I can't believe I forgot to blog about a book, and not just any book but a book of the month!
I don't even know why I forgot to blog about it, was it because I was on holiday? No that was Thirteen Reasons Why. Did I miss the meeting? No I remember discussing it so it can't be that. Was it because it was rubbish and it fell from memory altogether? Well not totally as I liked the start and although I cant remember anybodies name I do remember the story line. No excuse then, plain and simple I forgot.
The book started brilliantly, a couple leave their baby next door (taking baby monitor and returning to check regularly) to celebrate a neighbours birthday. When they return home the little girl is missing, taken from her cot. The horror they must have felt, the blame, the anger. All of this Lapena portrayed really well. You found the parents initially sympathetic in a world where people are so quick to judge and Madeline McCann is still a name everyone remembers.
I thought the tension in the first few chapters was brilliant and loved when the narrative flipped to that of the lead detective. How he observed the parents and processed their responses added a totally different dimension to the book.
I also loved how open the book was at the start - could it have been the mother who was a bit drunk and a bit depressed? Could it have been the husband who saw the baby alive last? And what about the couple next door after whom one presumes the book was named? did they somehow have any involvement in it? Anything was possible at the start and I honestly didn't have a clue how it was going to span out.
Whilst I did initially feel sympathy for the parents, Anne and Marco, I don't think I ever felt truly distraught for them. I remember reading about the different baby grows and feeling a slight pang but I don't think I ever truly felt their panic or their desperation.
Where I think the book started to fall apart was when they ramped up the idea of Anne being mentally unstable. The convenience of her having had a psychotic episode where she blanked out actually made me quite angry. I think too often mental heath can be used for sensationalism rather than being given the respect it fully deserves and to try to introduce Anne's previous mental heath issues as a way of making her a suspect fell short for me.
This was the start of the end though as from then on the twists and turns (and there were a few) became more and more unbelievable until in the end they were just silly. What little feeling I had for either Anne or Marco diminished and in the end it was another book where none of the characters were likeable.
The group felt the same way and also questioned why the book was called The Couple Next Door. The actual couple next door just weren't in it enough for it to be about them nor for it to allow Anne and Marco to in fact become the subject matter of the title.
The ending was terrible, just terrible. AND I WILL GIVE A SPOILER WARNING HERE. To give back a baby to a couple where the father had kidnapped her for ransom, the mother had mental heath issues and both left their baby home alone was incomprehensible. Where were social services? Who decided they were fit parents to have her back? To top it all off for Anne to then have another psychotic moment dragging the couple next door back in to it was silly and another example of mental health being poorly represented.
I can't remember what score we gave it in the end, I do remember it was universally low and its not stopping on my bookshelf.
It was however left on a bookshelf in a campsite in Skye as part of my #passiton campaign. If you have read a book and don't want to keep it, leave it some place random for someone else to find and to enjoy. Write the hashtag 'passiton' inside the front page, take a picture and tweet us @crambookclub AND if you find a #passiton book let us know!!!!
I don't even know why I forgot to blog about it, was it because I was on holiday? No that was Thirteen Reasons Why. Did I miss the meeting? No I remember discussing it so it can't be that. Was it because it was rubbish and it fell from memory altogether? Well not totally as I liked the start and although I cant remember anybodies name I do remember the story line. No excuse then, plain and simple I forgot.
The book started brilliantly, a couple leave their baby next door (taking baby monitor and returning to check regularly) to celebrate a neighbours birthday. When they return home the little girl is missing, taken from her cot. The horror they must have felt, the blame, the anger. All of this Lapena portrayed really well. You found the parents initially sympathetic in a world where people are so quick to judge and Madeline McCann is still a name everyone remembers.
I thought the tension in the first few chapters was brilliant and loved when the narrative flipped to that of the lead detective. How he observed the parents and processed their responses added a totally different dimension to the book.
I also loved how open the book was at the start - could it have been the mother who was a bit drunk and a bit depressed? Could it have been the husband who saw the baby alive last? And what about the couple next door after whom one presumes the book was named? did they somehow have any involvement in it? Anything was possible at the start and I honestly didn't have a clue how it was going to span out.
Whilst I did initially feel sympathy for the parents, Anne and Marco, I don't think I ever felt truly distraught for them. I remember reading about the different baby grows and feeling a slight pang but I don't think I ever truly felt their panic or their desperation.
Where I think the book started to fall apart was when they ramped up the idea of Anne being mentally unstable. The convenience of her having had a psychotic episode where she blanked out actually made me quite angry. I think too often mental heath can be used for sensationalism rather than being given the respect it fully deserves and to try to introduce Anne's previous mental heath issues as a way of making her a suspect fell short for me.
This was the start of the end though as from then on the twists and turns (and there were a few) became more and more unbelievable until in the end they were just silly. What little feeling I had for either Anne or Marco diminished and in the end it was another book where none of the characters were likeable.
The group felt the same way and also questioned why the book was called The Couple Next Door. The actual couple next door just weren't in it enough for it to be about them nor for it to allow Anne and Marco to in fact become the subject matter of the title.
The ending was terrible, just terrible. AND I WILL GIVE A SPOILER WARNING HERE. To give back a baby to a couple where the father had kidnapped her for ransom, the mother had mental heath issues and both left their baby home alone was incomprehensible. Where were social services? Who decided they were fit parents to have her back? To top it all off for Anne to then have another psychotic moment dragging the couple next door back in to it was silly and another example of mental health being poorly represented.
I can't remember what score we gave it in the end, I do remember it was universally low and its not stopping on my bookshelf.
It was however left on a bookshelf in a campsite in Skye as part of my #passiton campaign. If you have read a book and don't want to keep it, leave it some place random for someone else to find and to enjoy. Write the hashtag 'passiton' inside the front page, take a picture and tweet us @crambookclub AND if you find a #passiton book let us know!!!!
Comments
Post a Comment