This book initially hooked me hard with one of the most intriguing and original plots that I've seen. And I still enjoyed the book a lot, even though the initial intrigue wore down to a plodding and repetitious story that became increasingly less believable and increasingly more predictable. A couple of chapters in I was thinking "wow, this is a GREAT book!", but by the time I finished the last page of a weak ending I was ready to move on and leave this one behind in the mass of OK-but-not-memorable thrillers I've read.

Do yourself a favor and just don't read this. Bad writing, bad plot, bad dialogue, far-fetched nonsense.

This was a Kindle First book, and it was really pretty good! I'm never sure if the early release books will be worth my time but this one kept me interested. Women 'awakes' in a parking lot with blood stained clothes, no memory of past seven months, and not even sure of her name---things unfold pretty quickly and the plot definitely was not one of those 'I knew this was coming' sort of book. Good read!

Caitlin Sommers has just arrived home, seven months after she disappeared without a trace. As she walks through the door, covered in blood and clutching the keys to an unfamiliar car, her husband, Josh, doesn’t know whether to believe his eyes or not. Surprisingly, despite how the police and media have united to paint Josh as a murderer in their small community, instead of taking her to the police or a hospital, Josh decides to accompany her on a strange mission to try to retrace her footsteps over the past seven months, despite her apparent amnesia. Their search finds them uniting with Bix, a mysterious man with some shady friends, and racing against time as the cops begin searching for Caitlin for her connection to a crime she cannot remember.

The Prettiest One was definitely mysterious and unpredictable. For the most part, I enjoyed the personalities of the characters, though I found Caitlin to be the weakest of them all. While the book was entertaining, I generally found myself having to suspend my disbelief far too often for me to really enjoy myself. I like thrillers that I can believe, and amnesia always feels like the easy way out when it comes to a story.

That being said, I enjoyed my read. It was fast-paced and intriguing, and I genuinely felt surprised by the ending. While there a lot of parts of the plot I found myself simply not able to reasonably believe, if you’re the kind of person who can put those feelings aside and simply be entertained, this would probably be a very worthy read for you.

If you can suspend disbelief, this is an enjoyable enough thriller. I don't think I'll remember it in a month, but for a quick read, it kept the pages turning fast enough. There wasn't anything especially surprising along the way, but the tension did build nicely until the admittedly predictable conclusion.

Meh

This book was enjoyable but predictable. The characters were likable and the story was engaging, but I was just ok when it ended.

It is good, and keeps you captivated, but the story is pretty far fetched!

I have nothing bad to say about this book, though I did not love it. The plot is very well done—suspenseful and tightly woven. The characters are fleshed-out and you really do care about and relate to them. All of them. There is only one nagging issue I have, and that is with the behavior of Josh and Caitlin in the very first scenes. Your wife comes home in the middle of the night, after being gone for seven months. She has no memory of those seven months. You were accused of harming her by the police, the press, and your friends. And yet, when she finally shows up, safe and sound... you don't call the police? You just hop in the (probably stolen) car your wife rolled up in and go to some town with her to try and solve the mystery yourself? Nope. No, I don't think so. The rest of the plot relied on that baffling bit of decision-making, so I understand why Hankins did it. But it just isn't reasonable. Neither is Caitlin's complete acceptance of her husband's recounting of the night she disappeared. She stormed out after a fight—a big one—and she never pressed him on what the fight was about? They had a happy marriage, one not given to explosive fighting. But she was so angry as to leave her house at night... but she doesn't ask why. Like I said, the book is highly entertaining and a good read, but its story is only made possible by this highly unrealistic and flat out weird behavior by the primary protagonists.

The concept of this book was pretty interesting, but the execution was really lacking. The writing is often weak, and a fair amount of what happens move beyond implausible territory and into ridiculous territory, so that prevented me from getting into the book. Still, I could have suspended my disbelief more if the characters had been stronger.

The most egregious offender, though, is the ending.

Serious, huge spoiler about the ending ahead, so do not click unless you're prepared for it!

Spoiler

Bix? Really? There were so many things wrong with that guy, from his shady connections to his lack of ambition to his constant, annoying, and offensive "teasing" of Josh. I really hated how Hankins basically used Josh as a punching bag for Bix (not that I'm a Josh fan, mind--he was far too underdeveloped for me to form a real opinion about him), and it was clear to me from the beginning that I was supposed to root for Bix. That was hard for me to do, considering I despised him. So, needless to say, there was a great deal of eye rolling going on when Caitlin rode off into the sunset with him.

Public service announcement for anyone when they're evaluating someone's potential as a love interest: If you have to think to yourself, "I know this person has shady connections...", along with a list of other flaws, then insert "BUT, at heart he/she's a good person!", you need to ditch that person and move along. All those little things about Bix that Caitlin noticed should have served as loud, obnoxious warnings in her head that she needed to hightail it away from him.

Not to mention that Bix is really judgmental and condescending about Caitlin. He liked Katie, the wild child, but he looks down his nose at the more conservative Caitlin. Okay, fine, he's entitled to be attracted to what he's attracted to, but I could not shake the creepy feeling that he was leading Caitlin down a specific path, as in, "Hey, Katie, you'll be the sexy woman *I* want if you..."

Josh is judgmental too, but at least it makes more sense from his perspective, since he and Caitlin have been married for years, so he has a highly developed idea of what her baseline is. His judgement is still annoying at times, but it makes sense he'd find it disconcerting that she's not acting like the person he's known for so long.

You know how the book should have ended? Caitlin should have ridden off into the sunset all by herself, embarking on a new life and learning about herself without either of those men dragging her down or trying to tell her who she was or how she ought to be.

It took a little while for me to get into this story, but once I did, the story really picked up. The main character was complicated, which helped make the story different than a lot of psychological thrillers.