this book shook me to my core

Paper Doll Lina – Robyn Lucas 

Domestic violence, family, marriage, interpersonal relationships, domestic abuse, fiction.

Rating 10/10

Lina is a stay at home mother and housewife with two children and a husband that loves her. Their marriage at the beginning was rocky but they always found their way back to one and other. Recently her husband has been more distant and crueler with his words that belittle and make Lina feel absolutely terrible. He does things without asking her and expects her to be on board with the ideas. Her two children got an idea for a website and decided to go on television to get the website more seen; her husband isn’t supportive. He sees this as her bad idea and that the kids would get bored of their project. However,  her two children are deeply invested as well as she is. He gets mad and says that he wasn’t included in the plans despite her informing him of said plans. She had run into Noah Attoh, a famous movie actor, who helps the website get more coverage as well as being her friend. The two of them spend more time together and she realizes slowly when she reconnects with an old best friend that her husband is toxic and that she needs to get out of the relationship fast and with her children as well. 

Let me tell you I was crying when I was almost done reading this novel. It is not easy to read because domestic abuse is a very serious overseen issue. Lucas shares that aspect with this novel that sometimes domestic abuse isn’t physical but it is verbal and tends to be very nasty. What Lina’s husband was doing was a form of narcissism. People who are narcissists tend to manipulate others into believing their side rather than the victim’s side. They psychologically and emotionally abuse the victim as well as doing intentional things to ensure that the victim stays within reach by all means necessary. Sometimes victims of domestic violence do not get the happy ending or recognition that they are being abused when something terrible happens such as serious injury or even death. That is the reality that Robyn Lucas shares in this novel with these characters and sometimes it’s hard getting out of the toxicness of the relationship. I was so glad that Lina was able to get help that she really needed and the way that things happened was the right kind of justice that was needed. I highly recommend this novel as it goes over a serious topic that needs to be more addressed and there should be more education for domestic abuse of all kinds. This may be fiction but domestic violence and abuse is a very real issue that shouldn’t be taken lightly. 

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this was scary good

The Silent Patient – Alex Michaelides

Psychological thriller, violence, passion, obsession, mystery, fiction.

Rating 9/10

Alicia killed her husband and entered into a vow of silence. Theo has heard of Alicia’s story and is curious about seeing or understanding why she will not talk. He has a goal to get her to talk but there are some roadblocks such as her medication and making her feel comfortable to speak to him. The head of the psych ward warden gives Theo six weeks only to get Alicia to talk. Theo does some investigating to see into Alicia’s past to understand her further and somehow put the pieces together. He unravels her mystery of silence and proceeds forward to gaining the truth from her. Even if it takes so many risks, Theo is ready and prepared for the outcome. Her diary journal entries leading up to the murder of her husband reveals all.

I was anticipating reading this novel for the longest of time and had a hard time obtaining a copy. I am glad to have purchased this novel because it was worth reading. There was a lot of thrill and mystery with the whole concept of silenced wife who killed her husband then finding out the incident that truly happened was a shock twist ending. I had not expected the ending and I really enjoyed this novel. I wished it were longer, but this was just as perfect amount. Beautifully written and excellently paced.

witness protection mystery?

Pieces of Her – Karin Slaughter

Mothers and daughters, violence, identity, family secrets, mystery, detective, police procedural, suspense, fiction.

Rating 7/10

Andrea is at a local diner, having dinner with her mother, and having a long day already. Suddenly a man comes in and shoots at some people that sit in a booth next to hers. The attacker sees Andrea and her mother and tries to shoot them. Laura, Andrea’s mother, tries to come between her daughter and the shooter telling her daughter to run away and for the shooter to shoot at herself. The shooter sees Andrea’s work uniform and begs for Andrea to use her gun, but Andrea is frozen in spot. She watches her calm mother take out the shooter. After that ordeal, her mother gave her instructions to move out and let Laura be alone. Andrea becomes so confused and tries to understand what had gone wrong as well as trying to understand why her mother was skilled in what she did to the shooter. A day later, Andrea sees a hooded man circling around her mother’s house and goes inside. Being extra precautions Andrea follows behind and hopes her mother isn’t home. Unfortunately, her mother was home and the intruder were about to do some serious harm to her mother. Andrea did what she could only do was protect her mother by calling the police and knocking the man out. Her mother tells her to take the makeup bag, gave specific instructions, and run away to never come back until her mother calls her to tell her so. When Andrea comes across the storage unit and sees a past that Laura never told her daughter about. Andrea is left to try to put the pieces of what happened to her mother and the truth of her mother on her own while on the run.

This novel was alright and was decently paced. I never had read anything like this before and I had my doubts that this novel as going to be good. I was a little wrong but the novel like I said before was decent. There was no cliché besides the whole hidden identity, but the author had kept it refreshed and gave the novel some depth. There are timeline switches going from the point of view of Andrea in the modern timeline and her mother’s perspective. That has clear and distinct to the switching perspectives that add onto the storyline to create clarity of the plot. I found this novel to be as good as the reviews this book had. I hope to read more of this author soon once this quarantine is over and social distancing is gone. I miss going to the library.