Emily Arsenault

I accepted this for review on a whim. It sounded interesting and I was looking for a new type of book to explore so why not this? I'm still uncertain as to whether this would have appealed to me on at any other time, but I did enjoy it for what it is.

In Search of the Rose Notes is as much about learning from the past as it was about the mystery of who killed Rose. Everybody had something to hide, or find the truth about or discover the meaning behind thanks to this one girl's death. Nora and Charlotte confront what they were really doing when they were 'investigating' Rose going missing. Nora dredges up memories that affected her even as she repressed them. The Town in general comes to terms with the ultimate revelation of what happened that night and Rose's part in it.

Its interesting to me to see how the back and forth narration played out. Arsenault jumps between the 'now', before Rose went missing, just after Rose went missing and high school years for the girls. It felt like a cause and effect dynamic that I found worked for the overall story. Instead of the characters reminiscing about these moments in time the story would just flow into them, giving the overall experience a much more genuine feel. Thankfully Arsenault dates the back and forth, otherwise there could be confusion.

The overall tone of the book is tense. As Nora puts the pieces together, reluctantly at first, but then with more intensity, you can almost FEEL like you know what is going on. Several times I thought I understood--if not who did it, at least the motivation behind it. As a fan of police procedural and mystery shows I thought confidently say one thing and then be proven wrong with the next memory. Its not that Arsenault was tossing red herrings out left and right, but more she set up many plausible scenarios.

Though the last one, the one proven to be the actual reason behind her death, seemed odd. After all the build up she died because of that? As I said before, I enjoyed it for what it was and can't complain.

… (més)

I liked this book for the most part, except for some of the profanity. Although the story was upsetting too because it reminded me of something that was recently in the news, where some kids were pointing, laughing and doing nothing while watching someone drown.

In the book, Andrea, the girl who is missing for a while, and Phoenix, one of the twins - rich, popular kid are with a group of friends who get all high and hopped up on drugs and they watch/let another kid that was with them die and then dump his body in another place. It was too much like this other incident I recently heard of in the news that was very upsetting and it saddens me that things like this don't only happen in books nowadays.

It was a book that brought out my deeper thinking and feeling side of things and I was just upset reading this story where some teenage kids let another kid die cause of drugs, cause they didn't want to get in trouble and what not, which a lot of good it did them cause they ended up going to the police, getting caught, turning themselves in and being arrested for it in the end.

It just makes me so sad and mad and everything reading this book and being reminded of how little some people care for others and how some people just don't care, are so selfish that they let others die. I don't understand how anyone can be so callous with someone else's life, the way they portrayed it in the book and it connected so well to the incident recently in the news.… (més)

THE LAST THING I TOLD YOU is a fascinating journey into the mind of a young woman who is grappling with the fallout of a traumatic childhood event and her subsequent plunge into violence. I enjoyed the alternating viewpoints that switched between Nadine’s flashbacks to her therapy sessions with Dr. Mark Fabian, and the present-day narration of Detective Henry Peacher as he unravels the complicated mystery behind Fabian’s murder. I liked the humanity of the main characters, who are both flawed and haunted by events in their respective pasts.… (més)