randi_jo's Reviews (420)

This book was a wild ride. It thrives on suspense and deception, and any kind of spoiler would likely ruin it for someone who had never read it.

Reading through this book had me saying: what? What? WHAT?! Over and over - just a host of new levels of "oh my gosh" moments. It's a great example of unreliable narrators, as well as the complete unexpected.

The last 20 pages or so are probably the least entertaining of the entire book and the ending is a bit off-putting, but it's highly realistic of people who are co-dependent.

It is very thought provoking on the topics of sociopathy and narcissism, and how they can coexist like this. I really enjoyed it.

This is definitely a kind feel good story about life's importance and our perception of self and of our own importance. It has a very clear message: How you see life can determine how you feel about life; if you look for the good, you'll find it. If you look for the bad, you'll find it.

I really did want to enjoy this book, but I found it very difficult for a few reasons: First, Nora Seed is a difficult character to like. She is neither inherently good, nor bad, but is rather boring. Everything she does/says is highly predictable, but this may also be in part to the second complaint. The foreshadowing is SO heavy - and there are so many redundancies. I knew every life Nora was going to choose to try and live by the time I reached page ten. And of course each life would have its own set of disappointments, but the disappointments almost all ended up being that

Spoiler

someone died or someone has cheated

.

I think, at the end of the day, it was too surface level, too predictable, too ham-fisted (her last name is Seed - as in potential, the beginning of something. That is ham-fisted.). I liked the message it conveyed as someone with clinical depression, but the narrative itself was hard to get into because there was almost no tension - no conflict, nothing that made me stop and think: but what if? I have heard good things about Matt Haig as an author and plan to pick up some more of his work, as I think this one just might not have been his best.

I really enjoyed the perspective this craft-book gave me on what fiction is. I think Maass's ideas are explained concisely and creatively. I also really enjoyed the example books he gave, and have actually listed the majority of them in my TBR (and the three I've picked up have NOT disappointed!).

I think the only con to this one is that Maass can be a little presumptive at a few intervals, but it's not anything that can't be overlooked. All in all, I think this book really helped me develop my writing style further, and that's worth the cost of this book alone.