Review: You Can Trust Me

Book Title: You Can Trust Me

Book Author: Sophie McKenzie

Book Rating: ☆☆☆ (3 out of 5 stars)

Synopsis: “The suspicious circumstances of her best friend’s suicide drive a woman to the possibility that it was murder—a murder which might involve the same man who killed her sister eighteen years ago

On a quiet, gray, Saturday morning, Livy arrives at her best friend Julia’s flat for a lunch date only to find her dead. Though all the evidence supports it, Livy cannot accept the official ruling of suicide; the Julia she remembers was loud, inappropriate, joyful, outrageous and loving, not depressed. The suspicious circumstances cause Livy to dig further, and she is suddenly forced to confront a horrifying possibility: that Julia was murdered, by the same man who killed Livy’s sister, Kara, eighteen years ago.

Desperate to understand the tragedies of her past and hold her unraveling life together, Livy throws herself into the search for Kara and Julia’s killer, who she now believes is someone close to her family. But if that is true, who can she still trust? Damien, the man Julia was secretly dating? Leo, her husband’s boss and a close family friend? His son Paul, her husband’s best mate since college? Or Will, her own dear husband, who has betrayed her perhaps one time too many?

When Livy finally faces her sister’s killer, and he tries to force her to destroy her family with one horrible, impossible choice, she must finally decide: is she strong enough to trust herself?”

I’ve been going back and forth for a while now about whether I should give this book a two star review or three star review.  The book was well-written overall, but I struggled to finish the book as I just did not connect with the characters or the story at all.  It started out as a promising enough mystery/thriller. The main character, Livy, walks into her best friend’s home one Saturday afternoon only to find her dead.  The police determine it was a suicide, but Livy doesn’t believe that her best friend could have been depressed enough to kill herself without ever mentioning her feelings.  Livy’s younger sister was murdered many years before, and Livy becomes convinced that her sister’s killer is responsible for the death of her friend.  Is Livy just a bored housewife chasing imaginary leads, or is she the only person who can see the truth?

This novel is told from the dual perspectives of the Livy and the killer.  I did not at all care for the chapters told from the killer’s perspective.  Maybe I’m just too sensitive, but I found them over-the-top dark…and reading detailed accounts of about him killing animals and assaulting women were just completely unsettling.  On the other hand, while Livy was likable enough, her story at times seemed to drag.  What I did like is that the story kept me guessing throughout the book, and there were some interesting twists sprinkled throughout.  I’ve read quite a few psychological thrillers recently, and this one just didn’t quite live up to the others.

Disclosure: I received a free copy of this book through Netgalley.

Review: Inside the O’Brien’s

Book Title: Inside the O’Briens

Book Author: Lisa Genova

Book Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆ (5 out of 5 stars)

Synopsis: “Joe O’Brien is a forty-four-year-old police officer from the Irish Catholic neighborhood of Charlestown, Massachusetts. A devoted husband, proud father of four children in their twenties, and respected officer, Joe begins experiencing bouts of disorganized thinking, uncharacteristic temper outbursts, and strange, involuntary movements. He initially attributes these episodes to the stress of his job, but as these symptoms worsen, he agrees to see a neurologist and is handed a diagnosis that will change his and his family’s lives forever: Huntington’s Disease.

Huntington’s is a lethal neurodegenerative disease with no treatment and no cure. Each of Joe’s four children has a 50 percent chance of inheriting their father’s disease, and a simple blood test can reveal their genetic fate. While watching her potential future in her father’s escalating symptoms, twenty-one-year-old daughter Katie struggles with the questions this test imposes on her young adult life. Does she want to know? What if she’s gene positive? Can she live with the constant anxiety of not knowing?

As Joe’s symptoms worsen and he’s eventually stripped of his badge and more, Joe struggles to maintain hope and a sense of purpose, while Katie and her siblings must find the courage to either live a life “at risk” or learn their fate.”

I have heard of Lisa Genova’s previous works, and have heard nothing but good things about Still Alice, but having had a relative pass away from Alzheimer’s disease, just felt like it would hit too close to home.  I thought that Inside the O’Brien’s might be “safer”, or less emotional.  I was so wrong.  I didn’t just shed a few tears reading this book, I openly wept more than once through some of the chapters.  But, however heart wrenching this novel was, it is definitely a story that needs to be told.  I knew almost nothing about Huntington’s Disease going into this book, and I hope that this will bring more awareness to this rare condition.

Dr. Genova takes us through one family’s struggle with learning that their patriarch has an incurable neurological disease that will only get progressively worse, until he is unable to care for himself and eventually passes away.  Each of the four children in the family have a 50% chance of having inherited the gene that causes the condition.  When faced with that kind of blow, what would you do?  Would you rather know your fate and try to cope with the knowledge that you too will be faced with this debilitating illness?  Or would you rather go on living without knowing, and have to deal with the stress of the uncertainty?  The author perfectly handled the process through which each of the children made the decision of whether or not to undergo the testing that will tell them if they carry the gene that causes the disease, and will therefore experience the same fate as their father.  Whatever they decide, each of the O’Brien’s must find a way to cope with the fact that they will soon have to lose the head of their close-knit family, and there is no test in the world that can prepare them for that kind of heartache.

Disclosure: I received a free copy of this book through Netgalley.

Review: The Girl on the Train

Book Title: The Girl on the Train

Book Author: Paula Hawkins

Book Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆ (5 out of 5 stars)

Synopsis: “Rachel takes the same commuter train every morning. Every day she rattles down the track, flashes past a stretch of cozy suburban homes, and stops at the signal that allows her to daily watch the same couple breakfasting on their deck. She’s even started to feel like she knows them. “Jess and Jason,” she calls them. Their life—as she sees it—is perfect. Not unlike the life she recently lost.

And then she sees something shocking. It’s only a minute until the train moves on, but it’s enough. Now everything’s changed. Unable to keep it to herself, Rachel offers what she knows to the police, and becomes inextricably entwined in what happens next, as well as in the lives of everyone involved. Has she done more harm than good?”

I am a people-watcher.  I find it very entertaining to watch people as they go on with their everyday, mundane tasks.  I think a lot of people do this.  The Girl on the Train explores this practice and what can happen if you take it much too far.  Rachel is struggling to keep her head above water after her husband leaves her for another woman, and she loses her job because of her alcohol problem. In order to avoid having to tell her roommate that she has lost her job, Rachel continues taking the commuter train into London every day, where she people-watches and drinks excessively.  Every day on the train, she passes by the street where she shared a home with her ex-husband, and sees a couple just a few doors down that she becomes enthralled with.  She imagines their perfect life and love, all from her seat on the train.  But one morning she sees something at their home that shocks her and crushes her fantasy of their perfect life; and the next day the wife (Megan) disappears.

Because of her drinking problem, Rachel often has blackouts.  She begins having flashbacks to the night that Megan went missing, and realizes that she was in their neighborhood on the night of the crime.  As she tries to put the pieces together, she begins entangling herself in the investigation.  And everyone, including herself, seems capable of doing harm to Megan.

I’m not exaggerating in the slightest when I say that this is one of the best psychological thrillers that I have ever read.  I absolutely did not want to put it down.  This book contained three very, very flawed narrators (Rachel – the girl on the train; Anna – “the other woman”, now married to Rachel’s ex; and Megan – the girl who has disappeared without a trace), who were all at times intensely unlikable, and yet I felt sympathetic towards each of them.  As all of the pieces of the mystery kept coming together, I really did not know who possibly could have been responsible for Megan’s disappearance.  And my theory on “whodunnit” changed about a dozen times throughout the course of the book, all leading up to the shocking and satisfying conclusion.  I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

Review: Rewire Your Anxious Brain

Book Title: Rewire Your Anxious Brain: How to Use the Neuroscience of Fear to End Anxiety, Panic and Worry

Book Author: Catherine M. Pittman & Elizabeth M. Karle

Book Rating: ☆☆☆☆ (4 out of 5 stars)

Synopsis: “Do you ever wonder what is happening inside your brain when you feel anxious, panicked, and worried? In Rewire Your Anxious Brain, psychologist Catherine Pittman and author Elizabeth Karle offer a unique, evidence-based solution to overcoming anxiety based in cutting-edge neuroscience and research.”

If you are looking for a book that is just going to provide strategies for how to overcome anxiety, this is probably not the book for you.  However, if you are interested in both the neuroscience behind stress and anxiety and learning techniques to cope with those responses, then this is an excellent volume to read.  Personally, I agree with the authors that it is often easier to overcome stress when you actually know and understand what is happening to your brain, and how it can manifest itself in physical ways.  And while this book is very detailed, I think the authors did a good job of keeping everything easy to understand.

Numerous types of stress are discussed in this book, including the reasons that these types of stress occur and what parts of the brain are responsible for your response.  If you’re anything like me, you are constantly trying to make logical sense out of your worry, but I learned from this book that there may not always be a logical reason behind your anxiety.  In fact, you may not ever really know why you certain situations, thoughts, sounds, smells, etc., can trigger an episode of panic. The good news is that you don’t have to know.  The authors go into great detail to describe techniques that you can use to essentially “rewire” your brain to avoid having stress responses.  The book mainly discusses the two different parts of the brain that deal with fear and stress, the amygdala and the cortex.  The amygdala is basically your body’s natural fear response system.  Your amygdala often works without your ever knowing it, such as when you are driving and instinctively swerve out of the way to avoid hitting another car.  The cortex, on the other hand, deals with worry and obsessive thoughts.  For example, your cortex is to blame when you are constantly worrying about a possible outcome that will likely not occur.  You may have one or both of these types of stress, and the authors provide useful “exercises” that can be used to deal with both of these types of stress.

If you’re reading this review, I’m guessing that you probably don’t care about all of these details though,  right?  What you really want to know is if the methods in this book really work.  I think they could certainly help many individuals who suffer from stress and anxiety.  These authors give insightful strategies to help with different types of stress responses, all of which are based on years of research.  Your stress isn’t going to go away overnight having read this book, but it certainly may help you learn to cope with your anxiety when it does occur.

Disclosure: I received a free copy of this book through Netgalley.