Not that I could tell
Ratings7
Average rating3.7
An innocent night of fun takes a shocking turn in Not That I Could Tell , the next page-turner from Jessica Strawser. When a group of neighborhood women gathers, wine in hand, around a fire pit where their backyards meet one Saturday night, most of them are just ecstatic to have discovered that their baby monitors reach that far. It's a rare kid-free night, and they're giddy with it. They drink too much, and the conversation turns personal. By Monday morning, one of them is gone. Everyone knows something about everyone else in the quirky small Ohio town of Yellow Springs, but no one can make sense of the disappearance. Kristin was a sociable twin mom, college administrator, and doctor's wife who didn't seem all that bothered by her impending divorce--and the investigation turns up more questions than answers, with her husband, Paul, at the center. For her closest neighbor, Clara, the incident triggers memories she thought she'd put behind her--and when she's unable to extract herself from the widening circle of scrutiny, her own suspicions quickly grow. But the neighborhood's newest addition, Izzy, is determined not to jump to any conclusions--especially since she's dealing with a crisis of her own. As the police investigation goes from a media circus to a cold case, the neighbors are forced to reexamine what's going on behind their own closed doors--and to ask how well anyone really knows anyone else.
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I was not lucky enough to come across Jessica Strawser sooner and that is so disappointing because I loved this book. Not that I could tell won me over with amazing cover art visually and won me over with every page I turned. We all have a group of girls who we trust who we love to hang with but what happens when you spend a Saturday around a fire pit with friends and wake up the next day and one of them is missing and no one remembers what happen. Everyone doesn't know what to think. Were Kristen and her twins kidnapped? Did she run away from the perfect husband? Is he perfect did he do it? The story is told from duel perspectives One chapter is told by Clara a married mother and one being Izzy the only single woman in the group. I felt emotionally connected to all the girls and loved that. I found myself feeling bad for Izzy because I felt that she wanted to be happy so bad that she forgot to live. I felt that the author wrapped things up nice building up to an awesome ending. I want to thank Netgalley and all parties for my advanced reader copy this came out yesterday go get it!
Let me start of by saying, I enjoyed this book, I really did but I think because I've been reading so many similar books lately, I almost didn't give this book a fair review. I guess I'm getting to the point where I have a greater appreciation for what I find makes the book the most compelling in my eyes and it's not as easy to give a stellar review anymore. However, even though I have more books to compare from, this book really was well written and a good story in its entirety.
First of, the plot was good. It wasn't the most exciting plot in the world but it definitely was nowhere near bad and was very complete with just enough in the beginning, the middle and the end. Some books don't give enough time for the reader to work through everything that happened and cut the ending very abruptly but this novel did a good job at tying everything in and just bringing it all to a good place. I am more of a fan of plots where the villain isn't so obvious and takes me by surprise but because this story was so well written and orchestrated, I almost didn't mind that here.
Further on, the style of the writing is not my favorite but it works for this book and it got the story across in a satisfactory way. I usually prefer writing that takes us directly into the person's psyche and is more personal from each character's point of view but nevertheless this style was adequate for me and I didn't have much issues with finding the drive to finish the novel all the way through.
In addition, the characterization was also good but not great. I feel like I got a good sense of the characters but I would have liked to get to know them better, I feel like the book just scratched the surface of everything those people are. I think it goes back to the style of writing, first person point of view would have improved this book tremendously in my eyes. With that said, as far as second person point of views go, it was on the higher side.
All in all, this was not a bad book but it didn't wow me either. It was just, “eh”. I would recommend it to someone who wants a lighter, not really mystery novel that will be easy to read but also easy to forget. Definitely not one of the best I have read but also not the worst either. Just mediocre.
