Hot summer days in Bangalore, when it feels like my brain is melting, is the perfect time for some brain-dead thrillers. Not much focus is required, and the slightly predictable but enthralling format is enough to provide a few hours of entertainment. This summer, you’ll see a bunch of mysteries/thrillers featured on the blog, and Don’t you cry by Mary Kubica is one of them.
About Don’t you cry
In downtown Chicago, Esther Vaughan disappears from her apartment without a trace.
A haunting letter addressed to My Dearest is found among her possessions, leaving her roommate Quinn Collins questioning how well she knew her friend.
Meanwhile, in a small town an hour outside Chicago, a mysterious woman appears in the quiet coffee shop where eighteen-year-old Alex Gallo works as a dishwasher. He is immediately drawn to her, but what starts as an innocent crush quickly spirals into something far more sinister.
~ Synopsis from GoodReads
My Review
Meh! It’s a fairly forgettable thriller – somewhat humdrum. And if you’ve read her previous book – The Good Girl, you’d recognize a pattern fairly quickly. At least one character is written almost exactly in the same way as in The Good Girl. And that made me guess the outcome quite easily.
There is some suspense in the first half of the book. I wanted to like Quinn and was initially sympathetic to her confusion over her missing roommate, I liked the investigation she took on. But the romance baked into the book was dreary and made it feel like she took on the investigation only to further her romance (not saying this is true, but this is how it came off). Toward the end, I was skim-reading her portions. She came across very unlikeable; giving strong pick-me vibes.
Esther Vaughan is a more interesting character. It took a long time to understand her motivations and her predicament. The mystery behind her disappearance is also interesting and unpredictable. And I was very invested in her story and the story of the mysterious girl and Alex. But sadly, it all ended quite badly. The second half was very half-baked. It was almost like the writer made up the story as she went along.
Overall, the concept was good. It felt fresh compared to other mysteries I read. But the writing (pedestrian) and plot development (especially in the book’s second half) ruined the book. Would not recommend it.
