Find Me by J.S. Monroe and The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley

Perhaps the most interesting thing about Find Me is that the reader is going to be surprised and confused as the story twists and turns.  

From description:  Jarlath "Jar" Costello's girlfriend, Rosa, committed suicide when they were both students at Cambridge, and Jar has thought about her every day since. It's been five years, yet Jar is still obsessed with the idea that Rosa, the one true love of his life, is alive. He's tormented by visions of her and has disturbingly real sightings of her in unexpected places experiences the psychologist treating him describes as "post-bereavement hallucinations."


Is Rosa alive?  Is the entire plot a wish fulfillment dream of Jar's?  Is it a novel within a novel?

Told partly from Jar's pov, partly from Rosa's, partly from diary entries, and partly from a third party, Monroe keeps the reader forming theories, then tossing in a little surprise or two that will modify those theories.  Jar isn't sure whom to trust and struggles with separating the "post-bereavement hallucinations" he knows are not real and the sightings of Rosa that he believes are genuine.  "It's not paranoia if they're really out to get you."  A tangled, twisty tale.

Read in Jan.;  blog post scheduled for March 1

NetGalley/Mira

Mystery/Psychological.  March 21, 2017.  Print length:  400 pages.  

The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley by Hannah Tinti.  I don't know, this one has received some five star reviews, but as I read and when I finished, my personal thoughts were inconclusive.  There was some cleverness in the twelve bullet wounds that Samuel Hawley sports and in the recurring motif of watches/clocks/time.  But when I got it on second mention, the rest felt contrived.    

The book is well-written, and I had no inclination to put it aside, and yet, my feelings about the book were always ambivalent.  

I like this quote from another reviewer: "I felt like I was reading a mashup of John Green and Quentin Tarantino more than once." :) Does that give you a feel for the novel?

I guess this is a wishy-washy view of the novel, but I do think the author is talented.  


NetGalley/Random House


Mystery.  March 28, 2017.  Print length:  400 pages.