Genre: Mystery/Thriller
Release Date: February 6th, 2024
Pages: 368
My Rating: ⭐⭐
Publisher’s Synopsis:
“A razor-sharp thriller about a mother forced to the breaking point when her life and the lives of her children are threatened by an intruder
Home alone with her young children during a blizzard, a mother tucks her son back into bed in the middle of the night. She hears a noise—old houses are always making some kind of noise. But this sound is disturbingly familiar: it’s the tread of footsteps, unusually heavy and slow, coming up the stairs.
Shrouded in the shadows, she sees the figure of a man appear down the hallway. Terrified, she quietly wakes her children and hustles them into the oldest part of the house, a tiny, secret room concealed behind a wall. There they hide as the man searches for them, trying to tempt the children out with promises and scare the mother into surrender.
In the suffocating darkness, the mother struggles to remain calm, to plan, to search for any opportunity to find a weapon or escape and get help. But then she catches another glimpse of him. That face. That voice. And at once she knows her situation is even more dire than she’d feared, because she knows exactly who he is—and what he wants.”
My Review:
I hate being the “bad guy” about someone’s debut, but this was rather disappointing to me. I’d been hearing a lot of anticipation for this one, so I was excited to read it but, sadly, it wasn’t great.
On the surface, the story concept has the potential for a very intense read, but the execution was lacking to such an extent that it was not enjoyable for me.
The writing style is what really pulled me out of the story, the constant inner monologues felt awkward and choppy and at times her thoughts are kind of ridiculous. Her ramblings didn’t at all make me feel for the character on a deeper level, and it actually took away from the tension and suspense.
“The Corner” title felt silly to me and I found myself laughing at him instead of being frightened.
The flashbacks don’t feel relevant enough.
The plot in the present timeline drags on for so long that it didn’t feel believable. Over time it became repetitive and uninteresting.
The police felt like dramatized caricatures. I mean, really, they can’t be that bad and still have a job.
I found the lack of names to be an odd narrative choice. My best guess is that the intention was to make it feel like this could be happening to any one of us by generalizing the experience, but it only accomplished making me feel disconnected from the characters and the story.
It seems I’m a minority because this book has a high early rating right now, so maybe take my review with a grain of salt. Of course, reading experiences are subjective, so if you’re able to get past these things that put me off, then maybe you’d enjoy it.
I can’t honestly say I’d recommend it though. It just didn’t work for me, and that’s ok.
Disclaimers:
Huge thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for gifting me an early copy of this amazing story! I voluntarily read and reviewed this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
Have you read this book? Planning to add it to your TBR?
Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!
I love a good book discussion. 🙂
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