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January 19: Seeing the Real World Through Books
Prompts: Many fiction books have messages about social issues, current events, and more. Some are underlying themes, and others are much more overt. Are you more drawn to books that dive into these serious topics, or do you prefer to have fiction be more of an escape from the world? What are some novels that have impacted you? What do you think are the most effective ways for authors to get their messages across?
Welcome to another week of LTB here at DTRH, everyone! It is cold, cold, cooold, where I am, and I’m not in the coldest part of the country (-50 degrees elsewhere, what?!). Ignoring all that, today’s topic is about the “real world” as seen through books, and the messages authors can send. Is this a good or bad thing?
For me, I am definitely drawn to books that dive into serious or even less serious topics. At the same time, I also read books to escape from the real world almost every time, sticking to fiction over non-fiction. So how can these two be reconciled?
I think the easiest way to explain would probably be to say what I tend to avoid. First, non-fiction, and the true stories that are often just more tragic than tragic, and have the even more devastating blow of being actually real. Particularly with the hard topics, I find these super hard to digest, and even when I do, it feels just particularly heavy. In that sense, I think I’d rather just watch the news or listen to a lecture, rather than be pulled so deeply into a book. I personally find it rather troubling and not too productive.
Armed with only hazy memories, a woman who long ago witnessed her friend’s sudden, mysterious death, and has since spent her life trying to forget, sets out to track down answers. What she uncovers, deep in the woods, is hardly to be believed….
Maya was a high school senior when her best friend, Aubrey, mysteriously dropped dead in front of the enigmatic man named Frank whom they’d been spending time with all summer.
Seven years later, Maya lives in Boston with a loving boyfriend and is kicking the secret addiction that has allowed her to cope with what happened years ago, the gaps in her memories, and the lost time that she can’t account for. But her past comes rushing back when she comes across a recent YouTube video in which a young woman suddenly keels over and dies in a diner while sitting across from none other than Frank. Plunged into the trauma that has defined her life, Maya heads to her Berkshires hometown to relive that fateful summer–the influence Frank once had on her and the obsessive jealousy that nearly destroyed her friendship with Aubrey.
At her mother’s house, she excavates fragments of her past and notices hidden messages in her deceased Guatemalan father’s book that didn’t stand out to her earlier. To save herself, she must understand a story written before she was born, but time keeps running out, and soon, all roads are leading back to Frank’s cabin….
Utterly unique and captivating, The House in the Pines keeps you guessing about whether we can ever fully confront the past and return home.
This was one of the ones I picked out of a list of thrillers just to get started on for the season, and unfortunately it wasn’t a great hit for me. Maybe it was just the themes, but I didn’t find it particularly enthralling on any level. Just when it was going to redeem itself, it didn’t, so all in all it was pretty disappointing.
The House in the Pines follows our unreliable, memory-suppressed protagonist, Maya, who is brought back to a past she had run away from when a video pops up with of her ex-boyfriend. Two girls having dropped dead in front of the same man, with no explanation, and Maya has no recollection of how it went down the first time around. Seeking a resolution for her missing memories, Maya heads back to her home town to hunt down the truth.
Phoebe Dean was the most popular girl alive and dead.
For the last ten years, the small, claustrophobic town of West Wilmer has been struggling to understand one thing: Why did it take young Grant Dean twenty-seven minutes to call for help on the fateful night of the car accident that took the life of his beloved sister, Phoebe?
Someone knows what really happened the night Phoebe died. Someone who is ready to tell the truth.
With Phoebe’s memorial in just three days, grief, delusion, ambition, and regret tornado together with biting gossip in a town full of people obsessed with a long-gone tragedy with four people at its heart—the caretaker, the secret girlfriend, the missing bad boy, and a former football star. Just kids back then, are forever tied together the fateful rainy night Phoebe died.
Perfect for fans of Jane Harper and Celeste Ng, Tate’s literary suspense Twenty-Seven Minutes is a gripping debut about what happens when grief becomes unbearable and dark secrets are unearthed in a hometown that is all too giddy to eat it up.
Overall Recommendation:
Twenty-Seven Minutes is not for the faint hearted, or those who do not want to fall into a pit of despair. While it tried to be a super twisty thriller, it ended up being a super slow read, filled with unlikable characters you can’t root for, all while a cloud of hopelessness permeated every page. I didn’t quite see the twist at the end coming, but at that point, I couldn’t utter much emotion for it either way. If that’s what the author wanted, then it was a success. Otherwise, please be warned.
Publication Date: January 23, 2024
I’m a huge sucker for thrillers, and from the beginning of Twenty-Seven Minutes’ synopsis, I was hooked, line and sinker. But upon opening the very first pages, something immediately felt off to me. Perhaps it was the writing style, which was disjointed and flipping across 4 characters. Or maybe it was the way each character was already being portrayed. Either way, this should’ve been my warning sign.
Spanning only the course of 3 days – which felt like a lifetime while reading it – we follow mostly Grant, Becca and June who are assumedly 3 adults in their late twenties still stuck in their old town and in the trauma they all faced on the same night a decade ago. Let me be clear. All three of these individuals are badly in need of consistent therapy. Becca claimed she went when she first survived the accident that claimed Grant’s sister’s life, but it’s clear she should’ve never stopped. Frankly, her POV probably left me with the worst feeling out of all of them. And that’s saying something because they’re ALL super messed up.
There’s definitely guilt and plenty of secrets between them all. How that would play out and explode into the public sphere was probably the only thing that kept me going at times. None of these characters were likable, although June was probably the closest one I could feel a smidge of sympathy for. But every single one of them was wrapped up in layers of grief, trauma, and addiction to unhealthy, obsessive behaviours that would make someone unsettled from only one of these POVs. There is no break regardless of who we switch to as each POV had so much to unpack. They were also unreliable narrators as you know at least one or all of them are hiding something from us, the readers. The overall result of this? Just a cloud of unsettled discomfort and despair over me outside of this book. I would definitely not recommend this for anyone who struggles with grief or feelings of despair in general. This book will only compound those feelings.
When I finally came through to the other side, the ending was partly something I should’ve seen but also not what I expected. I expected something bigger, for the fact that it ruined so many lives for so long. I suppose there are some points to be given that I didn’t see the twist right away until close to the end but a part of me feels let down. It was the only thing driving me to finish. And I can’t say I wanted to finish because it was fast paced or super suspenseful. I just like knowing the answer. The only reason this rating isn’t lower is because I did manage to finish and I did push through – a part of me was too afraid to stop reading for fear I’d never be able to pick it up again. That counts for something at least.
I’ve read my fair share of mysteries and thrillers over the years. While this could’ve been an amazing read, there was too much focus on grief and trauma to give us anything else to hold onto (or anyone healthy to read from for a reprieve). With no likable characters means no one cares what happened to them all. As this is a debut that was apparently borne of grief the author suffered herself, I can empathize this may have been therapeutic for her – but not quite so for anyone else. I can only hope any more books after this one will be a little more well-rounded, emotionally.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for this copy in exchange for an honest review
Down the Rabbit Hole 