Grateful to have been a part of the bookstagrammers who took part in this readalong. Looking forward to many more with the Tandem Collective Global team.
The book opens up with the main character Mary Wilson and her bestie Stacey reluctantly preparing to attend a 20th year school reunion. They end up making new connections from the reunion and they’re glad they actually went. Mary is a single mom raising her 12 year old son, Django. She lost her husband Travis in a car accident 8 years prior to the events that follow after the reunion. She was raised by a single parent whom she really loves dearly because he tried his best. She lives a relaxed life being a mom, doing freelance writing work for magazines and reviewing whiskey in a candid way and checking up on her father from time to time. But Mary is always wondering how things would have been for her had her mom been alive. Mary finds something that changes the way she understands her life with her father during a time she’s helping him with packing up his old belongings and shelves.
The one connection she’s made from the reunion is with April, even though Mary doesn’t quite remember her from school. They grow closer with time and soon they’re spending more time together and have playdates with their children. Things start changing that lead to a web of strange events and suspense that keep one on the edge of their seat right till the end. Mary starts suspecting that April is abused by her husband Leo. Things start turning from that point onwards.
The characters which stood out for me was that of Steve (I found myself annoyed at how everyone called him by his full name), Joshua (Mary’s love interest) and Stacey (Mary’s original best friend). They were solid characters for me and I trusted them. I want to say that Mary ended up being a dodgy character at the end of the book by doing something that appeared to be off character for me because in the beginning and throughout, she really appeared to be a person with a good head above her shoulders. I questioned why would she be doing what she did to a friend, something she wouldn’t have done in the earlier stages of the book. Gail wrote the characters of April and Leo (her husband) in a way that made them unreliable characters till the end of the book because I felt like it wasn’t enough this outcome that came at the end of it all. Joshua also was somehow also played by someone, considering his profession – but I forgave him.
There are themes of manipulation, privilege, emotional abuse, mental illness, and domestic violence in this book and I feel that these are the kinds of issues that should be talked about more often by society and the perpetrators should really be dealt with accordingly but this never happens. If you are abused or know of anyone struggling with any of the above issues – please seek help, don’t wait before it is too late.
There’s a highlight on my Instagram of the Reels and Stories I created during the time of the readalong you can check out.
This book is available at all bookstores, if it isn’t available – please ask them to order it in for you.
Till the next book!
O
