Advertised as both a mystery and a romance, This Story Might Save Your Life somehow managed to fail me on both counts. The mystery was mediocre, the romance was icky, and the fervent adulation this book's been receiving has me scratching my head in confusion.
Let's take this one at a time. First, the mystery. Talk about much ado over nothing. You'd think with two people missing, there'll be juicy tidbits and surprising twists galore. But instead, we're literally sifting through clues like "xyz" and "ayyy" and acting like they're the smoking gun—I'm not even kidding. And this Benny guy, for a podcaster, can't even converse. His way of figuring things out was to badger everyone he knows and put his foot in his mouth over and over again.
The writing was very much in the way of a lot of domestic thrillers, aiming to be as opaque as possible in order to ratchet up the tension. So instead of just spitting it out, we get a lot of references to "the incident" and "you-know-who" just to add to the murkiness. But the thing is, having a story that is artificially ambiguous isn't the same as having an actually suspenseful mystery, and my brain was not fooled.
Then we get to the culmination, and I had a bit of a shocker, though not from surprise or delight. Let's just say, when you're reading a mystery, you never ever want the resolution to be a deus ex machina. And then, to really cement the lunacy, the wrap up proceeded to spell out in long, confusing, tortuous detail the entire ridiculous series of events that led to Joy's disappearance.
Now, onto the romance. I don't have a problem in general with infidelity in a story. In fact, I enjoy reading about it because I think real life is messy and complicated. But I do have a problem when emotional infidelity is presented as some sort of great love story, and that's what happened here. Joy and Benny were both married to other people, and they met and married those people after they met and fell in love with each other. So what exactly was their excuse other than sheer stupidity?
There was also the additional hook of a podcast, which Joy and Benny helm to the tune of millions of dollars and listeners. Yet, every time we peek at their content, it was nothing more than inane chatter and insipid flirting. I cringed so hard.
Usually, when I read a book that's not for me, I can still see why others would enjoy it. But in this case, I'm just baffled. What do you all see that I'm not seeing? Every component in here was so middling and uninspired, it makes every other book I've read in the genre look skillful by comparison. So yeah, I'm going to be here puzzling over this for quite a while.
I stare at the Batchelder-tile fireplace, the one Joy mistakenly called a “bachelor” fireplace until Xander corrected her in his singsongy accent.
P.S. Looking back, I should've stopped when I came to this line. Because with a straight face, it implies that not only are there three people in the world who know and care what a Batchelder-tile fireplace is without working in fireplace restoration, but they're all somehow in relationships with each other. And that's exactly the level of ridiculousness this story operates under.
Readaroo Rating: 2 stars
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