Hot Springs Drive

By: Lindsay Hunter

Narrated by: Emily Ellet

Length: 8 hrs and 52 mins

Publisher's summary

Jackie Stinson’s best friend is dead, and everyone knows who killed her.

Jackie wants to be many things, but a martyr has never been one of them. She is an ex-emotional eater and mother of four, who has finally lost the weight she long yearned to be free of. In her new sharp-edged body, she goes by Jacqueline. But leaving her old self behind proves harder than she ever imagined.

And while she believes she should be happier, misery still chases her, and motherhood threatens to subsume what little is left of her. Her only salve is her best friend Theresa, whose seemingly perfect life she desperately covets.

Since they met in the maternity ward fifteen years earlier, the two have survived the trials of motherhood side by side—Theresa with her quiet, cherubic daughter, and Jacqueline with her rambunctious, unruly boys. Their bond is tight, but it is not enough to keep Jacqueline, finally moving through the world in the body she has always wanted, from stealing a bit of Theresa’s perfect life.

Hot Springs Drive is a dark, heart-pounding exploration of one woman’s deepest desires and how the consequences of betrayal can ripple outward beyond the initial strike point. In her third and fiercest novel, acclaimed literary voice Lindsay Hunter deftly peels back the fragile veneer of two suburban families and the secrets roiling between them.

©2023 Lindsay Hunter (P)2023 Dreamscape Media

Interesting characters

I liked this book. Even though it started with the murder, there is mystery in it. How do two “normal” families get the point of killing?

There was too much sex and I wish we heard more from Theresa and Jackie. But the story kept me engaged and offered interesting commentary on the expectations of women.

What was the point of all of that?

This book got such gushing reviews in the media (The new Gone Girl!) that I was excited to get started. Who dies, how and when is not a mystery. What IS a mystery is what this book is about. I could almost sympathize with Jackie, the bored, harangued mother of four boys who is judged and dismissed. She goes on to get skinny at a program called "Get Skinny" and simultaneously stops "taking care" of her husband and children. The book could be a study on expectation. This is also something I can sympathize with!

However, there were long (sometimes boring) passages for each of Jackie's four boys that highlight their trauma. Same with Theresa's daughter, CeCe. I kept waiting for the promised thrill. The twist that made this book the new Gone Girl. This could be a book about rippling trauma, then great! Plenty to go around. But I don't think this was a book about rippling trauma.

The friendship between Theresa and Jackie is not actually apparent. Neither woman seems to like or respect the other one. I mean, I have friends and we, you know, like each other and have fun. One line in the novel has Jackie musing along the lines of, "Are we just similar species in proximity?" Maybe! This book could be about female friendship, but I don't think it was about female friendship!

Jackie was dealt a bad hand. Jackie is a bad mother. Jackie is a bad friend. What does it all mean? What did I just listen to?

I think all the comparison to Gone Girl is the "Cool Girl" passage from Gone Girl, the lament about how impossible it is to meet expectation, how you have to mute yourself or morph yourself into what will make you "cool" to some unworthy dude's arbitrary and self-interested idea of what is cool. Maybe the point of the book is, "and then what?"

Maybe the point is that there is no point, that women are saddled with expectation that we are blamed for not meeting, and we keep waiting for the page to turn and satisfy us and instead the book just ends and we turn off the car, put our phones in our purse and go back inside to our waiting families.

Disappointing

This book had gotten good reviews in the media, but it wasn’t what I expected. Too much sex and psychological babble. No suspense and not a thriller.

Not a thriller

Well written but has been touted as a thriller, which it is not. Also loaded with gratuitous sex. Disappointing.

Interesting way to tell the story.

The first chapter is ridiculous. I almost stopped there. It seemed like some add on to increase the length adding nothing to the story. Where was the editor? Otherwise an interesting murder (not mystery) working backwards.

Could not get past the smut

Very disjointed - too much back and forth. Really did not sign up for so much detailed sex. Boardered on pornography

My fav book of the year!

This book was a wild ride. I don’t even know how to explain it other than to say that it was so utterly unexpected in a good way. I don’t typically prefer books with unlikeable characters, yet I loved this. And often when I’m really enjoying a book I find myself disappointed in the ending, but I found Hunter’s ending to be *chef’s kiss*. Hot Springs Drive drew me in, kept me there, and left me feeling BIG COMPLICATED FEELINGS yet also somehow very satisfied.