Friends, it is I! I return to you as a university graduate and as someone who just read like 4 books in a week and a half. As someone who normally reads that many books in a semester (rip how much reading I do during the semester for school), this was incredible. Including a couple books that I had gotten for Christmas, I also read Alice’s Island. I received this book from Simon & Schuster Canada in exchange for a fair review, and so that’s what I’m gonna do. As always, thank you Simon & Schuster for giving me this opportunity!
Synopsis:
A happily married woman’s perfect life shatters when her husband turns up dead hundreds of miles away from where he should have been, and she suddenly discovers that there was a part of him she knew nothing about.
Alice Dupont’s perfect marriage was a perfect lie. When her husband, Chris, dies in a car accident, far from where he should have been, Alice’s life falls apart. After the police close the case, she is left with more questions than answers. While learning to cope with her loss and her new identity as a single mother of two, Alice becomes obsessed with unraveling the mystery surrounding her husband’s death and decides to start her own investigation. Retracing her husband’s last known whereabouts, she soon discovers clues that lead her to a small island near Nantucket.
As she insinuates herself into the lives of the island’s inhabitants in an effort to discover what they knew about her husband, Alice finds herself increasingly involved in their private lives and comes to a disturbing realization: she has been transformed into a person she no longer recognizes.
In seeking an answer to what her husband was doing before he died, Alice discovers not only a side of him she never knew, but sides of her own character she has never explored. Part mystery, part moving family drama, part psychological page-turner, Alice’s Island is a novel whose vivid characters hold the reader rapt right up until the final page.
Review: (spoilers ahead)
I went into this book kind of hopeful, and was a little bit let down. The prospect of a murder mystery is always something that intrigues me, because I love a good twist and turn plot. But while I do admit that this book had it’s twists, it also was nowhere near what I was expecting.
To me, Alice was an annoying and non realistic character. First of all, I found that her premise was a little unhinged… I get that she is grieving over the death of her husband, but to me it’s ridiculous. Her husband was a ways away from where he was supposed to have been. Could he have been having an affair? Was he lying to her? The point is moot because he’s passed away. Her entire story line then dives into investigating where he was, which I also think is ridiculous. She gets security tapes from stores and traces him back, but how do you know that that car is his? As someone who really expects that stories be at least a little bit believable, this was infuriating to me.
Additionally, her character then moved to an island and LIED to everyone about this. And on top of that, she does exactly what shes trying to prove her husband does – she has an affair with someone. Its maddening. Cheating is one thing that I cannot stand, and the fact that her invasive and horrible behaviour (for the most part) went unresolved. I hardly noticed any repercussions for her, and she definitely wouldn’t have been regarded well after it. But the book just kind of ends on a happy note.
The book itself was hard to read. I found it slow and dry, and a ridiculous premise overall that (for the most part) didn’t have a satisfying ending. I think Alice would have been happier if she had just moved on and gotten therapy with her daughters.
Overall I would rate this book 2/5. I’m always sad what my review isn’t 5/5, but again – this may be just me. Let me know what you think of the book in the comments!
Thats all for now ducks, I’ll be back with another review very soon!
Have a good weekend 🙂
~ Mon
Words, Pages, Books 