I was so so disappointed by this book. There was so much potential but unfortunately, nothing really came together.

First and foremost, I just didn’t care about any of the characters in this book. The main character, Meredith, just keeps making the stupidest possible decisions at every turn. Not only was she a total train wreck, it was difficult to feel a ton of sympathy for her either, despite what she’s been through. The way that she behaves towards her patients (not Gabriel, just her regular normal patients) was so unprofessional and incompetent that I was actively rooting for her downfall.

The unwillingness to have Meredith face real consequences for her actions was just unbelievable. At the beginning of the novel, Meredith is returning to work as a psychiatrist after a one-year suspension. She’s lost half of her clients because of this and mentions having to put up online ads but really, her practice seems to return to normal upon her return. There’s never any real hardship (apart from what Meredith inflicts upon herself). And by the end of the novel,

Meredith is thriving as a professor at Brooklyn College. How on earth would she be hired as a professor after having her license first suspended and then revoked for multiple ethics violations?

The man that Meredith becomes involved with, Gabriel, is so bland and uninteresting that I had a hard believing that anyone could be obsessed with him. It’s just constantly emphasized how attractive Gabriel is but we never see any real personality from him or any chemistry between him and Meredith.

The mystery and tension in the first half of this book also felt incredibly forced. Characters would constantly think or say things along the lines of “everything changed when *that* happened” or “after *the tragedy* you endured several months ago.” The way that information was deliberately withheld and dangled in front of the reader was so annoying and unnatural. 

All in all, this was a book that had some good moments but overall, failed to deliver on an interesting premise.

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for providing me with a digital copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.