Review by isabezza - On the Edge

You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.

isabezza 's review for:

On the Edge by Jane Jesmond

3.25

adventurous mysterious tense fast-paced

On the Edge was chosen for me by a friend who was intrigued by the climber character and the thriller themes, knowing they would not have time to read it themselves. As a reader who has only recently started to enjoy the thriller genre, this was a perfect entry book, or the kind of narrative to get out of a reading slump. The story is fast paced, covering a range of hard-hitting themes, making the reader question the morality of many characters.

Adrenaline shook my limbs as I rolled onto my back. The sky was stormy black. There should be stars, I thought. There should be fireworks. There should be great, roaring bursts of rockets to celebrate this moment.

The characterisation was good, with emotive dialogue and punchy descriptions. There is a lot of graphologically deviant introspective narration about the protagonist's past, in which she questions who could be the criminal. This style could be a little repetitive and did not seem to reflect how many reader's would have thought or felt in the situations, but was interesting.

"You don't see the people around you. You're so focussed on what you want. What you think you need. So sure you're right. And you hurt the people around you in your stampede after it."

Keep holding on. Their escape was as much in my hands as mine was in theirs. Our life stories ran intertwined through this narrow gap in time and none of us knew what lay on the other side.

That being said, I did not have many strong guesses about the overall mystery and was genuinely shocked at the end. The red herrings were clever and the plot twists kept me engaged. I would definitely recommend to someone who needs a quick, engaging read. The settings and pace felt similar to the sensation of playing a horror video game, constantly thinking about the next move to escape.

The lighthouse had been there for too long and seen too many violent storms to retain anything of that Friday night when {removed} tried to kill me. The wind and rain scoured every corner clean of moss, spider webs, and memories.

Content Warnings