👀🚇🔪 "You Are Not Alone" 🔪🚇👀 (2020) - Book Review
MY REVIEW
Paperback:
352 pages
Publisher:
St. Martin's Press (March 3, 2020)
Language:
English
ISBN-10:
1250202035
ISBN-13:
978-11250202031
Click on Photo For Pre-Order Link
“Shay
Miller wants to find love, but it eludes her. She wants to be fulfilled, but
her job is a dead end. She wants to belong, but her life is increasingly
lonely.
Until
Shay meets the Moore sisters. Cassandra and Jane live a life of glamorous
perfection, and always get what they desire. When they invite Shay into their
circle, everything seems to get better.
Shay
would die for them to like her.
She may
have to.”
Thank you in advance to the publisher, St
Martin’s Press for providing an advanced review copy (ARC). A positive review
was not required. All words and thoughts are my own.
 |
| [There is something to be said about bookmail] |
This is the third book by duo authors Greer
Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen. Their first being “The Wife Between Us” and “An
Anonymous Girl” – both of which I was able to get ARCs of.
 |
| [The three ARCs] |
 |
| [From the first to the newest] |
The books are not a connected series, thus they
are standalone reads.
Trigger warnings may include:
* Sexual Assault
* Suicide
In their signature, multi-part and multi POV
(point of view), the writers start this book off with quite an impact –
literally. This is told in third person with the characters of Shay; Cassandra
and Jane; Amanda (past), and Valerie featured more prominently.
PART ONE
is told through the POVs of Shay, Cassandra & Jane (sisters), Amanda (past
as she has died at the end of chapter one), and “group” members – Daphne (a
sexual assault victim), Beth, and Valerie (someone VERY protective of the
sisters).
It is at this point the reader meets Shay
Miller, who is at an interesting point in her life – her best friend/roommate
Sean is seeing someone and you could tell that his girlfriend Jody didn’t like
Shay. Also, Shay’s statistics job is dead-end.
That’s not the worst thing to happen – it’s
what she witnesses: someone’s suicide right in front of her. Amanda, the women
who took her own life, had secrets, deep secrets.
While Shay is “numbers smart”, and as a result
has a “Data Book” journal to chronicle her thoughts and musings using
statistics, she isn’t people smart.
In what, to me, seemed like an honest inquiry,
and one to put her mind at rest – Shay starts seeking out what made Amanda take
that leap. A literal one.
Shay is spotted leaving a flower where Amanda
once lived. But, it is when she attends the memorial that things start rolling.
It is there she meets the Moore sisters. Glamorous, famous, and successful –
everything Shay is not. While she doesn’t seek them out – they seek her out.
After Shay sees Amanda’s “ghost” near the
subway, the sisters start trying to help her … or are they?
PART TWO
switches the narrative solely to Shay, Cassandra & Jane (sisters), Amanda
(again the past), and Valerie.
I want to start off with a shout-out and thank
you to the writers for mentioning a pizza restaurant I love in my own hometown –
Grimaldi’s. It started in Brooklyn and with all the stories centered in New
York, this is the first time I read it in a book.
It begins with a makeover for Shay, and here is
when readers need to start paying attention, if they haven’t already.
Since Jody and Sean want to move in together –
Shay needs an apartment, and finds a cozy, yet affordable one. What luck … or
is it. Turns out it belongs to someone the sisters once knew.
Over the course of part two, the reader watches
as the sisters start using Shay and even those in their circle to enact their
plan. The manipulation is grotesque as they are even manipulating their own
friends.
After what Valerie has done at the end of
chapter 50, part two reveals the sisters true plot in be-friending Shay – and
in looking back at part one, it is easy to see the signs.
It is here the reader gets the full impact –
the sisters, and their friends (mainly Valerie) are drive by revenge, not
justice. And, we also learn why Amanda did what she did that day on the subway
platform – guilt.
And, at the end the readers find out what the
real plan for Shay was …
PART
THREE begins with a bang … or rather a knock on the door.
The writers have the same four person POV here
as in the previous part: Shay, Cassandra & Jane (sisters), Amanda (again
the past), and Valerie.
The police are being led to believe one thing about
Shay, who has found out the sisters’ true manipulative nature. Shay is being
framed. Shay also learns that the job she thought she had was fabricated as
well.
Talk about a tangled web. And, we learn even
more about the sisters …
Not trusting anyone, Shay now has to find out
the truth – what is going on, why are they using her, why have they turned, and
what is in store for her.
Readers will have to read right up to the end
(chapter 66) for the huge reveal and motive.
One problem I did have was how the sisters and
even their “friend” thought they were going to get by with how they were acting
as if it was Shay stalking them.
Shay had the text messages on her phone; Sean
had seen them and talked to them at the apartment; in addition to other things.
While that could’ve seemed like a plot hole – the writers covered it over in a believable
manner. The Moore sisters are creepier than the twins in “The Shining”.
This, to me, is by far one of their better
novels. Third time’s a charm!
The short chapters made this an easy read, though it’s quick pace made it difficult to put down. And, yes I did finish this in one day, though not straight through.
The short chapters made this an easy read, though it’s quick pace made it difficult to put down. And, yes I did finish this in one day, though not straight through.
It was definitely a gripping, edge-of-seat read
as I didn’t know what was going on or where the authors were taking this diabolical,
sinister, and disturbing story.
RATING:
4 ⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐–
Goodreads
4 ⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐–
Bookbub
4 ⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐–
Personal Rating (see rating explanation in this blog: https://readingexcursions.blogspot.com/2020/01/rating-system-2020-changes.html)
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Sarah Pekkanen
Sarah Pekkanen is the USA Today and internationally bestselling author of eight solo novels. A former investigative journalist and award-winning feature writer, her work has been published in The Washington Post, USA Today, and many other publications. She outside Washington, D.C. with her three sons.
Greer Hendricks
Greer Hendricks two decades as an editor at Simon & Schuster prior to becoming a novelist. She obtained her Master’s Degree in Journalism from Columbia University, and her writing has appeared in New York Times, Allure, and Publishers Weekly. She lives in Manhattan with her husband and two children.
Together they have written the New York Times best selling novels The Wife Between Us and An Anonymous Girl.
Hardcover: 352 pages
Publisher: St. Martin's Press;
First Printing edition (January 9, 2018)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1250130921
ISBN-13: 978-1250130921
Click Photo for Purchase
Link
“When you read this book, you will make many assumptions.
You will assume you are reading about a jealous ex-wife.
You will assume she is obsessed with her replacement – a
beautiful, younger woman who is about to marry the man they both love.
You will assume you know the anatomy of this tangled love
triangle.
Assume nothing.
Twisted and deliciously chilling, Greer Hendricks and Sarah
Pekkanen's The Wife Between Us exposes the secret complexities of an enviable
marriage - and the dangerous truths we ignore in the name of love.
Read between the lies.”
Hardcover: 384 pages
Publisher: St. Martin's Press;
1st edition (January 8, 2019)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1250133734
ISBN-13: 978-1250133731
Click Photo for Purchase Link
“Looking to earn some easy cash, Jessica Farris agrees to be a test
subject in a psychological study about ethics and morality. But as the study
moves from the exam room to the real world, the line between what is real and
what is one of Dr. Shields’s experiments blurs.
Dr. Shields seems to know what Jess is thinking… and what she’s
hiding.
Jessica’s behavior will not only be monitored, but manipulated.
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