#*tell

soooooooo in short i enjoyed it! not a super deep read and kinda slow setting up but once the investigation got going i was absorbed! i was entertained! like she did her job.

when i read other reviews for it a lot of veteran thriller fans rated it as mid and i can definitely see why bc the book had a bunch of flaws. you could tell it was more twist driven rather than character driven. the main character had some depth tho he was annoying but it was the kind of annoying that benefited the story. i never found myself rooting for theo and lo and behold he was the main creep so it works out! i really liked how the cracks in his good boy facade would leak thru every once in a while nd tip you off like when he was thinking abt killing the guy his wife was sleeping with with a rock. like ummm *nervous laughter*

most of the other characters were kinda 2d but bc we were so locked into theos perspective nd he gave such unreliable narrator vibes i didnt mind as much? i'll repeat that a lot like a lot of things i normally wouldnt like in a book i find interesting bc the narrator is so obviously biased it almost feels like a purposeful writing trick. although i wonder if im giving the writer too much credit agjajjag

didnt really feel anything for alicia or get her hype. everyone was obsessed with her one way or another but she wasn't interesting at all other than her paintings. again the hyping up of alicia most of it is something else that feels ok bc theo was obvs obsessed with her and you could say oh he's just PROJECTING that onto other characters. like his mistrust of the gallery guy felt correct considering they were both obsessed with this girl. but that's something else i feel like i might be giving the author too much credit

loved the twist loved how that played out it gave me a very nice 'WAIT' moment but the lead up to that was messy as hell. WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY too many loose strings that went no where. obvs you need red herrings esp when the protagonist is the culprit but the set up would be so interesting then just go nowhere. i think the suspicion with the rival psychiatrist was done well but he threw in yuri selling drugs randomly at the end. and all that shit abt alicia's cousin was?????????????? literally what was the point of even doing all that digging into her life beyond that 'he killed me moment' which...fell flat lmao.

OH MY GOD SPEAKING OF. allllllllll the mental health shit w alicia fell flat. the bitch just. stopped talking bc she didnt have anything to say then when she started talking it was.........nothing. like there was so much build up abt her but it was all just mad underwhelming. they drew out the 'why is she like this plotline?' just for it to be her dad saying god i wish u were dead presented in a way that had 0 emotional impact. like what???????? nd i cannot excuse this with the unreliable narrator.