This book was very middle of the road. It was fast-paced and the mini cliff hangers at the end of most of the chapters kept me reading. The payoff isn't the greatest but the journey is fun for what it is. The writing is very simple to digest with something always happening (for the first third of the book at least).

I'm going to spoil the entire book!

Libby (our narrator of Part 1) and her husband, Jaime, do a house swap with a couple they've never seen or met or heard of. It's this big expensive house in the country. The rich couple is staying at their apartment while their daughter is in surgery. But OOPS turns out they don't have a daughter! So why do they have a strange room filled with antique toys?? Rich people are weird, but not to Libby! Libby lovvvvves rich people and idolizes this couple that she's only seen in internet searches and in pictures in the house. She talked all this shit about what rich Tara would or wouldn't do as if she knew this person???? Later she finds Tara's anti-depressants and is shocked to find out that rich people can be sad too. Oh, but does any other this end up mattering? Not really because it's not even this rich couple who coordinated this house swap. But if not them, then who???

Why do most of the characters in this book exists? Many seem only to exist for dead ends and misleads. Libby is constantly worried about Jaime's ex from 10 years ago who is living in the guest house of Jamie's mom. Damn, people are either Libby and Jaime struggling to get by or rich as hell in this book. The way Libby stresses about Jaime's ex is annoying as hell. She's been with him for 4 years and she's worried about an ex from 10 years ago. In the end Hannah only serves to create relationship drama. Her whole character exists to break up Libby and Jaime, but why? Because she thinks they'd be a better couple? People really play games, huh... This book is a lot of Straight Culture.

So what's happening? Well Libby is actually a person named Karen who stole a travel buddy's identity after a fire in a hostel they were staying at. Karen, feeling like her life is over, takes Libby's identity and it's been her as the narrator. In the second part, it's the real Libby (Beth as she goes by) who narrates AND SHE SUCKS. Damn everyone in this book needs to go to therapy, especially Libby and Beth! Okay we learned what happened on this Thailand trip. Beth and Karen become friends and travel together until Beth gets jealous that Henry is interested in Karen and not her so what does Beth do? Drug Karen and Henry!! Beth sucks and thought that Karen died in the fire. Karen thought Beth died.

But who set up the house swap??? Beth's abusive first husband who finds Libby (Karen) and plans to scare and kill her. He's in their apartment right when Beth shows up to confront Karen about why she's taken her identity. They fight and Beth ends up killing her first husband. The police think Karen did it! Uh oh! Except oh wait the cops don't think it was her and arrested some random person! Oh and then Beth does confront Karen and they agree to forgive each other and leave each other alone forever?????? What the fuck???? What kind of pay off is that???? What were the stakes in the end????

Oh but we aren't done because even though the mystery is solved and there really isn't anything happening in the last third of the book, there's more. This is where Hannah admits to POISONING THE DOG (WHY DID THIS HAPPEN. WHAT DID THIS DO FOR THE STORY) and plotting to break up Karen and Jaime. Blah blah I couldn't care less. Jaime: "Oh I didn't realize that me giving Hannah attention was encouraging her to have feelings for me!" Men are stupid!!

I also don't love how by the end everything revolved around babies and being pregnant because it was treated as like some reward to Karen????

In the end, Karen gets arrested anyway for the murder of Beth's first husband, vowing to bring Beth down someday.

I don't like really any of the characters in this book. The characters aren't really that interesting, Libby being only interesting until the mystery is explained and you know who is after this couple.

You know what though, all that said, I did read this book ferociously over 3 days because the short chapters, easy writing, and fast pace (all of which reminded me of The Da Vinci Code) so I can't say I didn't have a good time. The 2.5 comes from the mildly suspenseful vibe of the big rich house. When they leave the house, the atmosphere disappears unfortunately. It's a decent cozy read for cold days in the winter.