26 May 2017

Review #609: The Perfect Stranger by Megan Miranda



My rating: 2 of 5 stars


“I feel bare. I didn't realize I wore my secrets as armor until they were gone and now everyone sees me as I really am.”

----Veronica Roth



Megan Miranda, the New York Times bestselling author, has penned a mildly gripping psychological thriller, The Perfect Stranger that revolves around a former journalist, whose career tanked after a story went wrong, and runs away to a rural town away from the bustling city along with her college friend to start fresh, little did the journalist knew that her teaching job and life in a small town would cost heavy upon her when this friend goes missing while the body count begins to rise up and so her ugly secrets that are threatening to unravel right before her.


Synopsis:

In the masterful follow-up to the runaway hit All the Missing Girls, a journalist sets out to find a missing friend, a friend who may never have existed at all.

Confronted by a restraining order and the threat of a lawsuit, failed journalist Leah Stevens needs to get out of Boston when she runs into an old friend, Emmy Grey, who has just left a troubled relationship. Emmy proposes they move to rural Pennsylvania, where Leah can get a teaching position and both women can start again. But their new start is threatened when a woman with an eerie resemblance to Leah is assaulted by the lake, and Emmy disappears days later.

Determined to find Emmy, Leah cooperates with Kyle Donovan, a handsome young police officer on the case. As they investigate her friend’s life for clues, Leah begins to wonder: did she ever really know Emmy at all? With no friends, family, or a digital footprint, the police begin to suspect that there is no Emmy Grey. Soon Leah’s credibility is at stake, and she is forced to revisit her past: the article that ruined her career. To save herself, Leah must uncover the truth about Emmy Grey—and along the way, confront her old demons, find out who she can really trust, and clear her own name.

Everyone in this rural Pennsylvanian town has something to hide—including Leah herself. How do you uncover the truth when you are busy hiding your own?



Leah's journalism career tanked when an assignment on college suicides went very wrong and that is when she decides to resign to save herself from the shame and many other things and to pack a bag and leave the city of Boston once and for all. That is when she bumps into her college friend, Emmy, who too is escaping from a bad relationship and together they plans to leave the city and settle down in a rural town in Pennsylvania, where they will start afresh. Leah soon finds a job as a teacher whereas Emmy finds odd jobs that demand her to work in the nights, and gradually they begin their lives together yet they never get to see each other anymore as one works in the day and the other works in the night. But when the deadly assault and murder of a local woman hits the town, who looks tragically like Leah, she is sure, that this might be the work of her stalker who is also her colleague. And Leah is reluctant to cooperate with the local detective, because she is hiding way more than she has let Emmy or anyone on, but when Emmy disappears without a trace, Leah realizes that it is high time to open up her secrets before it is too late.

The story line is so "been-there-read-that" type as most of the psycho thrillers these days have an almost similar story line. Sadly, this book too falls in that category and the whodunit is so easy to predict for anyone whoever reads this novel. Well i won't say that the story disappointed me right from the very start as in the beginning, I felt like the novel has some potential to keep me glued and in fact it managed to do that with all that twisty game changing turns, rising up the heat of the story line one notch higher, but somewhere in the middle, the story took a downward spiral path to dullness and easiness.

The author's writing style is very much okayish kind with a tinge of dismal in its slightly articulate prose. The readers will have to rely on the intensity of the twists and the turns of the mystery has to offer. Even the narratives fail to allure, and with a fast pace, the book will end with a highly foreseeable climax that could have been much better considering the fact that the suspense is so tightly wrapped into the story line of this book.

The mystery concocted by the author is real tight and captivating enough to keep the readers glued. There are many layers and a hell lot of random twists that only builds up the tension in the story line. yet somewhere down the line, this train gets derailed, that will leave the readers with a dull ending.

The characters too aren't that well sketched, considering the fact that this is a psychological thriller, so some of the flaws of the main characters could have been strikingly portrayed so that the readers could connect with them. Instead, the main character, Leah, felt lazy and curious both at the same time and a bit unreliable, so that left me with no choice but to drag myself till the very end. Emmy is another character, whose development slightly tanked near the end, as her being secretive and lying about her life will make the readers anxious about this one, yet the sketching lacked depth.

In short, this book opened so great but ended on a drastic note, yet this is not a complete disappointing read as there is lot of tension and suspense that will keep the readers guessing.


Verdict: A not so tasteful psychological thriller, minus the thrill!

Courtesy: Thanks to the author's publishers for giving me an opportunity to read and review this book.
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Author Info:
Megan Miranda is the New York Times bestselling author of ALL THE MISSING GIRLS. She has also written several books for young adults, including FRACTURE, HYSTERIA, VENGEANCE, SOULPRINT, and THE SAFEST LIES. She grew up in New Jersey, graduated from MIT, and lives in North Carolina with her husband and two children. THE PERFECT STRANGER (4/11/17) is her second novel of psychological suspense.
Visit her here


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