Publisher: St. Martin’s Press Release Date: March 2, 2021 Page Count: 352
Brief Summary: Trust fund baby, Skye Starling, has always struggled to make relationships work. So when Burke Michaels comes into her life and seems to love everything about her, including Skye’s OCD, which has often been a point of contention with other men, they have a whirlwind romance that results in an engagement six months in. Skye, overwhelmed by the love she feels, doesn’t see the various red flags that pop up in their relationship. Meanwhile, in the 1980s, Heather a seventeen year old from a very small, drug-run town. When she gets a babysitting gig for a wealthy family, Heather begins to aspire to more. Not everything is as it seems — the relationship that seems too good to be true just might be, and the wealth Heather seeks may pervert her morality.
My Thoughts: I read Carola Lovering’s first book, Tell Me Lies, in 2019 and I loved it. I had massively high hopes for this one. I read Too Good To Be True quickly. I appreciate how immersive Lovering’s writing is and the way she crafts a mystery. Lovering’s ability to write unlikable, morally ambiguous characters is top notch.
That being said, I have some mixed feelings about this book. First, the structure led to some repetitiveness that I didn’t always see as effectively advancing the plot. Unreliable narrators abound in this book, but because we get three different perspectives, it sometimes felt very “telling” and not so much “showing” and it was telling the same event through three different eyes. In instances where the account or memory differed significantly, the repetition was effective because it illustrated the narrator’s mindset and motives (or so we think…). In areas where it was pretty similar, the retelling of the event felt too repetitive. Second, I guessed the “big twist” pretty early into the book–at about 20%. Had I not guessed it, I think I would’ve enjoyed the rest of the book more. I still enjoyed seeing the story unfold, but we hit the “big twist” at about 50%, and then the remainder of the story pieces together how we got there. Again, I think this would’ve felt more compelling if I didn’t guess the big twist so early. Finally, the ending wrapped up a little too neatly and not overly satisfactorily in my opinion. It made sense, to some degree, but I wanted to see a bit more accountability.
Despite the areas that I struggled with, I still enjoyed this read and blew through it quickly, eager to see if my predictions were correct. This novel also explores wealth and class and the dangers of the two.
I don’t read a ton of thrillers, so I’d imagine people who do will also guess the twist early. I recommend for readers who want to read more psychological thrillers, enjoyed Lovering’s first novel, and enjoy unreliable narrators.
Read It Like Rory 