Friday, April 6, 2018

Couple Next Door

Title: Couple Next Door
Author: Shari Lapena
Genre: Suspense, Thriller
Source: Hardback: Library
Rating: 3 out of 5 paws.


Anne and Marco are next door enjoying a dinner party with their friends.  Or rather Marco is enjoying himself.  Anne is not only worried about their baby and wants to go home, but she watches as her beautiful neighbor shamelessly flirts with her husband.  Upon arriving home, they discover the front door is open, and the worst has happened.  Someone has taken the baby.  Immediately suspicions falls on the parents.  As Detective Rasbach investigates the kidnapping, the truth of what happens begins to unravel and he believes the couple are hiding something, but what is it exactly that they are hiding?



I heard a lot of different good things about this book and people saying that I wouldn't be able to put it down. so I decided to check it out. While it was good but I don't think it was as phenomenal as a lot of people say it is.  It fell flat in many places and I found myself not really caring about the characters.  I tried to tell my mom and best friend about the book, but struggled to explain some of the "twists" found within this novel.  It is interesting and engaging in the beginning, but as the investigation continues it becomes completely unrealistic and I found myself wondering "now why would he do that," "shouldn't he have thought of this."  Again while it was good and interesting, it was completely outlandish and I struggled at times with it.



There are so many different theories in this story intended to lead the reader to think one thing when it turns out to be something else.  At first I felt for Anne, her baby is missing, the detectives think it's her.  But as the story progresses and as a reader I notice things aren't right with her husband, I begin to wonder how she could be naïve.  There wasn't really any depth to the characters other than a few hints at something in their past, but nothing that really goes anywhere with the story.  Just a bunch of red herrings that after a while it begins to distract from the tale.


I found it easy to put down and then come back to because it wasn't one of those books with a lot of deeper things happening within the story, everything was surface action.  Characters began to get annoying and their actions completely far-fetched.  The consistent switching of POV got to be annoying, I wanted the story to focus on one person rather than 3 or 4, it took away from the suspense in finding out what would happen.  For example readers would find out something in one chapter from the POV of a character then it gets revealed two chapters later and it feels anti-climactic because we already knew it.


Now would I read this book again, probably not. Would I recommend it?  I don't know, I have but then took it back because of how much of a let down the rest of the book became.  I will not say it was the best book I have read, nor was it the worst book that I have read. I think if you are interested in thrillers and suspense novels you should give this a try.  Just because it was meh for me doesn't mean it would be for you.



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