Samara lands her dream job- working for a fashion designer, an unfortunate caricature of an adult man child with a whiny personality . Like most thrillers, the dream slowly unravels to become a nightmare. Same story, different verse. And a bit of a yawn.

Samara was such a confusing character. One moment, she’s attempting to befriend everyone, kiss butt so to speak; and the next, she’s purposely causing tension, putting the very characters in harms way. It felt as it the direction of the character was never fully committed. Samara is a very unlikeable character so it was hard to care about what happened to her. The pacing is erratic; and while the ending is powerful, it needed a better set up for it from the middle of the story. The story is a little disconnected, leaving me wanting more to extend the middle, maybe dual timelines or connecting the past to the present better would have helped.

Overall, a very slow build up to an impactful ending. I really hope the line is edited out where the main character actively dismisses racist jokes because she’s “too happy” in the final copy.

Thank you to NetGalley and Ballantine books for access to an early release copy