Author : Sarah Pekannen and Greer Hendricks
Narrators : Julia Whelan
Genre : Thriller
Publisher : Pan Macmillan
Listening Length : 11 hours 13 minutes
Rating : 2/5
Narrator Rating : 4/5
You might have guessed, from the title, that there is an aggrieved wife in this tale. Blond, beautiful Vanessa has been left by handsome, rich, successful husband Richard in favor of newer model Nellie. Vanessa wants to warn Nellie off of Richard, so she stalks Nellie everywhere. Will Nellie listen to what Vanessa has to say?
So, the premise looks really good, and I got sucked in. For a while Vanessa seemed like an unreliable narrator – possibly bipolar, loves the drink a little too much, not very dependable etc. That however didn’t go anywhere. And neither did this book.
There was too much telling and not enough showing. There were a couple of twists, but they didn’t add to much. The book went on and on and nothing much happened. The prose is poor, and there is a lot of description which doesn’t add depth or detail – just pointless description really. The characters were poorly fleshed and not very likeable.
I was very tempted to give up this book halfway, but I plodded on. Audiobooks are not as easy to skim as print ones. Julia Whelan (who also narrated Gone Girl) narrates this and does a great job of this, but this is no Gone Girl.
