I wanted to like this book a lot more than I did. I kept thinking while reading it that I should be enjoying it more. But I just didn't.

This was essentially a character study of the main character after the fact. It's written as though compiled from notes by an investigator. Although it mostly reads like a typical narrative, there are some chapters that are labeled "evidence" and full of quotes from various sources (some real and some fictional) that relate to the story in some way. There are also "hypothesis" chapters where he is guessing what happened to the main character's wife who just disappeared.

It's told nonlinearly, mixing the past, present, and future together, but it honestly worked better for me than most nonlinear stories do. I still did miss the single narrative, I think. And there were points in this story where he would reference things from the future, like saying "John would wonder about this moment in two days after his wife vanished" that didn't work for me. I often feel that writing like that creates distance between me and the story. I can't get as connected with that kind of style.

It was also a little too convoluted for me. I like to be able to keep track of every single thing that's happening, and this is one of those stories where you can't and don't even need to. Each quote is referenced to a source, some with the date of the interview, and I tried so hard to keep all of that in order in my head, but it was just too much. It's one of those things that wasn't really necessary, but it definitely bothered me to not be able to.

I didn't find the main character as interesting as I should have. Like I said above, this book is essentially a character study of this man and his entire life. I love character study books, but I just wasn't that interested by John Wade. He was an intentionally unlikable character who stalked his wife and talked frequently of loving to manipulate people. But it didn't feel especially interesting. I can't exactly put my finger on why, but I wasn't as invested in him as I should have been. Still enough to get through this whole book in a day, though.

Finally, there was one thing that actually really bothered me about this book. The person who is compiling the book, who's not actually a character in the story and mostly removes himself from the narration, says that he doesn't think the main character killed his wife because he was crazy about her. Like this man who literally stalked his wife, who said he needed her, who got incredibly jealous and caught her cheating on him, wouldn't have killed her because he was crazy about her? He seems like a prime candidate for murdering her. Which is not to say I think he did, but that one line really bothered me. Men who kill their wives often exhibit those behaviors, and I didn't like the implication that the reason he wouldn't was because he was crazy about her. But that was just one line so it didn't ruin the book or anything. Just made me very uncomfortable at the moment he said it.

Overall, I thought this book was pretty decent. It held my attention and I got through it quickly because I enjoyed reading it. There was always just something that kept me from entirely enjoying it, and I can't quite figure out what. Probably just a combination of all my issues but nothing singularly bad. It's definitely one I'd recommend if it sounds interesting to you. I thought the style was really unique and well done, just maybe not for me overall.

Additional warning, this is not a book where you're going to get closure or figure out for a fact what happened. That's not spoiler, it's stated pretty early on. So if you're someone who needs to find out what happened, this probably isn't for you.