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A review by obsidian_blue
No One Can Know by Kate Alice Marshall
2.0
This was so tedious. I got nothing. I got so bored. At one point you can guess who did what and the book takes forever to get there.
Sigh. Honestly, this was mostly a 2 star read. Following three sisters during two different time periods was just too much. Especially since it was telegraphed pretty early what happened. I think Marshall was going for some Gothic dark thriller, and it just came across very flat. Also some of the characters were not well developed, with the exception of Emma.
"No One Can Know" follows three estranged sisters, Emma, Juliette, and Daphne. About 14 years ago, the girls parents were murdered. No one knows who did it, but many in the town blamed Emma and her older boyfriend. Now that Emma is married and pregnant, she and her husband realize they have no choice but to return to Emma's parent's home that she has not been in since they were murdered. With Emma's returns a lot of people start to wonder about what did happen, and the two other sisters allow us to follow them from before to now to see who was telling the truth.
Emma as I said was the best developed. Daphne stayed a smokescreen the whole way through and Juliette wasn't developed much better. They were just there to be foils it seemed. And Emma's husband wasn't very developed at all it seemed. I think for some obvious reasons in retrospect. The other characters, old love interest, suspicious cop, etc. were just done to death in my eyes and nothing new was brought to the forefront.
The plot could have been good, but maybe if we only followed Emma and not both her sisters. You quickly figure out what's going on or at least get an idea for what may have happened. It just took way too long for that to be revealed in the book and it just seemed to be a shrug in the end.
The flow was not great. Switching between three characters at various points of time, I just felt like I was moving through mud.
The setting of the family home could have been well done, but it just didn't give me Gothic vibes enough. I don't know, something was missing.
The ending was a letdown of sorts. Not a bad book or anything, just not interesting.
Sigh. Honestly, this was mostly a 2 star read. Following three sisters during two different time periods was just too much. Especially since it was telegraphed pretty early what happened. I think Marshall was going for some Gothic dark thriller, and it just came across very flat. Also some of the characters were not well developed, with the exception of Emma.
"No One Can Know" follows three estranged sisters, Emma, Juliette, and Daphne. About 14 years ago, the girls parents were murdered. No one knows who did it, but many in the town blamed Emma and her older boyfriend. Now that Emma is married and pregnant, she and her husband realize they have no choice but to return to Emma's parent's home that she has not been in since they were murdered. With Emma's returns a lot of people start to wonder about what did happen, and the two other sisters allow us to follow them from before to now to see who was telling the truth.
Emma as I said was the best developed. Daphne stayed a smokescreen the whole way through and Juliette wasn't developed much better. They were just there to be foils it seemed. And Emma's husband wasn't very developed at all it seemed. I think for some obvious reasons in retrospect. The other characters, old love interest, suspicious cop, etc. were just done to death in my eyes and nothing new was brought to the forefront.
The plot could have been good, but maybe if we only followed Emma and not both her sisters. You quickly figure out what's going on or at least get an idea for what may have happened. It just took way too long for that to be revealed in the book and it just seemed to be a shrug in the end.
The flow was not great. Switching between three characters at various points of time, I just felt like I was moving through mud.
The setting of the family home could have been well done, but it just didn't give me Gothic vibes enough. I don't know, something was missing.
The ending was a letdown of sorts. Not a bad book or anything, just not interesting.