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A review by justinkhchen
Ruby Falls by Deborah Goodrich Royce
3.0
3 stars
A dreamlike read with prose that paints vivid imagery, Ruby Falls has moments of brilliant storytelling, but ultimately underwhelming; trapping itself with conventional thriller tropes, instead of heading down a bolder, more original direction.
Comparing Ruby Falls to The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides and Rebecca in its marketing copy is a little pompous, and ultimately not doing itself any favor. In my opinion, the 'final twist' is the novel's weakest link, and even though Rebecca is often referred to throughout (The protagonist is playing the lead in a new film adaptation), its presence is superficial at best, offering little substantial juxtaposition or correlation to Royce's story. (Same goes with naming each chapter after a movie, when there's no clear association to the happening in the plot.)
If we have to compare Ruby Falls to existing materials, David Lynch's Mulholland Drive and Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper comes to mind (Alice in Wonderland is another contender).
Ruby Falls is at its best when it embraces its hallucinatory quality, painting an alternate, rose-tinted Los Angeles, where the protagonist transverses between a house with kooky cat lady, an antique store in the middle of Hollywood, and the blurring boundary between her shuttered memory, Hollywood make-believe, and an unreliable present.
The plot ultimately leads to a reveal that should be no surprise to domestic thriller enthusiasts, however, such a defining resolution with concrete evidence put all the surrealist build-ups in jeopardy; instead of being satisfied with this book as a metaphoric fever dream of a troubling mind (where things are symbolic and not grounded to common sense), we are forced to re-analyze the preceding events through a new, logic-focused lens, and unfortunately many elements starting to fall apart under such scrutiny.
Ruby Falls should've been a literary fiction with a touch of magic realism through and through, instead of the sleight of hand act pivoting to a thriller in its final moment, because the only player that got played, is itself.
***This ARC was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Much appreciated!***
A dreamlike read with prose that paints vivid imagery, Ruby Falls has moments of brilliant storytelling, but ultimately underwhelming; trapping itself with conventional thriller tropes, instead of heading down a bolder, more original direction.
Comparing Ruby Falls to The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides and Rebecca in its marketing copy is a little pompous, and ultimately not doing itself any favor. In my opinion, the 'final twist' is the novel's weakest link, and even though Rebecca is often referred to throughout (The protagonist is playing the lead in a new film adaptation), its presence is superficial at best, offering little substantial juxtaposition or correlation to Royce's story. (Same goes with naming each chapter after a movie, when there's no clear association to the happening in the plot.)
If we have to compare Ruby Falls to existing materials, David Lynch's Mulholland Drive and Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper comes to mind (Alice in Wonderland is another contender).
Ruby Falls is at its best when it embraces its hallucinatory quality, painting an alternate, rose-tinted Los Angeles, where the protagonist transverses between a house with kooky cat lady, an antique store in the middle of Hollywood, and the blurring boundary between her shuttered memory, Hollywood make-believe, and an unreliable present.
The plot ultimately leads to a reveal that should be no surprise to domestic thriller enthusiasts, however, such a defining resolution with concrete evidence put all the surrealist build-ups in jeopardy; instead of being satisfied with this book as a metaphoric fever dream of a troubling mind (where things are symbolic and not grounded to common sense), we are forced to re-analyze the preceding events through a new, logic-focused lens, and unfortunately many elements starting to fall apart under such scrutiny.
Ruby Falls should've been a literary fiction with a touch of magic realism through and through, instead of the sleight of hand act pivoting to a thriller in its final moment, because the only player that got played, is itself.
***This ARC was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Much appreciated!***