If anyone doubts me when I say that a dodgy ending can ruin an otherwise good book, I’ll give them this book and let it proves its point. I have no idea how to convey the extent to which I am crushed by this book’s ending. It started so well! From the very first page, I was drawn in by the writing style. The deliciously gloomy atmosphere was so palpable you could feel the stormy weather seeping off the pages. It gave me the chills! Normally, I would mock a movie that relied on conveniently timed rainstorms to create tension but Winters? She knew how to weave the weather into the story without it being too purposeful.

I became quickly attached to our main character, Alice Lind, and her struggle to gain acceptance in the male-dominated field of psychology. It was really interesting to see how the story focused on the general public’s apprehension toward psychologists and the idea of therapy. I was rooting for Alice as she faced down all the obstacles that came in the way of her dream job. How was I meant to resist such a feminist story?

... but that’s when things started going downhill.

Janie, a seven-year-old mathematical genius, is introduced in the opening chapters. Alice is sent to help Janie's teacher extend her schooling but it turns out there's a lot more to the story. Since the age of two, Janie has been speaking about her ‘before life’. She claims to have chosen to be born again, that she is a reincarnation of a drowning victim named Violet Sunday. Creepy, right? You would think this story would go one of two ways from here: either the gloomy atmospheric writing style was setting us up for one hell of a horror story or it was going to keep its psychology theme and explore the treatment of mental illness in the 1920s. Unfortunately, it went neither of those two ways... and that’s where all of my problems stem from.

Yesternight’s storyline became a detective story instead. Alice investigated the possibility of Violet Sunday being a real person, not a figment of Janie’s imagination. I wish I could sum up how unnatural this turn of events felt within the story. You know how nails on a blackboard make you feel edgy and uncomfortable? It was kind of like that. There was no consistency and it was so… boring?

The last quarter of the book was icing on the cake. It was so weird and unnecessary! Alice made decisions that seemed to go against her core personality and the whole thing had a distinctive lack of realism and logic. The epilogue did nothing but infuriate me. You know when you get so angry that you actually get physically sick to the stomach? That? Yeah, that’s what happened to me. I was so darn furious. I hate when stories do things like that and it… it honestly made me Hulk rage.

After finishing the book and letting myself stew in my misery, I also realised that while the writing was certainly atmospheric, it never really captured the 1920s period quite right. Everyone knows that this is such a rich period of history but somehow Winters missed the mark. The characters and dialogue felt too modern. There were few attempts at slang and hints at the Prohibition and WWI but they were never organically incorporated into the story. It’s like the author had to remind us when this book was set because it wasn’t obvious otherwise.

I did love that time was spent exploring women’s sexual and reproductive rights during this time period but it wasn’t enough to bring the 1920s to life in my opinion.

I was also annoyed by Janie’s lack of character development. For someone so central to the storyline, she had literally no personality.

Overall?

If you couldn’t tell, I was completely disappointed with Yesternight. For such a strong beginning, this story’s plotline and the ending was just dull. While the writing was definitely atmospheric, I didn’t think that it captured the time period well. I have heard fantastic things about Winters' other books so I may give her a second chance in the future.

Review copy provided by the publisher for an honest review.