When A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder was making the rounds as a must-watch series on Netflix, I did what any book reader would do – I took note of the author and went to Goodreads to look up what else she’s written. I’m a sucker for a good murder mystery, especially if the book does its work and gets under my skin and makes me afraid to turn the lights off at night.
I chose Jackson’s standalone books to avoid being drawn into a series that I would feel compelled to finish. The first book was The Reappearance of Rachel Price. 18 year old Bel Price lost her mother 16 years ago. When someone’s been gone for that long, the assumption is that they’re dead or they vanished in order to never come back. In the midst of shooting a documentary about her disappearance, Rachel Price reappears. Bel can’t bring herself to feel overjoyed because some of the things Rachel says just doesn’t add up. Instead of the joyous reunion one expects upon the return of a loved one, no one in Bel’s family is happy to see Rachel, and there seems to be secrets in the air. Bel is determined to uncover the truth of Rachel’s disappearance and reappearance, even if the truth ends up being painful.
This book started slow. It took me a few tries to get into it, mainly due to Bel’s barbed and unlikeable nature as the protagonist. She’s snarky to everyone, even her mom who went through hell and back, and Ash the camera guy who does nothing but like her and be nice to her. I empathize with how hard it must have been to grow up in the shadow of a tragic event like that, but it would be nice if Jackson gave Bel some redeeming qualities so she wouldn’t frustrate us so much as the book wears on. The book gets interesting when Rachel reappears, maybe because she’s one of the more compelling characters in the novel. We’re eager to know the full truth of Rachel’s story, and why she’s peddling half truths. After the revelations, however, the story falls flat, and I wasn’t engaged while the story was wrapping up. Jackson does well in building tension and suspense, which is why readers feel compelled to keep reading. If you’re looking for a quick, decent enough read, this book should satiate, though it’s more of a snack than a full meal.
I’m not one to judge an author merely because of one book, so I read another. Jackson’s Five Survive is a YA thriller, about 6 friends that find themselves stranded on a deserted road with a sniper outside waiting to take them out unless one of them spills a secret. The premise is interesting, but the story can’t really sustain itself when all the action is contained to RV. Because of the setting, most of the characters end up being underdeveloped, since everything’s built around panic and threat of death. Red’s the protagonist, whose police officer mom was killed while on the job. Red’s father became a drunk in the aftermath of that, and Red basically raised herself. The other characters harp a lot on Red’s poor status, which is grating and makes me wonder why Red’s stuck with these friends for so long.
Her best friend Maddie is almost passive aggressive in her behaviour towards Red, while her brother Oliver is downright homicidal. The fact that I hated him more than the murdering sniper says a lot about the level of crazy he was. Simon has no personality besides being into drama, while Reyna is kind of spineless after we discover the reality of what she enabled. Arthur’s interest in Red feels creepy more than romantic, and I was hoping to feel more positive about them as the book continued, but that never happened. The book’s title is Five Survive, and as there’s 6 characters, we know one has to die. It defeats the purpose a little if we don’t particularly care which one of them bites the dust.
After all the tension and the drama and the bullets, what’s revealed isn’t particularly shocking if you follow a basic line of logic. It also feels a tad contrived that this is the path taken when there are so many other better ways. Five Survive is contradictory, in the sense that the mystery of the sniper and whose pulling the strings will draw you in and keep you reading, but somehow what’s unfolding also feels kinda boring.
These books will suffice if you’re looking for quick pulpy reads, but I found them mostly disappointing because I expected more from the author of A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder.
