This month I read a "thriller" book for an online book club I'm in. The book is The Winter Sister by Megan Collins. Let's just say the beginning was slow, the middle was slightly faster, and the ending was a little anticlimactic. It was an alright read if there is nothing else to read, but I wouldn't be running to read this one again anytime soon.
What is it about? There's a sister, Persephone, who is murdered in the winter time. Years later her younger sister, Sylvia, is dragged back to the town where it happened to help her mom. Sylvia finds out the person she thinks did the murder is a nurse at her mom's hospital. There are twists and turns as she puts the pieces together of the last night her sister was alive.
Go read it if you are intrigued, next is the spoilery part of the review!
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Where to begin??? Let's get the pros out of the way first.
Things I liked about this book:
1. There was character development for Sylvia, Ben and the mom.
2. When Sylvia was first remembering the past with her sister leaving the house that night, it kind of gave me chills and creeped me out.
3. I had a little bit of a problem with Ben's dad being the murderer, but I also liked it because it proved to Annie that her lover was evil and she shouldn't love him.
4. I liked the Wuthering Heights theme with the Annie and Will "love" story. lol
5. The one thing I found interesting in this whole story was the Ben and Persephone being half siblings reveal. My jaw dropped at that fact, due to the tabooness of having incestuous relationships in anything, yet the way Collins wrote it, didn't make it THAT weird. Still weird, but since it wasn't intentional incest, due to the fact that Ben and Persephone didn't know they were blood relatives, it wasn't too bad??? I'm not sure if I'm making sense. Lol I mean it's still gross and weird, but because they intentionally do it, made it better than if it had been intentional. There, my ramble is done. *sigh of relief* :)
The things I didn't particularly like about the book:
1. The mom annoyed the hell out of me!!!! She was so deep in denial about Will being a bad guy, it wasn't even funny! At the end when she found out Will killed THEIR daughter, she didn't get upset or angry, she just went further into her denial because she "loved" him!?! Ummmm what???!!!!! I mean she did go into her room and cry for hours, but she didn't seem to register that her ex lover had done the unthinkable and killed their child. I know people react differently to this kind of thing, but I think most mothers would be out for blood no matter who killed their child. I'm just going to throw this out there, if the man I loved killed my child, (hypothetically because I don't have kids yet) I couldn't love him anymore, I would want him to burn for what he had done! Her character development in this book was at the end, after everything FINALLY sank in, it seemed to me that she's healing from everything he put her through, based on the fact that she doesn't want to read Wuthering Heights ever again because it reminds her of him, she is talking to Sylvia and she painted over the constellation picture with Sylvia. So that was the good thing I was happy about in the end for her character.
2. Sylvia's character was so bland at first! I couldn't get into the book at first because of her. Over the course of the book she became for lifelike and interesting, so in the end she grew on me, but still, those first chapters were rough.
3. Sylvia and Ben start liking each other and have sex.....ummmm Ben was her sister's boyfriend, I know it was sixteen years later, but still that's just gross! I just found it awkward and weird that she would have the hots for her sister's boyfriend.
4. The "romance" if you can call it that, between Ben and Sylvia was so rushed it didn't feel genuine. This novel was pretty short, I think there could've been some room for them to click and flirt more for it to be believable to the readers. I didn't care for that at all, they should've just stayed friends if Collins wasn't going to allow their relationship blossom and develop more.
5. Collins spent way too much time on how Sylvia and her mom's relationship had been strained over the years. Yes, we get it, their relationship sucks, moving on.
That is my scatter brained review of this book. It was entertaining enough, but I won't be reading it anytime soon.
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I hope you have a wonderful day, night, evening, morning, whatever time it is when you read this! I hope it's all good. Until next time!
Happy Reading! :)
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