56 Days

My second pandemic story and back to back no less. I find I enjoy looking back on the early days of the global pandemic. Staying home with family, work and school suspended, loads of puzzles, books and binge watching. It's all here, the crazes at the super markets then the deserted shops, the fight to find hand sanitizer and the wiping down of every package we brought inside. I enjoyed reading about those shared experiences and in this case as far away as Dublin. Add in a dead body, then switch up the the timeline and POV- one chapter it's today and there's a moldering corpse, the next it's the meet cute 56 days prior. Then the author brilliantly gives us the same scenario over the subsequent 56 days from both character's perspectives. But not so much that it's repetitive. It feels like you're part of their secrets- of which there are several. And they are doozies. This was a great read if you're ready for the pandemic as a setting or perhaps a plot twist. I was definitely ready and this story really worked for me. Quite the ingenious co-mingling of ideas. Highly recommend.

Glad I waited a bit on this one. The COVID piece of the story felt very strong-from wearing masks to wiping down all groceries. Looking back, it is a perfect photograph of how life was during lockdown. The thriller portion went in a direction I didn't expect. The writing style was a bit confusing at first jumping back and forth in time and following different perspectives (but not from first person). But once I got it, the pages didn't stop turning, and I finished it all in pretty much one sitting. Glad to check out this author's other work!

This is the first Covid novel I've read, and Catherine Ryan Howard uses lockdown as a great literary and mystery device. Two people (who have just started dating) enter lockdown together. Only one will leave alive.

The novel jumps between perspectives and time frames until you get the broader picture. This was sometimes jarring and frustrating (especially when you had to read through the same scene from a different perspective), but on the whole 56 Days is a twisty, well written, fast paced mystery/ thriller. The irony is not lost on me that I read this through my 3rd lockdown (everyone in my household got out alive though - despite homeschooling

Honestly, I freaking loved this book and the story! This was my first pandemic thriller and I thought that it might be too soon but the story sounded really good and I just couldn't wait to read it. Talk about a rollercoaster ride! About halfway through I was certain I knew who the killer is and all the reveals and what not and it turns out I knew almost absolutely nothing. This book might tempt you to assume about what's coming up and what has really happened and let me give you some advice, fight that temptation. I wasn't sure I was going to like the ending because everything seemed pretty laid out in front of us and already fully revealed and boy was I wrong. The twists and turns kept coming until the very end and I was there for it all.

To begin with, 56 Days is about a couple who meet a few days before lockdown begins due to Covid-19 and they are instantly smitten with each other so they decide to move in together for the duration of lockdown in order to maintain their blossoming relationship. However, a short time after, one person in the relationship is found murdered. What really happened? Man, this plot was twisty and stressful as all else. Having lived through lockdown not too long ago with two little kids, the stress that caused at the time is still pretty fresh in my mind so I had to hold my breath as I was reading this. It definitely brought up a lot of emotions and I wasn't sure I would be able to stomach the time period of this thriller and yet I was completely hooked from the very beginning. There were so many twists and turns and the plot had so many different layers that were revealed all throughout the book that I just couldn't put it down. If it wasn't for my dog tragically dying last weekend, I would have probably finished it in two days. Something very different, that is for sure.

Secondly, the characterization was pretty good and I don't have many complaints about it. The characters were very dynamic and I enjoyed reading about how their relationships to each other developed and changed all throughout the book as well. They were very complex characters with flaws and their own agendas and I was here for it. This book is definitely not afraid to go there, it gets pretty dark and has plenty of trigger warnings that you should look up if you're worried it might affect you in a negative way.

Finally, the writing style is probably the only reason I gave this book four stars and not five. Because let me be completely honest, the writing style is definitely not my favorite. It feels like an endless continuation of run-on sentences and felt very choppy to me as I was reading it. Once I got used to it, it wasn't much of an issue anymore but it never felt smooth and wasn't a joy to read. The plot and the characters made up for that though. Also, the book skips around a lot and it was confusing keeping track of what we were reading about and when at times and we would get the same scene from the two different characters' perspectives and even though at times it helped to understand what actually happened, sometimes it felt rather redundant and the full length of the retelling didn't feel completely necessary.

In conclusion, I would definitely recommend this book to all my fellow thriller lovers who don't mind reading a thriller that takes place during Covid-19, more specifically in lockdown. It will definitely keep you on the edge of your seat and if you're not afraid of the writing being a bit choppy and wordy, it's easy to get past that fact and get fully immersed in the story. Definitely a treat!

A story with a dual timeline with a lot of plot twists (some necessary, some not). I personally did not really understand the ending, but that might have been what [a: Catherine Ryan Howard 3421464 Catherine Ryan Howard https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1446100553p2/3421464.jpg] intended, to leave it up to interpretation of the reader. I would have preferred it to end more neatly.Trigger warnings: Detailed abuse of a child, hard cursing in most chapters.

Alright. So:

PROS
- Plots twists
- Closed circle horror (kind of..? Not really? In spirit?)
- Intense game of cat and mouse
- Pretty good comedic relief
- Definitely suspenseful as you try to figure to figure out who the victim at the beginning is and then how and why
- Chapters end on cliffhangers

CONS (for me)
- Non-linear can be a little confusing
- Multiple narrators in a non-linear timeline
- Definitely could not decide if it wanted to be more romance or thriller based and I personally wasn't a fan of the jumping back and forth but can also appreciate the duality
- Some of the plot twists kind of felt like when Doofenshmirtz is like “oh, it's just a platypus.... PERRY the platypus”???? But after a while it kind of gets old
- I think some people would definitely like having unreliable narrators but I don't like not knowing who to root for/who to like. By the end I didn't really have anyone I was rooting for so I was just like ... kind of waiting for it to end because then it kept going back and forth with “poor Ciara..... BUT PERHAPS NOT....... poor Oliver..... ALAS!!!!! Poor Ciara again .... But WAIT!!! Poor Oliver .... Oh no, Oliver...” Like by the end I was the most lit about Karl tbh

I feel like this book had a lot of potential for me and I definitely appreciate that it's the first book I've read that happened during quarantine, but it fell short as a result of the cons I described. Again, I'm not necessarily saying they're flaws of the book, I'm just describing elements that I personally was not a fan of.

56 Days by Catherine Ryan Howard is a great Irish crime novel exploring the past and identity. This book is ultra-contemporary and is set during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Some readers will not want to read this book for that reason. If that's you, scroll on. Personally I find value in using art and literature to reflect on and process reality, and I'm glad to see this difficult time recorded in a novel. Apart from the setting during the lockdown, the book was full of twists and surprises and kept me invested in the characters the whole time. I liked the two main characters and wanted to know what was going to happen next. The book's use of moving between different times felt exciting and interesting. That said, there were a couple of reasons why this was not a 5 star read for me. First: the book is told from several different points of view. At one point new information was introduced that changed what we knew about some of the characters and their motivation. For me, this was confusing because we had already read that scene narrated from that character's point of view. Imagine being inside someone's head and then discovering their perception of events wasn't how they experienced it. It just seemed a bit jarring. Second: there were a couple of Garda, and they were great characters, but their plot line just kind of ended. I didn't get a great sense of closure and I almost wondered why these characters played as much of a role in the book as they did. Apart from these criticisms I enjoyed this book. I highly recommend the audiobook, read by Alana Kerr Collins. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

“56 Days” is the first book I've read where the COVID-19 pandemic played a major role. And it's quite popular; this book sat in my library hood queue for at least a few months. So, I was all geared up to be annoyed/put upon/not to like it.

I was most pleasantly surprised! This was a real page-turner that I read in one evening (on a work night, no less). Catherine Ryan Howard does a great job shifting time and perspective while keeping a nice pace. The characters have real voices and act like real people. I don't want to say too much because this is a book you should just read for yourself!