Rating: 4.5/10
As happy as I was to receive this ARC, this book was rough for me. I just did not really care for it. The story itself was alright, but I just did not like the execution. S.K. Barnett is a pen-name for a currently undisclosed author (I think it might be Dean Koontz, but that's based on a guess, nobody has told me anything). And, it just read to me like a man writing a woman, not in a good way either. It was a struggle for me to read this book, I almost DNF'ed it, but after the effort I expended to get the ARC I didn't feel right doing that. Most of the reviews for this book were positive, I was just disappointed.
Here is the summary for Safe from Goodreads:
" Jenny Kristal was six years old when she was snatched off the sidewalk from her quiet suburban neighborhood. Twelve years later, she's miraculously returned home after escaping her kidnappers—but as her parents and younger brother welcome her back, the questions begin to mount. Where has she been all these years? Why is she back now? And is home really the safest place for her . . . or for any of them?"
This summary doesn't even really do the book justice. There are so many twists and turns, that the end of the book ends up being totally different from the beginning. I didn't really mind that aspect of the book, of all of my feelings about the book, I did appreciate the story itself. At a certain point, it grabbed my attention and I didn't want to put it down. The story had quite a few big twists, with the ending being the biggest twist of all. Quite frankly, it was a twist that I didn't see coming. Which I respect. Usually I'm pretty good at guessing the big twist, and this one caught me a little off-guard. And it didn't catch me off-guard in a bad way either, it didn't just come way off the wall. It made enough sense.
That is really the most good I have to say about the book. The plot seemed carefully done, intricately designed to fit into place. The story itself was very sad at times. This is the darkest thriller I've read so far this year for sure. The things that happened in this book to this girl, are truly harrowing. Which, that being said, I didn't like the main character at all. To be fair, the book switches perspective. It doesn't often, but it does on occasion. There was really no rhyme or reason to it. Of course, the POV shift was to relay some kind of information and it worked out alright, but it felt kind of off-kilter at times. Like it wasn't done enough, but also done too much. Does that make sense? While the POV switches occasionally,Jenny is the main character. I found her to be completely unlikable. Her whole vibe felt unrealistic. Don't get me wrong, she IS lying, but that isn't what I mean. It was the way that her character was written that felt unrealistic. Her whole attitude felt wrong. This girl has been through the ringer, seriously like every bad thing that could've happened to her, did. But she didn't have the attitude of a victim. Which, in some cases may be a good thing, but she didn't feel strong. She didn't feel like a survivor, she felt crass. She referred to sensitive things so off-handedly that it felt wrong. Every now and then she would show some real emotion, but it really just felt forced.
Now that, it why I got the vibe that the true author of the book could possibly be a man. Of course I don't know that (like I said). I could be off, it could be a person of any gender identity. But this one to me just really felt like an older white man, writing about a woman. Something in the flippancy of the language and the attention to things that a man would notice. Because she felt like the caricature of strong-woman. Like she could be a strong-woman, but really she was a brash, ill-defined woman. Like, Gillian Flynn writes strong, raw, but also flawed women well. This character just felt like a man making to write like Gillian Flynn, but letting his own voice come through too much. Of course, this isn't me saying that a man can't write female characters, but it can also be a fine line. The same with women writing male characters. It just takes some finesse and care to make them appear realistic. I do know that the person who wrote this book (regardless of their gender identity) was older. Partially because the turn of phrase that they used at times was dated. "Swapping spit" is a term I would expect to read in an early Stephen King book, something from the 70s or 80s. Having a twenty-year-old use the phrase casually in 2020 just didn't hit right. The same with the references, they felt like they were the observations of an older person. Does this really have anything to do with the book? I mean kind of, this is really just me speculating on the author behind the pen-name. My curiosity was piqued, these are the observations that I've gathered. Now, back to the book review.
The actual writing of the book felt kind of broken, the dialogue was a really rough aspect for me. There would be long bouts of uninterrupted, straight dialogue. It all felt stiff, and just off. The whole book just felt off to me. Of course, most of this is in relation to the main character. Her inner and outer dialogue were just informal to the point of being unlikable. It was stiff, but it felt oddly informal in inappropriate places. I've never known how to properly articulate this feeling, but hopefully that makes sense. Everything about the writing felt too bold, it felt as though it were kind of in too many places at once. It just really wasn't for me. The language felt antiquated in parts that didn't make sense. It was never the older people that were delivering the antiquated lines. It was always young people. They may not have outright said them, they may have been part of their inner-dialogue, but they were just sorely misplaced.
I think that thrillers ride a very fine line for me, in terms of story. It really runs the line of, "oh that's what was happening" and "Oh, that's really too much/really out of nowhere." While this one wasn't out of nowhere, it was a lot. Like this book was really one thing after another, like pick a lane. Be a kidnapping story, a murder mystery, or a stolen identity story. Being all of those things is just a lot. I will give it this though, the very end caught me off-guard in a good way. It was shocking/disturbing enough to surprise you. You get a weird vibe off this character at some point, but you don't think anything of it at the time. I will give the book props for that. Even though, the story got really convoluted at some point.
All in all, I would have preferred to have just missed this book. It didn't really do anything for me. The story was okay and the twist was clever, but the way it was written never sat right with me. It may have been that I went into the book with some unconscious, preconceived notions of who the mysterious author was, and what I found just didn't add up. Honestly though, If I can't get behind the main character or some side character, then I have a hard time relating to the book. I really could not get behind the main character. She was just so blasé about sensitive topics that she felt unrealistic. It was just meh for me, I wouldn't read it again. I'm not saying that you shouldn't read it. If you like a thriller for the story, complete with a lot of big twists and turns, then you may like this one. It has a lot of good reviews on Goodreads, so I just may not be the type of person for this book. If the plot sounds interesting, then I say try it out! Safe is available everywhere on June 9, 2020!
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