By: Sophie Hannah
Synopsis
All Beth has to do is drive her son to his football game, watch him play, and then return home. Just because she knows her ex-best friend lives near the field doesn’t mean she has to drive past her house and try to catch a glimpse of her.
Why would Beth do that and risk dredging up painful memories? She hasn’t seen Flora for twelve years. She doesn’t want to see her today – or ever again. But she can’t resist. She parks outside the open gates of Newnham House and watches from across the road as Flora arrives and calls to her children, Thomas and Emily, to get out of the car.
Except…there’s something terribly wrong. Flora looks the same, only older. Twelve years ago, Thomas and Emily were five and three. Today, they look precisely as they did then. They are no taller, no different from when Beth last saw them. They are Thomas and Emily without a doubt – Beth heard flora call them by their names – but why haven’t they grown? How is it possible that they are still the same two perfect little children Beth knew more than a decade ago?
My Thoughts
This started out interesting from the very beginning. It hooked me right away, and I didn’t want to put it down. It had such an interesting premise that I had no trouble with it being slightly unrealistic.
The characters were interesting and diverse in personality. Beth is bold and unrelenting. Her choices filled me with anxiety occasionally. Dom was kind of bland, but that was a nice contrast. Zannah and Ben were, well, they’re teenagers. Zannah was interesting with her clever observations, but Ben didn’t factor into the story very often. Lewis was a psychopath, and Flora was meek. I really liked that the characters were all so different.
I found Beth to be obsessive. I’m sure I would be just as curious, but she didn’t seem to understand boundaries. She was also quite reckless, as shown by her decision to travel to Florida and confront Lewis on her own. Part of me admired her tenacity, but it also really stressed me out. I liked Beth and didn’t want her to be harmed by Lewis.
This wasn’t an overly descriptive novel, and this worked really well. The descriptions really served to give more insight into the people. For example, the description of the house at Wyddial Lane gives us a glimpse into the mind of Lewis.
This book was quite a ride. The ending was unusual to say the least, but it was plausible, and it wrapped the story up nicely. I appreciated that not everything got a tidy happy ending. That made it more believable.
My main takeaway from this book was that we are all so wrapped up in ourselves and our perceptions that we may be oblivious to what is actually going on with those closest to us. This idea ran throughout the book as Beth deals with her guilt over not noticing what was going on with Flora, her best friend. I think this is a lesson we could all do well to remember.
These are just my thoughts. What are yours?