The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair

This will be a bullet point style review, because I have too many thoughts and I don't feel like wasting too much more time on this book.

The Good
- This book made me realise something; I am a sucker for a fast paced crime thriller. (Who am I kidding, I knew this already). Even when I can tell a thriller is not that good, even as I'm finding lots of plot holes and laughing at how ridiculous it all is, I still find myself racing through its pages. The plot is hugely compelling and I begrudedly admit I enjoyed the ride. I think this might say more about me than it does about the book, because when I got to the end, thinking back on what I'd just read, I have to say most of this was Not. Good.

The Bad (Are you ready for this?)
- The arrogance and ego of the main protagonist, Marcus, was almost unbearable. But worse was the fact that everyone, the world, wanted to encourage and justify his arrogance. Marcus the Magnificent is a writer, who has already written one flawless masterpiece and everyone is convinced he is about to write a second, and so everyone loves to shower him with compliments about how smart/talented etc. he is. What I don't understand is how good his first book must have been to get this kind of celebrity treatment (being recognised every he goes, hanging out with the cool celeb crowd in New York, expensive apartment/car/clothes, even the celebrity girlfriend). I mean I can't think of any writers, even hugely successful ones, that get treated like this everywhere they go? Actors and Musicians yes, writers no. Unfortunately for us, Marcus is not the only self-absorbed, vain and intorable writer that we have to deal with; his writer friend, Harry Québert, is just as bad.
- In fact no, let me rephrase that; Harry is worse. It's his gigantic ego that allows him to believe that his relationship with a 15 year old girl when he was 34 was ~real love~. The whole “love story” just makes me want to throw up. What's worse is then we have to read about Marcus prancing around the place, trying to convince everyone that this was indeed ~true love~ and therefore Harry cannot be the killer, and it's oh so tragic and sad. I mean, did Dicker by the end of the book really want the reader to consider the possibility that this relationship was anything other than creepy and sick? Because no it was definitely creepy and sick. Harry “falls in love” with Nola because he sees her dancing in the rain on a beach (i.e. lust) and then Nola decides to waste her summer doing everything to make sure that nothing protects his genius while he works on his next masterpiece novel - she removes any distractions, lounges around his house as the inspiration behind his epic masterpiece, makes him sandwiches and basically waits on him hand and foot. And then Harry wallows in self-pity for the rest of his life over the loss of this true love and we're meant to feel sorry for him. Gross.
- The writing, particularly any of the letters and dialogue in this “love story”, is painful. Imagine reading the diary of a lovesick teenager for almost 600 pages and this is what you get. Unfortunately for us, this is exactly how we are meant to believe Harry Québert, the esteemed master author, writes including in his genius novel that is supposedly famous as being the best literature of the century. The dialogue is painful and full of trite clichés such as “You must give meaning to your life. Two things can make life meaningful: books and love”. And then we find out who really wrote " The Origin of Evil" and it was literally a creepy stalker, I mean of course?? And the book Québert really wrote is called something like "The something of Seagulls", because Nola loved the sound of Seagulls. Just yuck.
- All the characters are small-town unauthentic stereotypes: the reclusive writer genius, the tough black cop, the money-grabbing lawyer/publisher (these two literally felt like the same character which was just ugh), oh and of course the Lolita nymphet.
- Dicker threw every twist, turn and red herring he could think of. A fast pace is great for a thriller, but this just descended into an implausible and ridiculous mess so much so that I ended the book in a state of disbelief. So many times before a big reveal a character would say “it's complicated” and then proceed to act mysteriously for a few pages before explaining what an earth they meant. Most of the twists make no sense then eventually get disproved by the next twist so really we're just going round in circles. I could explain why most of the reveals were terrible but I'm honestly too exhausted to do that now.

In conclusion (because I have to stop thinking about this book before I completely lose my mind), this was, put simply, a mess and I've manage to convince myself into removing another star just by writing this review.

On a side note, I'm sad that the 2 books I've read in full on my holiday so far have both been duds. What did I do to deserve this??