This book sounded very intriguing to me but was ultimately a rather large disappointment. The characters are all incredibly stereotypical— almost to the point of being offensive. The main character is a self-involved woman in her late 30’s who seems to know very little of the world around her and jumps to conclusions about anyone and everyone she meets. These conclusions are generally very negative and later on when she is proven to have been wrong she always acts surprised. This is a theme throughout the story that really started to wear on me in the end.

She is also incredibly oblivious and places her narrow world view on events and experiences until she twists them in her mind and they end up far from the truth. I spent half the novel trying to read between the lines of her untrustworthy narration.

The mystery is entertaining enough with a few good twists although I felt the conclusion was rather obvious. As a result, the inability of the main characters to solve the mystery made the story feel long and drawn out to me. The love story and the background of the main character made the book feel very cluttered. I think it could have done without many of the scenes that weren’t a part of solving the main mystery. The ending scenes especially annoyed me. Near the end of the book the main character who is the narrator starts spelling things out in a manner I would expect in a children’s book.

Overall a huge disappointment for me. This book was compared to Gillian Flynn and other popular mystery thrillers and I disagree with that comparison whole-heartedly. If you want the lifetime movie version (to quote another reviewer) of those great novels then this book is for you.

Final note: If you were in the south, you likely did not go to a Carl’s Junior! You went to Hardee’s. A quick google search told me there are 3 Carl’s Junior in Louisiana and they are all in Shreveport. Little details like that seem important to me to get right.