Afterwards

Afterwards by Rosamund Lupton
3.5/5 stars
Crown Publishers, 2012
383 pages
Adult Mystery Contemporary

Source: Received an ARC from Amazon Vine in exchange for an honest review.

I read Lupton's Sister because I am a big fan of sister stories but I wasn't as interested in this one since I saw it did not have sisters at the heart of it. But when I had the chance to review a copy through Amazon Vine, I accepted it with interest.

Although it's been a while since I read Sister, I thought the writing style was pretty comparable and indicates that Lupton has her own distinctive voice that should serve her well as she continues to write. The story for this one also has a mystery: who started the fire at a school that led to Grace and her daughter Jenny being badly injured? And while they are having out of body experiences now, will they survive? It might be a bit hard to wrap your head around the fact that Grace and Jenny's souls are moving around but I've read weird premises so I was able to just go with it. I thought it was pretty cool actually. But my favorite part was definitely trying to unravel the mystery as several stories come together and then need to be taken apart to get to the truth.

However there were a some aspects I really didn't like. First is the jarring use of second-person perspective. Grace uses "you" to talk to her husband but I kept feeling like she was trying to talk to the reader so I would get confused about who was doing and saying what. I think second-person is very difficult to incorporate into a novel and I don't think this one was very well-done. When the culprit is eventually revealed, I confess I was a bit confused. I think part of that stems back to the use of second-person narration. And in-between the mystery parts, there were Grace's musings on motherhood, family relations, and the relationship between mother/daughter especially. I didn't always agree with her, particularly about the last one so the fact that she treated those statements as universal didn't seat well with me.

Overall: I think the second-person narration makes this a more divisive book than Sister but recommended to fans of more literary fiction as well as Lupton fans who will want to see this author develop her writing.

Cover: I like the slide on a playground as there is an incident that is important but I think I would have liked to see a cover with the school on fire, just for comparison.

Sister

Sister by Rosamund Lupton
Crown Publishers, 2011
318 pages
Mystery
4/5 stars

Source: Received a free ARC through Amazon's Vine program in exchange for an honest review.

I have a younger sister and am consequently obsessed with stories about sisters especially ones where the older sister protects and looks out for her younger sister(s) (examples: The Hunger Games, Entwined).  I even have a goodreads shelf with books featuring sisters (any recommendations?)  So requesting this from Amazon Vine was a no-brainer even if it's a bit darker than what I usually read.

And overall I thought the link between sisters was the strongest material presented within the book although that may be because I have a sister.  To start, I was a little shocked to see that the sisters are five years apart (as are my sister and me) and I felt that eldest sister Beatrice sounded much older than her 26 years of age.  But her feelings of protectiveness and the feelings that she had failed Tess in the days before her death weighed heavily on me and kept me turning the pages.  Her grief was real and palpable to me even as she attempted to turn productive and solve the mystery behind her sister's murder, especially as almost everyone deemed it a suicide. However I think I may have put in some of my own feelings toward these characters because I didn't really like Beatrice; she's snobby and unkind but living in Tess' shoes enacts a change in her. From the presentation of Tess, I mostly liked her character.

I also was impressed with Lupton's narrative skills; Beatrice alternates between recounting the story to policeman Mr. Wright and her sister, thus switching between first and second person.  She also changes between past and present tense.  Although sometimes a bit confusing, this was mostly presented clearly and kept me in suspense as it seemed that the killer was caught and would soon be sentenced.  However all is not as it appears in a mystery.

There were multiple candidates for the murder of Tess and lots of false avenues.  By the end, I was so turned around that I had no idea.  I'm not entirely satisfied with the conclusion, because of the reveal of the murderer and also because of Lupton's narration. To say there's a twist is probably patently obvious to you but I was definitely thrown off.

One last item I didn't like was Lupton's repetition of certain phrases when describing someone or an event.  The one that struck me most was when Beatrice would pause and a character would assume it was because she didn't understand; this popped up repeatedly and irked me. Other reviews have pointed out other repeated phrases.

Overall: A mostly beautifully written thriller; recommended (with reservations if this isn't your kind of book) to women with sisters.

Read for British Book Challenge.