School Library Journal Review
Twentysomething Quinn is awakened from a hangover one Sunday at 6:00 a.m. by her roommate Esther's blaring alarm clock. Esther's window is open (odd during a Chicago winter), but Quinn becomes concerned about her roommate's absence only when she selfishly craves the breakfast Esther usually brings her after church. The police aren't worried yet, but Quinn enlists the help of her cute coworker Ben to help find out where her roommate might be. They uncover clues that lead to Quinn suspecting Esther of murder-is Quinn next on her roommate's death list? Meanwhile, an hour up the coast of Lake Michigan, 18-year-old Alex has given up a college scholarship to wash dishes at a diner in order to care for his father, an alcoholic. When he notices a mysterious, beautiful girl in his restaurant, he befriends her, hoping for a romance. Told in alternating voices, Alex's and Quinn's separate mysteries combine in a surprising way. Readers will immediately sense that Quinn might be an unreliable narrator, but the author doesn't make the puzzle easy to solve. The unexpected twist at the end will be a bombshell for most readers. VERDICT The young main characters and the resemblance to Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl and Paula Hawkins's The Girl on the Train ensure that this psychological thriller by the best-selling author of The Good Girl will be a hit with teen fans of the genre.-Sarah Hill, Lake Land College, Mattoon, IL © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
An autumnal chill, as piercing as the wind off Lake Michigan, pervades this muted psychological chamber piece from Kubica (Pretty Baby). The story unspools, initially slowly, through two alternating narrators: Quinn, a young Chicago woman whose exemplary roommate, Esther, has gone missing, apparently out the fire escape of their apartment, and 18-year-old Alex, who turned down a full college scholarship to stay in his poky hometown on the shore of Lake Michigan an hour outside Chicago to care for his alcoholic father. As Quinn starts to discover that there seems to be a lot about Esther that she didn't know-some of it downright scary-and Alex befriends a pretty but peculiar stranger he nicknames Pearl, the dual accounts begin to ping off each other. Although the pace accelerates in the final third as the plot speeds toward a shocking if contrived climax, the book as a whole boasts nowhere near the urgency or impact of Kubica's white-knuckle debut, The Good Girl. Author tour. Agent: Rachael Dillon Fried, Greenburger Associates. (May) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Library Journal Review
In Chicago, Quinn wakes one Sunday morning to find that Esther, her roommate and best friend, is missing. Quinn tries to come to terms with her fears and begins to mature with the new responsibility of living alone, as she looks for Esther. Somewhere on the other side of Lake Michigan, 18-year-old Alex watches a mysterious new girl in town whom he'd like to meet. He doesn't know her name, but he calls her Pearl because of the little bracelet on her wrist. He watches her when she comes into the diner where he works, and he -suspects she's squatting in the town's haunted house. As Quinn follows clues to find -Esther, and Alex works up the nerve to speak to "Pearl," their life stories emerge, and a decades-old ghost story is explored, its mysteries revealed. Told in alternating voices, the narrative simmers slowly to a tight, surprising ending. VERDICT Fans of Kubica (The Good Girl; Pretty Baby) will enjoy her third stand-alone book, as will anyone who delights in the recent wave of terrific missing-persons novels. [See Prepub Alert, 2/21/16.]--Elizabeth Masterson, -Mecklenburg Cty. Jail Lib., Charlotte, NC © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
