Book Review: Catherine Ryan Howard - Run Time (published in 2022)

 

I really enjoy CATHERINE RYAN HOWARD's writing. She writes great characters who have solid streams-of-thought, so even now that she has written about a woman who second-guesses everything and as such creates her own mystery (one of my most hated thriller tropes), I don't mind it. 

Adele is a has-been actor. She's faced something in her career in Ireland, which meant that she had to flee the country in order to try to still get a job in her profession. However, it's not as easy as it might seem to get a job in Hollywood. One day she gets a call from a director in Ireland who is looking for someone to star in his horror film. The condition is that filming starts tomorrow and that she can't talk to anyone about it. 

Adele decides to jump on the opportunity, even though she hasn't even read the script. What she finds when she travels to remote cabin is a tiny crew with only men of sometimes questionable morals. When scenes that are occuring in the script are starting to happen in real life, Adele doesn't know what to believe anymore. 

I didn't like the subject matter as much as I like NOTHING MAN. I don't necessarily like novels about actors and film productions. However, it did keep me on the edge of my seat, because what was happening seemed real to me even if things were explained away pretty easily I bought into Adele's fears. 

The structure of the novel is a movie script inside the story which tells the story of the movie that is being filmed. Inside the movie script there's a book that does the same thing. Does that make sense? Unfortunately the ending was a bit too far-fetched for me. I would've liked it if there wouldn't have been quite so many surprises, I think the story was suspenseful enough with the first couple of reveals. 

I will certainly keep reading Catherine Ryan Howard's novels though, and I'm giving this one 3.5 stars. 

Book Review: Megan Goldin - Stay Awake (published in 2022)

 

For some reason Megan Goldin's books read as realistic crime fiction or contemporary novels. I haven't read Escape Room yet but Night Swim definitely had the same characteristics as her latest novel and I'm there for it. 

This time we're following Liv Reese. A woman who wakes up in a taxi with a bloody knife and no memory what has happened. It turns out two years have passed since her latest memory. As she roams around the streets of New York looking for old friends and acquaintances she's able to piece together what has happened to her. That is... until she falls asleep again when all memories of the time before she fell asleep are lost. 

Megan Goldin has done a great job in making this story realistic. It's not necessarily thrilling, but it kept me on the edge of my seat to figure out what happened in the time Liv's memories were gone. Who can she trust? What's clever about the writing is that the reader does retain the memory of Liv, but the storystelling never become repetitive. Liv's path is straight forward to a conclusion and it's a logical path. 

We don't just follow Liv in the current time and two years before when she had her last memories. We also follow Halliday who is an NYPD officer who investigates the murder of a man together with her partner Lavelle. The way they were written is really realistic as well. 

The only reason why I would give it 4.5 stars instead of the full 5 is because I didn't like the reveal. It was very well written and it made sense. It just wasn't as complex as I was hoping for, which is just my personal taste.