By: Jess Lourey
“You can’t live in the dark and feel good about yourself.”
It’s 1977 in Minnesota. Heather, Maureen, and Brenda are the best of friends and have been for while. While not only in a band together, they spend their time swimming at the quarry, going to county fairs, and exploring the tunnels beneath the city. One night, Heather and Brenda saw something while playing in the tunnels. Something they would never forget. They vowed to never tell, but then their friend disappears, the second girl in a week to go missing. Are the missing girls connected to what Heather and Brenda saw that night or is there something more sinister going on? No one is really whom they seem to be, Heather knows all too well. Not the police, not friends, and certainly not parents. Since the police don’t seem to want to investigate, Heather takes it upon herself to figure out what is going on.
I got this as my First Reads a while back but am reading it now because it was chosen for my book club. The premise of this book was really interesting, it is supposed to be based loosely on serial killers in Minnesota at the time. In fact, in the beginning of the book, there’s a lot of information about serial killers. But the author fell flat in trying to keep up the premise of a serial killer, at least in my opinion. The biggest miss with this book is that it really dragged on. I shouldn’t be bored reading a thriller! However, it took a really long time for the author to set up the plot. Even after it was set up, there was too much downtime between any minor exciting parts. And that’s all they were, minor exciting parts. I don’t need to know how many times Heather’s sister needed to stay with a friend, or about Heather’s job. It didn’t really drive the plot at all. Heather’s mother seems to be suffering from some kind of mental illness, and her behavior is mentioned a lot, but the mom is 2 dimensional. They didn’t even name the illness, and never explored it. Overall, it fell flat. I get where the author wanted to go with this book, but it didn’t work in the way that it was written. I think if there was a different editor involved, maybe this could have been better. That being said, I know when looking at reviews, I am in the minority. A lot of people loved it, and maybe you will too!
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