is entirely based on the lingering frustration I’m still experiencing after finishing.

First of all, the amnesia trope in the beginning. I know trauma can cause memory issues, and being drugged certainly complicates things, but the way it’s used here just feels like a lazy plot device. She forgets everything… Until she suddenly remembers given the slightest nudge? I don’t know; it didn’t surprise me, it didn’t feel earned, and just made the twist land flat — even though the underlying event (her assault) is genuinely awful.

And then there’s Jackson. Absolutely not. The second I found out who he worked for and what he’s been covering up, he would have been dead to me. This book tries so hard to swing him into a redemption arc, like we’re supposed to root for them to end up together, or feel conflicted about his behavior. Nope! He swept Simon’s crimes under the rug for years. Even after he “comes to his senses,” he’s still using hidden crimes as leverage for Tegan’s child support? What else has he buried that we’ll never find out? I don’t care what the narrative was trying to convince me of. Jackson sucks, and I’ll die on that hill.

Speaking of questionable characters: TEGAN NEVER TELLS THE POLICE SHE WAS HELD CAPTIVE FOR FOUR DAYS. W H A T????? Just because Polly saved her in the hospital, and Hank saved her from the initial car crash, does not erase the basement imprisonment! One good deed does not a good person make. And now Polly and Hank are foster parents barely a year later?? I feel for and sympathize with a couples’ infertility issues, I truly do. But almost killing someone and stealing their baby requires more than just waking up one day and realizing “Oh, maybe I went a little crazy there.” She should be in a hospital at the very least getting some mental help, and Hank should be arrested as an accomplice.

As a main character, Tegan was also really hard to root for. She has no survival instincts, she gives up the second things get inconvenient, and the victim mentality never lets up. One specific part at the end stands out to me the most: she spends the majority of the story repeating like a mantra that she has no family left, her brother is the only one in her life she can trust, yadda yadda. So that’s supposed to make it that much more heartbreaking and surprising when he tries to kill her in the hospital. But she also makes a comment while in the hospital that her room is FILLED with gifts and flowers from everyone in her life. It sounds like she has quite a bit more support than she let on. I wanted to care, I really did. But by the end I was more so rooting for the book to end, not for her to escape.

All that said, this is just proof that Frieda McFadden is not the author for me. And that’s totally fine! I’d categorize this as “flight reading”: if I were stuck somewhere for several hours with nothing else, this would keep me awake. Barely.