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Release date: November 1, 2016

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Genre: Contemporary Fiction 

Goodreads blurb: 

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Marriage of Opposites and The Dovekeepers comes a soul-searching story about a young woman struggling to redefine herself and the power of love, family, and fate.

Growing up on Long Island, Shelby Richmond is an ordinary girl until one night an extraordinary tragedy changes her fate. Her best friend’s future is destroyed in an accident, while Shelby walks away with the burden of guilt.

What happens when a life is turned inside out? When love is something so distant it may as well be a star in the sky? Faithful is the story of a survivor, filled with emotion—from dark suffering to true happiness—a moving portrait of a young woman finding her way in the modern world. A fan of Chinese food, dogs, bookstores, and men she should stay away from, Shelby has to fight her way back to her own future. In New York City she finds a circle of lost and found souls—including an angel who’s been watching over her ever since that fateful icy night.

Here is a character you will fall in love with, so believable and real and endearing, that she captures both the ache of loneliness and the joy of finding yourself at last. For anyone who’s ever been a hurt teenager, for every mother of a daughter who has lost her way, Faithful is a roadmap.

Alice Hoffman’s “trademark alchemy” (USA TODAY) and her ability to write about the “delicate balance between the everyday world and the extraordinary” (WBUR) make this an unforgettable story. With beautifully crafted prose, Alice Hoffman spins hope from heartbreak in this profoundly moving novel.

Review: 

Most of you guys are probably aware by now that I always judge a book by its cover. Sure, I read the blurb too but the cover is what initially grabs my attention and if it’s pretty or striking, I’m usually going to grab it. I really shouldn’t have judged a book by its cover this time. It totally missed the mark for me.

Things started off strong for me, Shelby is a teenager who was just in a terrible accident that left her best friend, Helene in a coma. She’s understandably devastated and deeply depressed and she winds up in a psychiatric hospital for several months. She shaves her head, barely eats, and when she returns home, she hardly leaves her parents basement and spends most of her time getting high. I really felt for Shelby, she is so broken and she’s a mere shell of herself. I was really looking forward to seeing how she would cope, but unfortunately things didn’t really sit well with me.

I had some issues with this one, the first being that it was so depressing! I get that it deals with some very heavy subject matter and I’m quite fine with that, I’m no stranger to reading dark books. But everything is always awful for Shelby even when it’s really not. Which brings me to my second issue, Shelby is the biggest martyr I’ve ever seen. Even though she does everything in her power to alienate herself from everyone, she still manages to cultivate a few loyal people who love her. So what does she do? She tries her damnedst to destroy these relationships because she’s so full of self loathing and guilt because of the accident. I get it, she’s young and she’s been through a tragedy but this book follows her life for ten years. And she continuously keeps behaving the same exact way. Good things somehow keep happening to her even though she does some pretty crappy things herself and she just chalks it all up to fate, but I chalk it up to some pretty contrived storytelling.

I’m gonna stop here with my ranting because I feel that Hoffman is a talented writer. I just had such a hard time reconciling her beautiful writing with this gratuitous and predictable plot. As much as I wanted to connect with the storyline and Shelby, the only time I felt a true and honest moment with her was towards the end when she had some poignant and lovely scenes with her mother. Overall, this one was a flat disappointment for me. (I shouldn’t complain, I’ve been on a really fantastic streak lately, but I’m honest to a fault in my reviews)

Overall rating: 2/5

Thanks to Simon & Schuster for my review copy.

Goodreads|Amazon|Author Website
Release date: November 1, 2016

Genre: Mystery

Goodreads blurb: 

For fans of The Secret History and How to Get Away With Murder comes an exciting new voice in suspense fiction.

Ten years working as a prosecutor have left Meredith Delay jaded and unsure of what she wants out of life. She’s good at her job, but it haunts her. Her boyfriend wants her to commit, but she keeps him at arm’s length. Then Meredith is assigned to a high-profile prosecution involving the violent murder of a fallen hockey star. At first, it appears to be just another case to work. But when her old friend Julian is accused of the murder, it takes on a whole new dimension.

Meredith, Julian, Jonathan, and Lily were a tight-knit group in law school. But now, Jonathan’s defending Julian, and Lily’s loyalties aren’t clear. And when Julian invokes a rare—and risky—defense, Meredith is forced to confront their past.

Has something they played at as students finally been brought to death? 

Review: 

A couple of months ago I read Fractured by Catherine McKenzie and I LOVED it. When I found out that she was releasing a companion book, I was all over it. I use the term companion loosely though as either book could easily be read alone. So in Fractured the protagonist is Julie Apple and she wrote a book called The Murder Game. McKenzie now released this one using the pen name Julie Apple. Book inception! It may sound a bit confusing, but if you read Fractured first it all makes sense.

This follows a similar format to Fractured and has two distinct timelines. The first follows Meredith as she begins law school. She’s immediately drawn to a tight knit group of friends and eventually becomes a member of their group. There’s Julian who is dating Lily and Jonathan who Meredith begins dating. The second timeline follows Meredith as she works as a prosecutor who has been assigned to Julian’s case. Thus begins the biggest case in her career, but is she really capable of going against her old friend Julian? To complicate matters further Jonathan is defending him and she’s not really certain where Lily’s head is.
I’m a big fan of alternating timelines and it works seamlessly here, much as it did in Fractured. There is no mystery as to if Julian committed murder, he confessed after all, but the reader is constantly wondering if the old friends really conspired together to commit the perfect murder? Was that just talk back in the day? Or did they really go through with it? 

I didn’t really like any of the characters here, but that didn’t stop me from really enjoying myself. I started this one night intending to only read a few chapters to get a feel for the story. I stopped reading at 75% and that’s only because The Walking Dead was on. (Pretty much nothing keeps me from watching that ASAP) It’s safe to say that this was a compelling and engaging read, even if I thought most of the characters were awful. Julian, Lily and Jonathan are pretty terrible to Meredith and I found myself wondering why she put up with this treatment? She wasn’t all that likeable either though now that I think about it.

This was a tense legal drama and it had the same tightly wound feeling that Fractured had. I didn’t enjoy it quite as much as that one, but it’s still a worthy read. Pay close attention to the prologue, it’s important. I had to go back and reread it after I finished the book actually. I still think it’s so cool and clever that McKenzie even released this book in this manner and I would love to read similar books but I’m not sure there are any others?!

Overall rating: 4/5

Thanks to Kathleen Zrelak for my review copy, you always hook me up with the BEST books and I’m so grateful.