3.5 stars

This book came out a couple of weeks ago but I never quite got around to reading it in time given everything that's been going off in my life.
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The book is inspired by true events and is an unsettling thriller that quite surprised me in how clever and well crafted it was. The book is split into a series of chapters that all follow different individuals who have been affected by the murder of a young college student, Sara Morgan. Sara was murdered by her boyfriend Blake, who confessed to the crime and pleaded temporary insanity. The book is interesting as the individual perspectives shadowed in the book are not all necessarily those you would expect to be touched by the murder. Each individual chapter focuses on how the murder impacted and unsettled the lives of the different people in ways they didn't necessarily expect.
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For me this book set itself slightly apart from other books in the genre that focus on the murders of young women, with its wider focus on gendered violence. This was done subtlety throughout the book as it examined how violence is often gendered, how situations that are easily perceived to one party as acceptable suddenly can change to being violent and abusive. It also focused on the more explicit areas of gendered violence and the impact this has on those and those around them.
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This was a compelling and quick read as I found myself deeply absorbed in the individual narratives. This is a genre that I would never say satisfies me with the ending, but this book offered a more interesting approach to the genre which I liked and appreciated. Thank you to @bloomsburypublishing and @__momentsofmine for the #gifted review copy.