I purchased this book almost a year ago. I remember reading the synopsis in my local Barnes and Noble and thinking it sounded unlike anything else I had yet to read. It turns out that I was correct, I hadn’t read anything quite like this book in my reading journey but it didn’t meet my expectations unfortunately.
“We’re all trying to block out feelings. Doesn’t matter if we use heroin, prescription pills, food, work, whatever,”
Cate Quinn, The Clinic
About The Book
Author: Cate Quinn
Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark
Published Date: January 23rd, 2024
Page Count: 448 Pages
Main Genre: Thriller
GoodReads Rating: 3.51
Format: E-Book
Synopsis
Meg works for a casino in LA, catching cheaters and popping a few too many pain pills to cope, following a far different path than her sister Haley, a famous actress. But suddenly reports surface of Haley dying at the remote rehab facility where she had been forced to go to get her addictions under control.
There are whispers of suicide, but Meg can’t believe it. She decides that the best way to find out what happened to her sister is to check in herself – to investigate what really happened from the inside.
Battling her own addictions and figuring out the truth will be much more difficult than she imagined, far away from friends, family – and anyone who could help her.
Synopsis From GoodReads
Rating
Review
The beginning of this book gave me a lot of hope. I was really intrigued by the plot that was being set up. I enjoyed having the two different POV’s which I was a bit surprised about. I also didn’t dislike our FMC even though she was meant to be a bit unlikable so that was a pleasant surprise. But the book quickly started to fall short for me.
By the time i got about 40% into the book I was struggling to want to pick it up to read. I was using it as my before bed read due to the short chapters, which I loved, but the book wasn’t holding my attention long enough for me to want to read more than a chapter a night which was not ideal.
I found the book extremely predictable. I knew who our villain was straight out the gate which was disappointing. I had really hoped I was incorrect but it was painfully obvious. The big reveal at the end was anticlimactic as well, I was hoping to be shocked but their was plenty of bread crumbs along the way that made this twist fall flat in my eyes.
While reading this book I was really interested in the addiction recovery aspects of the book. I found myself wishing that the genre had been literary fiction rather than a thriller. I would have loved to see our FMC struggle with her addiction, learn to accept recovery and ultimately fight her way out of addiction while uncovering her past that she has forgotten. I think this would have made a much more compelling story. While we did get snippets of those aspects in our plot they were quickly over shadowed by our mystery and that just did not interest me in the slightest.
I wanted to learn more about our whole cast of characters in rehab and I think we could have gotten that in a literary fiction style book. It could have added depth to the plot that felt like it was lacking. I think each character was important to this story but they didn’t get enough attention for us to really grasp who they were and why we think they could be suspects. Sure we got bits and pieces dropped into our lap but a lot of those observations were pretty obvious and surface level.
Over all I guess I was expecting a completely different book than what I got. I am not sure this is a book that everyone needs to read so in my opinion you can skip reading this book.
“The good thing about recovery is you get your feelings back. The bad thing is you get your feelings back.”
Cate Quinn, The Clinic
QOTD: WHat is a book that you think could have been better as a different genre?
World of Bai 