Viva Para Contar

I'm really enjoying this series, and I was pleasantly surprised that I had no idea who the killer was until we got to the reveal. Often, these stories are so formulaic and rote - but I was on the edge of my seat the whole time.

Não consigo dar mais estrelas porque é muito forte e gráfico e envolve muitas crianças mortas. Mas em termos de construção de enredo é incrível.

Whoa. This book was intense. Dealing with very psychologically disturbed children, Live to Tell doesn't pull any punches. We switch narrators between Detective D. D. Warren, Victoria, the mother of a violent son and Danielle, the only survivor of a family annihilation. That in itself sounds pretty heavy, but then you add in time spent in a children's psychiatric ward you're pretty much wrung dry.

I have very little to complain about Lisa Gardner's writing. I was at the edge of my seat, the pages flew by. I was both enthralled and horrified. But Warren was sooooo dang grumpy in this book! I truly don't remember her being this obnoxious. While the crimes were awful and she had to face them I didn't feel like she was emotionally disturbed by the crimes themselves, but more that she was pissed off that they weren't as clear cut as she thought and she was really horny and not getting any sex.

I counted the number of times she ‘scowled' at someone. It was 13. One thing that drives me nuts in books is repetitive stuff and the scowling was too much repetition for me.

But really, that was it. I loved Danielle, went back and forth with Victoria. Sometimes I felt she was an idiot, that her ex-husband was right and other times I thought she was the hero and in the end I found she was the strongest one of all.

Definitely not a story for everyone. Definitely full of stuff people don't want to think about actually existing in their world, but it was a good read if you're up for it.

Lisa Gardner is one of few authors guaranteed to make me lose sleep (as in I can't put her book down.)

Live to Tell is book 4 in the D.D. Warren series and another ripping good yarn.

I challenge any parent to read this book and not be moved. You'll want to go and hug your kids more than usual throughout.

I could hardly put this one down, a stellar five star read, until the end, where the villain's motivation becomes tangled and the reader is left unsure what really drove him to commit such acts of mind-blowing violence.

It pained me to take off that star but for me, the ending detracted from an otherwise stirling story.