Books à la Mode | a book, beauty, and fashion blog: psychological thriller

Showing posts with label psychological thriller. Show all posts

Saturday, August 1, 2015

6 Heart Review: Little Black Lies by Sandra Block

Little Black Lies
Sandra Block

Page Count: 352
Release Date: February 17th 2015
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing (Hachette)
Source: Complimentary copy provided by publicist in exchange for an honest and unbiased review (thank you, Wunderkind PR!)
Rating: ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

She helps people conquer their demons. But she has a few of her own...

In the halls of the psychiatric ward, Dr. Zoe Goldman is a resident in training, dedicated to helping troubled patients. However, she has plenty of baggage of her own. When Zoe becomes obsessed with questions about her own mother's death, the truth remains tauntingly out of reach, locked away within her nightmares of an uncontrollable fire. And as her adoptive mother loses her memory to dementia, the time to find the answers is running out.

As Zoe digs deeper, she realizes that the danger is not just in her dreams but is now close at hand. And she has no choice but to face what terrifies her the most. Because what she can't remember just might kill her.

Little Black Lies is about madness and memory—and the dangerous, little lies we tell ourselves just to survive.

Review

I pop the pill into my mouth and climb back in bed. My brain slows to a thrum, listening to the Xanax. Arms jelly, legs jelly, brain jelly, melting into the bed. But before I fade off, the finest gossamer of a thought sticks in my brain like a burr.
The fire. After twenty years, why am I dreaming about the fire?

Even after the finality of my 3-out-of-5-star rating for Little Black Lies, I still find the premise completely fascinating. The psychological thriller genre is one among my favorites, and combined with my personal/professional interest in the field (I'm currently studying psychopathology), I couldn't resist picking this one up. While the originality of the plot and extensive psychiatric research and experience that went into this book impress me greatly, I do have to say this book isn't exactly the thriller I expected—or wanted—it to be.

Dr. Zoe Goldman has a tragic past, having lost her birth family in a housefire as a baby. As an adult though, she's doing quite all right because she doesn't remember any of it. This was a fabulous starting point—I love the idea. Sudden dreams and flashbacks of the fire, which she hasn't had since she was a very young child, coincide with the arrival of her newest patient, Sophia Vallano, a beautiful sociopath who murdered her own mother. As both the nightmares and paranoia intensify and Zoe's own psychiatric care begins to go awry, she becomes obsessed with questions about her birth mother's death, including what really happened in that fire, especially when her adoptive mother begins to slip up on Zoe's own life facts, which are too eery to be due to the dementia.

The premise is excellent, and in summary, the book sounds complete. Completely for me. Unfortunately the poor characterization and technical annoyances disappointed me immensely, rendering the book to fall short of what I was initially hoping for.

My first problem was with Zoe herself; even acquainted with her as a first-person narrator, I just couldn't connect with her voice. She's clearly intelligent and very grounded, but as a character, she is stiff, more intellectual and mechanical than relatable. The few sequences of emotion she displays (sympathy for her mom, attraction to her boyfriend, etc.) come off very unconvincingly, which I feel is more an issue with Block's writing than anything else. In the same vein, I didn't like any of the characters in the book, so this reinforces the notion that Zoe isn't just a megabitch, but that the author created weak characters in general. While well edited and concise, Block's hand lacks the fluidity and style that a good novel needs to really reel me in.

That being said, I had no problem reading the book or following the plot. The directness and clarity of the story's progression made it effortless to get through, which is saying a lot, provided the disorientating nature of Zoe's random, mentally unstable flashbacks of her childhood. Block takes two distinct story lines—one in the present and one in the past, that, together, would otherwise be very confusing—and has produced a readable, manageable novel, which is a feat in and of itself.

The rising tension in the novel is so prolonged, that it actually eventually got boring... but I still didn't hate it. I was definitely engaged in following Zoe's journey of discovering the inconsistencies between her unreliable memory, actual childhood, and what she was told by her adoptive parents growing up.

My biggest quip is with the climax/ending. The entire point of the book was to culminate in a dark dangerous secret (which I will abbreviate as D.D.S. from now on) that even the synopsis on the back cover hints at, but it just didn't enthrall or terrify me, as a good thriller should. The climax isn't predictable necessarily—by which I mean, it did surprise me. However the D.D.S. revealed didn't exactly have me reeling, either; it was rather inevitable, and even the back cover teased it in the back of my mind from the beginning, so it was rather anticlimactic.

Pros

Original plot // Interesting medical/psychiatric background and terminology // Creative intentions

Cons

Not the most stylistically written // Inevitable, not-so-frightening D.D.S. // Hopeful premise, but overall not memorable or remarkable // Romance subplot not only is irrelevant/disjointed, but also cringe-worthy and clichéd // Zoe is a straightforward, no-nonsense protagonist, but rather irritating and unlikable // Weak secondary characters

Verdict

Slow paced, technically flawed, and lacking in developed and believable characters, Little Black Lies was a let-down for me all-around—mostly due to my enormous anticipation for it as a psychological thriller. Psychological and at times thrilling? Well, sure, but it's not one of those searing, edge-of-your-seat, mind-blowing thrillers, mostly due to its languid, stretched-out rising action and unavoidable climax. There are moments in the story, especially regarding the solidly researched and written medical topics, that did indeed excite me, but overall Sandra Block's debut novel doesn't particularly stand out to me as a top recommendation

Friday, April 25, 2014

9 Heart Review: Mind of Winter by Laura Kasischke

Sorry for the late review but it's finally up!!!

Mind of Winter
Laura Kasischke

Page Count: 276
Release Date: March 25th 2014
Publisher: Harper (Harper Collins)
Source: Complimentary copy provided by publisher via tour publicist in exchange for an honest and unbiased review (thank you, Harper Collins and TLC!)
Rating: ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

Something had followed them from Russia.

On a snowy Christmas morning, Holly Judge awakens, the fragments of a nightmare—something so important that she must write it down—floating on the edge of her consciousness.

Something had followed them from Russia!

It was thirteen years ago that she and her husband, Eric, went to Siberia to adopt the sweet, dark-haired child they had wanted so desperately. How they laughed at the nurses of Pokrovka Orphanage #2 with their garlic and superstitions, and ignored their insistent warnings. After all, their fairy princess Tatiana—Baby Tatty—was perfect.

As the snow falls, enveloping the world in its white silence, Holly senses that something is not right, and has never been right in the years since they brought their daughter home. Now Tatty is a dangerously beautiful, petulant, and often erratic teenager, and Holly feels there is something evil lurking within their house.

She and Tatiana are alone. Eric is stuck on the roads, and none of the other guests for Christmas dinner will be able to make it through the snow. With each passing hour, the blizzard rages and Tatiana's mood darkens, her behavior becoming increasingly disturbing... until, in every mother's worst nightmare, Holly finds she no longer recognizes her daughter.

Review

They never speculated whether Tatiana might have inherited her love of horses from some Mongol ancestor or whether her lovely singing voice had been passed down from a gypsy grandmother. Neither of them speculated as to whether there might be manic depression tucked away in those genes, as there was in Holly's, or heart disease, cancer, anything. Their daughter had come to them without legacy. She was so beautiful and perfect she did not need one.

On Christmas morning, Holly Judge comes to with a startling message from a foggy dream she's just awaken from: something had followed them home from Russia.

Something had followed them home from Russia! These words, in the context of her daughter, Tatiana's adoption from Pokrovka Orphanage #2 in Siberia 13 years ago, should send chills up your spine. As Holly deals with the domestic mishaps of stressful Christmas dinner preparations, readers tap into the reflective, wistful dusty corners of Holly's mind. Her thoughts drift from her troubled childhood, to her hardest battles, to Baby Tatty's excruciating but worthwhile adoption, to Tatiana's adolescence; these flashbacks are what make up the secure, nostalgic portion of the book.

In the present, however, Holly must face something far more frightening than her personal tragedies and memories: her daughter. The frustration of motherhood is really well captured through Holly's third person narrative. She's excessively sensitive—paranoid, easily startled, a bit overbearing—but her egocentric way of thought is forgiven solely because of how relatable she is, how easy to sympathize with.

Tatiana and Holly's relationship is slightly morbid, a bit eerie to begin with. There's something lurkingly alarming about Holly being trapped inside the house in a snowstorm with a daughter that isn't acting like herself anymore, and although their interactions only occur within a span of eight hours (or so), they take up the entire novel, which should be an indication of just how scrutinizingly—just how comprehensively—Holly's life story unravels.

No matter how much you reflect, the past will always catch up with you, Holly realizes when her reminiscences culminate with a jarring, unexpected revelation that tilts her perspective, sense, and reality a several degrees. The ending of the book—which I won't give away—will make your mind reel and have you rethinking the virtues of destiny, sanity, and delusion of perfection.

Laura Kasischke is a clear poet, with smooth and imaginative style that sets a perfectly chilling and increasingly distressing mood. I noticed a lot of readers on Goodreads complaining about the repetition of certain lines and the exaggerated alarm with which Holly perceives the world, but—hello?—that's the entire POINT of her writing style! Kasischke's merit isn't quite literary, but it's sensuous, it's poetic, and it needs to be read like a movie script would: dramatically, frenetically.

I know the cover is really creepy, and while I can definitely vouch for a disturbing quality to this novel, I also have to say it isn't all blood and guts and gore; I wouldn't call this a horror novel, exactly. It's more about horror of the mind; Mind of Winter is a shadowy psychological thriller that won't only have your heart leaping up in your chest, but will also make you consider the limitations of a solitary perspective, and what it means to truly understand a story.

Pros

Completely absorbing... it was hard for me to stop reading! // Mind-blowing turn of events // Structurally and stylistically bizarre, but that much more impressive // Nothing violent or explicit, but as a trigger warning, there is definitely some emotionally disturbing content // Poetic, repetitive flow to Kasischke's voice // Vivid, detailed style // Introspective // Presents accurate remarks about the joys and dangers of what's inside of us // One of those books that will make you double-take and think hard

Cons

No chapters or clear structure to the book, which I understand is intentional, but it made it hard to find stopping points while reading (not that I wanted to stop reading) // Creeped out the living sh!t out of me (which is actually pretty cool, now that I think about it)

Love

"It isn't repression to acknowledge the horrors of this world and let them go. It's freedom."

Verdict

Tranquilly dark, hauntingly portrayed, and ultimately, completely mind-bending, Laura Kasischke's latest novel is a hair-raising glimpse at not only a repressive household's mother-daughter relationship, but also into the scariest place possible: the human mind. While not explicit or particularly horrific, Mind of Winter has some disturbing content that keeps me from recommending it to the average Jane. However, if, like me, you can stomach that kind of psychological manipulation from the author, and if you're a fan of unreliable narrators, macabre portraits of repression and denial, and characters that come with no baggage or legacy, then this is your next must-read. Buy yourself a copy now

Friday, February 21, 2014

8 Heart Review: Friend Me by John Faubion and Kindle Fire HDX Giveaway!

Friend Me
John Faubion
Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads | Follow the Tour!

Page Count: 335
Release Date: February 4th 2014
Publisher: Howard Books (Simon and Schuster)
Source: Complimentary copy provided by tour publicist in exchange for an honest and unbiased review (thank you, Litfuse!)
Rating: ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

"You're afraid of becoming unfaithful, aren't you?"

Scott and Rachel’s marriage is on the brink of disaster. Scott, a businessman with a high-pressure job, just wants Rachel to understand him and accept his flaws. Rachel is a lonely housewife, desperate for attention and friendship. So she decides to create a virtual friend online, unaware that Scott is doing the exact same thing. As Rachel desperately tries to re-create a friendship with a friend who has passed, Scott becomes unfaithful and is torn between the love for his wife and the perfection of his cyber-girlfriend. But neither realizes that there’s a much larger problem looming...

Behind both of their online creations is Melissa, a woman who is brilliant—and totally insane. Masquerading as both friend and lover, Melissa programmed a search parameter into the virtual friend software to find her perfect man, but along the way she forgot to specify his marriage status. And Scott is her ideal match. Now Melissa is determined to have it all—Scott, his family, and Rachel’s life.

As Melissa grows bolder and her online manipulations transition into the real world, Scott and Rachel figure out they are being played. Now it’s a race against time as Scott and Rachel fight to save their marriage, and their lives, before it’s too late.

In today’s digital age, the internet presents all kinds of opportunities to test our personal boundaries, and this exciting and suspenseful story raises important questions about the ethics of virtual relationships. Friend Me will open your eyes to a new—and terrifying—moral dimensions and how they play out in the real world.

Review

It was like a slap in the face when the full awareness struck her.
[Melissa] tried to kill me so she could replace me.
She wanted to steal her place as Scott's wife.
Rachel shrank within herself as the next explosive realization impacted on the fragile, shivering wall of what was left of her heart.
Replace me as my children's mother.

The deadly situation Rachel and Scott find themselves in is a domestic nightmare: an utterly creepy, technology-fueled nightmare. Both lonely and both exhausted—in different ways entirely—each turns to VirtualFriendMe, a website where one can personalize their own virtual friend—who can speak, chat, email, and even grow like a real human being. While VirtualFriendMe may be sweeping the nation, neither of them are aware of the fact that their conversations with their "friends" are being overridden by the company's developer, Melissa, who's set on loving Scott, the only man who's qualified in every area of her complicated algorithm—and yes, that means eliminating Rachel in the process.

Following Melissa as she slowly but surely develops and hatches her horrific plan is interesting; the dramatic irony is crucial in understanding her as more than an evil genius: as a person. To Rachel and Scott, Melissa is a monster, and while I wouldn't disagree, readers are acquainted with her in such an intimate, exposing way, that you can't help but sympathize with her. This, as you can imagine, is a conflicting emotion, and it's completely intentional on Faubion's part; it raises the questions of what it means to be faithful, what it means to be evil, and what it means to be human.

Faubion's voice is smooth and easy to follow, and the plot is cutting, deep and dark. The chapters are short, but each pack a huge punch; it was so hard for me to put this book down because I was so eager to find out what would happen next... and the what would happen after that, and that and that...

It's worth mentioning Friend Me is a Christian suspense, meaning a lot of the story's main issues—primarily Scott's struggle to resist temptation and remain faithful to Rachel—reference straying away from the path of God, and contain lots of prayer as well. The inherent Christian elements also made it a rather tame dark suspense; there's nothing gory or explicit, as much of the nitty-gritty occurs behind closed doors. I understand Christian fiction isn't for everybody, but take my advice with a grain of salt. Even if these religious traits had bothered me, I'd still have enjoyed the book because of how absorbing and intricate the world of VirtualFriendMe is.

Pros

Titillating suspense // Lots of danger and action // Fast-paced // Christian elements well incorporated into the entire length of the novel // Exciting, original sci-fi; Faubion creates an entertaining and intriguing virtual reality // Melissa is given an elaborate backstory

Cons

Characters don't get very personal; they seemed very unmemorable to me, even though a lot of the book is character-driven // Seems overdramatized

Verdict

Original and imaginative, while simultaneously current, edgy, and fast-paced, Friend Me creates a science fiction world that serves both as social commentary on the risks of being careless on the internet, and the sheer ease at which one can fall into temptation. The intense psychological manipulation and means one deluded woman will go to, just to get her way, will stun and captivate readers. John Faubion skillfully analyzes the difference and fine line between faithfulness and faith; his debut novel sentimentally speaks of the dangers of deviating from the word of God, and of depending too much on technology—which may be fun, but cannot and will not ever replace real life

Check out the details of this fabulous Kindle Fire HDX giveaway below. This is a tour-wide giveaway so Books à la Mode has no liability over winners, prizes, or shipping/handling. Good luck!

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

9 Heart Review: Mother, Mother by Koren Zailckas

Mother, Mother
Koren Zailckas

Page Count: 384
Release Date: September 17th 2013
Publisher: Crown (Random House)
Source: Complimentary copy provided by publisher, via publicist, in exchange for an honest and unbiased review (thank you, Random House and TLC Book Tours!)
Rating: ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

From Koren Zailckas, author of the iconic memoir Smashed: an electrifying debut novel about a family being torn apart by the woman who claims to love them most

Josephine Hurst has her family under control. With two beautiful daughters, a brilliantly intelligent son, a tech-guru of a husband and a historical landmark home, her life is picture perfect. She has everything she wants; all she has to do is keep it that way. But living in this matriarch’s determinedly cheerful, yet subtly controlling domain hasn’t been easy for her family, and when her oldest daughter, Rose, runs off with a mysterious boyfriend, Josephine tightens her grip, gradually turning her flawless home into a darker sort of prison.

Resentful of her sister’s newfound freedom, Violet turns to eastern philosophy, hallucinogenic drugs, and extreme fasting, eventually landing herself in the psych ward. Meanwhile, her brother Will shrinks further into a world of self-doubt. Recently diagnosed with Aspergers and epilepsy, he’s separated from the other kids around town and is homeschooled to ensure his safety. Their father, Douglas, finds resolve in the bottom of the bottle—an addict craving his own chance to escape. Josephine struggles to maintain the family’s impeccable façade, but when a violent incident leads to a visit from child protective services, the truth about the Hursts might finally be revealed.

Written with the style, dark wit, and shrewd psychological insight that made Smashed a bestseller, Zailckas’s first novel is unforgettable. In the spirit of classic suspense novels by Shirley Jackson and Daphne DuMaurier, Mother, Mother is the terrifying and page-turning story of a mother’s love gone too far, and the introduction of a commanding new voice in fiction.

Buy the book from: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | The Book Depository | Books-A-Million | Kobo

The author bares all: "Top 5 Things You Didn't Know About Mother, Mother" – click here to read!!

Review

Violet knew in her gut that Josephine was the major reason Rose had done what she'd done. With a mom like theirs, it was impossible not to equate becoming a mother with becoming a monster.

I haven't read too many psychological thrillers, but I really should more often. Mother, Mother is a book that's impossible not to enjoy; with an unconventional perspective on what it means to be a doting mother, it at once left me greatly disturbed and deeply satisfied, which is an emotive pairing I never expected myself to feel.

First off, I should warn you all: this book is not for the faint-hearted. There isn't so much blood and guts here as there is a grotesquely screwed-up family... yes, it's that kind of scary. The false cheeriness—the cutting sarcasm—that floats in the atmosphere of the novel makes it all the more frightening; you can think of Josephine as a cross between the ultimate Stepford wife and Psycho's Norman Bates, which is a genius, but lethal combination.

The story begins in Woodstock, New York, in the wake of the oldest Hurst daughter, Rose's sudden departure, which Josephine swears is all part of Rose's grand plan to turn her perfect family into a perfect wreck... or at least expose its so-called "perfection" to the world. Violet, the younger Hurst flower, suffers from what at first appears to be middle child syndrome: not good enough to replace her sister yet not respected enough to trump her coddled, autistic brother, William. As detached as she is from everyone in her family, including, fortunately, her mother, she and her brother share a convoluted connection in that they're both trying to find Rose, or at least find out what really happened to her. Both children try to figure out the blurry night when everything changed—when William was attacked, Violet institutionalized, and Rose, after a whole year of missing, reappeared—but the task proves more difficult than expected because only one person seems to have been in the right mind when everything happened: Josephine. The "real" events of that night slowly unravel to reveal Josephine's projectionist tendencies, her most horrifying defects, and the way she so obviously plagues each of her family members, but then again, when it comes to the Hursts, even real can't be trusted.

The two points-of-view of Violet and Will are fascinating to read together, especially because of how sharply they contrast; it's like reading two different books interlaced, which mimics the polarity in Josephine's menacing personality. Will's logical and uncomfortably candid narrative is highly influenced and tainted, while Violet's is fresh and intuitive, although very, very cloudy. Both narrators are so easy to sympathize with, and yet neither are completely reliable; knowing which frame of mind to favor, is all up to the reader.

With stunning characterization and a climax that confirms the worst of suspicions and shocks you to the core, Zailckas shows us the good, the bad, and the hideous of a family that's about to come crashing down under the weight of a calculated secret and a web of lies. Mother, Mother had my head spinning throughout; this is definitely the kind of intelligent read that will keep you in a constant frenzy.

Pros

Sharp, astute voice // Fascinating subject matter and interesting take on a suburbian nightmare // Fast-paced // Will and Violet are brilliantly developed // The climax—it's got to be one of the best I've seen in contemporary fiction

Cons

Multiple perspectives and flashbacks are confusing in the beginning

Verdict

The multiple faces of a desperate mother are painfully exposed as her misunderstood and determined daughter and misguided and idolatrous young son attempt to crack the case on the disappearance of their doll of an older sister, Rose. Mother, Mother is delectable in the sickest, most disorienting, and most unorthodox way; completely disturbing and completely original, this psychological thriller is an impressive debut. Zailckas's abrasive first novel, chronicled with a building sense of dread—a lingering discomfort—is a reluctant masterpiece; a darkly comical tale about the manipulative means a mother will go to in order to get her way