The never list
Ratings6
Average rating3.3
15
Ratings6
Average rating3.3
For years, best friends Sarah and Jennifer kept what they called the "Never List": a list of actions to be avoided, for safety's sake, at all costs. But one night, against their best instincts, they accept a cab ride from a seedy driver, with grave, everlasting consequences. A ride that would leave them trapped in a cellar by a sadist hell bent on torturing them. For the next three years, they are held captive with two other girls in a dungeon-like cellar by a connoisseur of sadism. Ten years later, at thirty-one, Sarah is still struggling to resume a normal life, living as a virtual recluse under a new name, unable to come to grips with the fact that Jennifer didn't make it out of that cellar. Now, her abductor is up for parole and Sarah can no longer ignore the twisted letters he sends from jail. Finally, Sarah decides to confront her phobias and the other survivors, who hold their own deep grudges against her. When she goes on a cross-country chase that takes her into the perverse world of BDSM, secret cults, and the arcane study of torture, she begins unraveling a mystery more horrifying than even she could have imagined.
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I was mildly curious when I saw reviews for this. It's supposed to be dark and disturbing. I think I even saw one review disgusted by it. So, of COURSE, I wanted to read it. It's the compulsion that makes me grab shrink-wrapped manga. Puerile, yes, I know; but such is my brain.
So, this little number started out all right, with Sarah, the main character, detailing for readers how she and her best friend–due to trauma–became obsessed with statistics and safety. They basically had a statistics-based mental disorder together. And then one day in college, they go against their safety rules, their titular ‘Never List' and go to a party. They stupidly (so much stupidity in this book) get in a car that apparently has no cab markings whatsoever and end up in a basement and tortured for three years. I don't wish to be victim-shaming, no. But the characters in this book do so many dumb things, I'm surprised they survived at all.
If you've seen any torture-porn/women-in-peril movies, you've been here and done this. If you've seen ‘Martyrs' and read ‘Dark Places,'or even bits of ‘NOS4A2,' you pretty much don't need to bother, since those are both superior, despite the squicky misgivings I have about the former. The characters are not as engaging, they're semi-bland archetypes (except Sarah, and she's been done better before), and so many silly, incomprehensible, even trite things happen, I was vastly disappointed. The end is mindbogglingly stupid.
I would also hazard that the author knows precious little about certain subcultures, because the few characters from a certain subculture are bad stereotypes.
This isn't a bad book. It's just not that great. It wasn't so bad that I was dying reading it. But I wasn't enthralled or entertained. I will say that it was a quick, if unrealistic, read. The voice wasn't particularly engaging for me. I found Sarah absurd at times, and bland other times. And I found the style and plot trite. So, meh. I think my foray into crime thrillers will be a VERY brief foray, indeed.
