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Thursday, February 13, 2020

Review: Someone We Know, by Shari Lapena

Someone We Know, by Shari Lapena

Penguin Audio - 2019
Fiction - Thriller
Audiobook
Narrated by Kirsten Potter
7 Hours, 50 Minutes



Someone We Know, by Shari Lapena has a strong story line, but what could have been a great book, fell short of its potential for me, still good - but not great. 

In a happy middle-class neighborhood, a teen is breaking into homes to hack computers, snoop and send prank e-mails. When anonymous letters surface from a mystery parent telling people that their homes and computers have been compromised, people in the neighborhood start to worry. When a missing woman turns up murdered, nerves fray, tensions, rise and everyone is both a suspect and suspicious. Everyone in this neighborhood seems to be up to something they don't want anyone else knowing about and desperate to keep their secrets, and one of them is even a murderer.  

The plot certainly had me intrigued, so many secrets, so many possibilities! My mind was constantly turning over the possibilities of who the murderer was. The husband? The moody teen with a criminal hobby? A scorned spouse or lover?So many possibilities swirling in my mind! 

Unfortunately, I didn't feel like it mattered to me who it was. I didn't really like any of the characters, but for that matter I didn't really hate any single character either. I am one of those readers that is happiest when I have a character that I love, or a character that I love to hate.  None of the characters in this story stood out to me in either a particularly good or bad way compared to the others. I never once thought to myself "I hope it's not 'x', he seems like a decent guy caught in bad circumstances"; Or,  "I just know it must be 'x', she is so nasty and devious!". In the end, while I was interested from a rational perspective as to who the killer was, I was not at all emotionally invested enough in any of the characters for it to really matter other than addressing my idle curiosity. 

Narration was performed by Kirsten Potter who read with a clear and pleasant voice, good cadence and tone, and provided an appropriate range of emotion and character. 

Someone We Know is a thriller that is strong on plot but fell short of its true potential. 


1 comment:

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