Holy shit. I went into this book expecting kind of a perverse adult version of Every Soul A Star, but it was even more fucked up than I had anticipated. Each and every member of the main cast is utterly flawed, some more/less so than they initially seem, and as character-driven narratives go this one's intense and rich.

My two main issues with this book are awkward pacing and reliance on shock value, and it's a big enough problem that I'm not convinced it deserves the full 4 stars. (Leaving it for now, though, because it's a pretty well-told story and I did enjoy it as a whole.) The opening seemed to stretch out the suspense a little too long, and the emding seemed frenetic; I think it could've done without the disappointing final plot twist that

Spoiler

made me lose a lot of sympathy for ruthless Laura

and seemed contrived entirely for shock value, a missed opportunity in terms of ethical and psychological potential. The POVs were definitely purposefully planned and well-played; this setup validates the lack of clues throughout the narration.