By Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen | ⭐️⭐️⭐️ (3 out of 5 stars)
It is true. When I read this book, I made many assumptions. I expected it to be thriller-like how it should be or based on the reviews that clouded me, but it wasn’t. The first part was how Nellie or Vanessa told her part of a story about Richard Thompson, his husband, who has some psychological issues of how he wants to control things. Reflecting on it, I say it’s a little bit horrifying to have a husband or a partner like that–one that stalks you, tracks everything you do and controls all the narratives in your life that you’ll eventually wonder what else is there that is true or otherwise.
So for the first part of the book, my assumption, like many others, was that Vanessa was Richard’s fiancee who was followed or being stopped by his ex-wife. However, as the book turns to part 2, it was Vanessa’s story on how she and Richard met and how she was the ex-wife who halts his marriage to his office secretary, Emma, in replacement of Vanessa as Nellie in Richard’s life. A lot of twists and turns were there–that Emma knew Vanessa before because when she was in high school, she had an affair with Emma’s dad who was a teacher, and eventually caused the separation between her parents.
The book was kind of hard to finish, at least for me, because it was predictable and not at the same time. The story was a little slow compared to those CoHo books, if I may. But, it was a good read, please be it known that it has some trigger warnings about domestic violence, reader discretion is advised.
Shainne Hostalero 