I snatched this up from the library upon Rachel from the YouTube channel Shades of Orange's recommendation. We both have love Caroline Kepnes' thriller You, which was published in 2015. I figured I would sandwich this in between that and the follow up release of Kepnes' Hidden Bodies later this month.
This story focuses on Sheila Tao, a soon to be married sex addict who breaks off relations with her grad student assistant, Ethan. The affair lasted a mere three months. Needless to say, this does not go well for Sheila. The writing was okay, but I felt a little let down by the "creep" factor of Ethan. Is he evil and twisted? Yes. However, it's so blatant that it lacked nuance for me. Joe (the main character in You), was pathological and truly believed he was justified in taking certain actions. The rationale in the Kepnes books, and plot in general, was quite a bit stronger. Reading this suffered because of my constant comparison to Kepnes, which I gave five stars and hold in quite high esteem.
There was a nice little twist that added some entertainment, and I appreciated the last page or so. The majority of the ending felt highly unrealistic. I don't think this thriller blows anything out of the water, and it didn't help that I wasn't rooting for the victim or her boyfriend. I know we were supposed to feel sympathetic to their circumstances, but I frankly found them gross and pathetic. Tao ignores all her training as a PSYCHOLOGIST and falls deeply for a truly, and obviously deranged man. However, this is a mostly okay, quick read. Perfect between long, dense novels or for a readathon.
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