Until Alison

De: Kate Russo

Narrado por: Barrie Kreinik

The night Alison was murdered, Rachel could have stopped it.

When Rachel Nardelli finds out Alison Petrucci—her childhood rival—is found dead in Pleasant Pond, the same place the two girls had first said goodbye to each other back in eighth grade, the town of Waterbury is outraged by the fear of losing one of their own—the heir to Maine’s largest construction company. But it’s a little more complicated for Rachel. She saw Alison the night she died. Callous, she said something she shouldn’t have. She stirred up the past. The next morning, Alison was gone.

Plagued by the complicated memories around Alison, Rachel joins her journalism crew to investigate the murder. But as she revisits their fraught relationship, she falls into a web of cruelties that threaten to undo everything she understood about her past. An explosive literary thriller from the acclaimed Kate Russo, Until Alison is a brilliantly incisive and resonant novel that is at once about class, gender, and the arbitrary nature of violence.

©2025 Kate Russo (P)2025 Penguin Audio

Reseñas de la Crítica

"The perfect challenge to the sepia-toned escapism of your standard campus murder-mystery. The cruelties and compromises of youth and the menace of rape culture are under the magnifying glass in this bold, confronting thriller."—Kate Weinberg, author of The Truants and There’s Nothing Wrong with Her

Book had potential but didn't deliver.

I picked up this book purely because one of the main characters shared my name, Alison. Unfortunately, that's where the excitement ended for me.
SPOILERS AHEAD

From the start, I struggled to connect with the characters. The main character, Rachel, had little to no growth throughout the story. In fact, none of the characters were particularly likeable and I found their dynamics frustrating and shallow. The constant tension over political or social class differences felt forced and lazy, especially for a murder mystery. I'm tired of this trope being used as the sole source of conflict in modern mysteries.

One plot point especially annoyed me was how an entire middle school apparently hated Alison just because her family was rich. Really? That's not only unrealistic it's weak character motivation. The rivalry between Rachel and Alison, still unclear to me. If it really stemmed from a middle school crush, then Rachel's obsession with Alison all through high school and college (to the point of cyberstalking) makes her seem unhinged. If anything, Rachel came off as the one with the real issues not Alison, whose only "flaws" seemed to be wealth and being a bit quirky.

As for the ending, it felt rushed and unsatisfying. we find out who the killer is but the reveal comes with little to no motive or deeper explanation. It left me wondering what the point of the whole story even was. for a book marketed as a thriller/ mystery, it just fell flat.

In the end, the book had potential but it didn't deliver. A great title and premise but weak execution, frustrating characters and a disappointing payoff.