How could a fun Friday night out with a best friend turn out so wrong?
"What do you do, [Joanna] finds herself thinking, when you think somebody is following you down a deserted strip of canal? When you could become a statistic, a news piece, a tragedy?" Joanna is not known for doing the right thing; she often ends up in messes and is a terrible procrastinator. Unfortunately, in only moments a decision has to be made. And she makes it.
In this novel, however, the narrative is unusual in that it is a parallel story line. In one of them, Joanna chooses to REVEAL (to call 999) and in the alternate reality, she decides to CONCEAL (to run away like nothing happened). Of course there are consequences in both and her life changes in that very instant in ways she could never have predicted. NO SPOILERS.
The less you know about this going in, the better. It reminded me of the "Choose Your Own Adventure" books that were popular with kids when I was a grade school librarian. In this novel, however, the author has chosen both paths for Joanna and the reader follows along as Joanna deals with the aftermath of each choice. I would have probably liked this more if I had liked Joanna. I simply could not stand her from even the beginning. She's the antithesis of me and nothing she did made any sense nor could I wrap my head around her life. I don't know if it's my age or what, but Joanna, her husband, her friends, etc. all seemed so immature and utterly ridiculous. Vapid. Banal. I was quite disappointed the further into it I got and found it very disconcerting to be flipping back and forth between the two pathways as I feel the whole story would have flowed better in a linear manner with a Part I and and Part II. But that's me, and others whose opinions I respect have rated this much higher, so the style must have worked for them. It was really annoying to get to the end and not actually find out which decision or choice she made on the steps.
I've read other books by this author and will definitely be up for her next outing despite my feelings about this one. Thank you to NetGalley and PENGUIN GROUP Putnam/G.P. Putnam's Sons for this e-book ARC to read and review.
This is a standalone and is not part of any series.
Genre - psychological fiction
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