Lock Every Door

Lock Every Door

2019 • 386 pages

Ratings259

Average rating3.7

15

I really couldn't love this book all that much. Somehow the story itself felt like some half-baked urban legend you could read on Facebook, shared by people who don't think stuff through before deciding it's absolutely true. To explain why I think that, I will hide a lot of this review behind a spoiler tag. I am sure that makes my review a lot less valuable to people who have not read this yet, but I think that's absolutely necessary to really explain why I gave it such a low rating.
Before that, some non-spoiler things, though.

One of the big, defining characteristics of the protagonist, Jules is the fact she is alone. She has nobody and she kind has to rely on only herself. That's a fact, she is used to it and still, somehow relationships with his new neighbours and even some characters outside the building just come to her. She has very personal conversations with people about traumatic events and their big life problems without knowing each other.
I find it unrealistic. Sure, some people in some situations can overshare. Happens. But to have that happen so many times with so many different people just feels like kind of lazy storytelling. The story plays out in a few days and I guess that was the author's self-imposed hardship, because to me it made a lot of conversations so damn unrealistic.

But now, for the mystery and why it just doesn't work for me .
Rich people have this big apartment building where they go when sick. Unsuspecting poor people are employed to occupy empty units, but in reality their organs are stolen to give to the sick, rich people. This is a big, posh operation, right? Well, why would they only have a handful of "donors" at a time? Why would they only use a few organs? If I was running such a thing, I would find a fuckton of rich people and use up every single organ of every single "donor". Dylan's heart was given away... but not the rest? Why? They are willing to do this, but they also throw away two kidneys, a liver, corneas, pancreas, lungs, a whole lot of things that can earn good money for the operators. Why would it matter if Jules cut her throat? They have a whole hospital to keep her organs until they can quickly plop them into the people already lined up. Why do the rich people have to live in the building? It's not like they can't just go to some private luxury property to discretely heal. How do they know if someone will be a good donor? Poor people are generally not super up on their regular health checkups (hell, even non-poor people aren't, because humans) and I'm pretty sure organ donors need a bit more than your yearly "how are we feeling?" type stuff. What if I move in and it turns out I have a hidden health condition or I don't match any of the people there?

All in all, I feel the story wasn't nearly as smart and well-thought-out as it tried to be and that kind of killed it for me. Especially because not even the pressure was that much. It just wasn't scary and I don't feel the mood was as built up as it should have been. Really, I just didn't like this one very much. Easy read, though, so there is that, but I would not bring this up as a recommendation.

September 20, 2020