In the Dark We Forget

As much as I wanted to love this book, it missed the mark for me. The premise is great, though as some others have already pointed out, it's more of a mystery than a thriller since so much of the book takes place after the crime. There are sporadic flashbacks as Cleo regains her memory, but not enough to be a full-on thriller. What I struggled with was the writing. There was no connecting to Cleo for me. I found her too bitter and angry which, of course, is to be expected given her situation, but that bitterness laced everything including things aside from the plot. There was just an overall edge to the narration that rubbed me the wrong way and didn't make for pleasant reading.

As far as the plot goes, I would have enjoyed it more had we been able to follow Cleo as her predicament was happening. I do love the amnesia angle, it just didn't have the same urgency having everything said and done to start. My best takeaway was Cleo reconnecting with her brother. That part was very sweet. 

Thanks to HarperCollins/Harper 360 for sending me a free copy of the book to read and review. 

Cleo Li wakes up at the side of a mountain highway with no recollection of how she got there, with no idea who she is. As she begins to piece together the life she once had it's clear she isn't exactly the most likeable of people. I love the setup, the unreliable narrator trying to reconcile who she was and what she might have been capable of as it's revealed her parents have recently gone missing after a massive lottery windfall.

Can I just say, someone should give Cleo a jacket. I don't think I've read about a person shivering, running goosebumps, and shuddering uncontrollably more. That girl has some serious temperature regulation issues. All this in an otherwise shaggy story that meandered to completion. There wasn't the deft feints, canny misdirects and shocking revelations I was hoping for from the taut thriller I know this could have been.