Every Secret Thing

I love what I've read of Laura Lippman but just couldn't get into this one. As a matter of fact I'm pretty underwhelmed by the one Tess Monahan book I've downloaded as well. Sad to think Lippman is not consistent because all her books are intriguing to me but I've steered away from any of her titles since failing to make it through this one.

My biggest complaint is that the beginning is fairly difficult to follow and with audiobook that is bad news for these ears. I felt like that with the other Lippman books that I've finished but for some reason those titles hooked me before it was too late...this one did not and I moved on.

Ok, the first problem was that I thought this was in the Tess Monaghan series. It isn't. I even went to Amazon and read the reviews, which were favorable talking about the great character development. Well, I'll agree that the characters are well developed, but I didn't LIKE any of them. The story is told from at least six points of view and I had a hard time through the first half trying to remember who this person was that was now the central character. I suppose that I could most like the detective, but she's fairly bland, insecure and a little whiney. Yeah, she has things to be insecure about, but there isn't a lot more to her. Then there's the manipulative black (and that's why everybody's against me) mother with the rich powerful father. The two girls, Ronnie and Alice, anything I say about them would constitute spoiler. Alice's public defender is another viewpoint. She seems weak and unprofessional. Alice's mother, who struck me as self-centered. A nasty newspaper reporter and her superiors. I finished it because I wanted to understand what happend, but I could have done without the middle six hours. Everything is wrapped up, explained and you understand why a couple of characters acted as they did only in the last 20 minutes or so.

I really enjoyed listening to this book. It was compelling and kept me wondering until the end. It felt like the author ran out of steam though and the ending felt rushed and not as well developed or interesting as the first 90% of the book
.

Did not like the characters or the ending

Yes- I usually love her books, but not this one

I didn't mind her narration

?

It sounds like a Kindergarten teacher reading to her students. The themes, dialogue, and content just sounded wrong in such a whimsical voice. The story was pretty good. I imagine it would be a good book to read on a plane or at the beach. Terrible listen, however...

. . . from the very beginning, but the narrator was horrible. She has this sort of chipper voice that's not at all in keeping with the tenor of the story and the character delineation was so subtle that it was almost non-existent; with a more suitable narrator, this would have been a 5 star listen, in my opinion.