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211th out of 299 books
—
523 voters
To the Power of Three
by
Laura Lippman (Goodreads Author)
Josie, Perri, and Kat have been best friends since third grade—the athlete, the drama queen, and the popular beauty. Growing up in an affluent suburb of Baltimore, they enjoy privileges many teenagers are denied. But on the final day of school one of them brings a gun with her. And when the police break down the door of the high school girls' bathroom, locked from the insi...more
Paperback, 448 pages
Published
June 27th 2006
by Avon
(first published January 1st 2005)
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This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
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i do think that laura lippman writes differently when she is writing her tess series versus her stand-alones. i read the tess books in order and they are more . . . traditional mysteries that people expect, with a who-dun-it, seasoned characters and clues.
this is a stand alone about three girls and a small community outside of baltimore. i think that the community is a character here, with its expectations of the girls, their families, its landscape even. the soon-to-be movie star is drawn back...more
this is a stand alone about three girls and a small community outside of baltimore. i think that the community is a character here, with its expectations of the girls, their families, its landscape even. the soon-to-be movie star is drawn back...more
To the Power of Three was my first novel by Laura Lippman. It’s hard to know what to say about it because while I didn’t love it, I certainly appreciated its merits.
To the Power of Three tells the story of Kat, Perri and Josie, childhood best friends. One June morning, one of the three brings a gun to school, shoots two of the girls (one fatally) and then herself. The novel then begins to unravel the story of what would have caused this horrible act of violence.
Lippman is an accomplished writer....more
To the Power of Three tells the story of Kat, Perri and Josie, childhood best friends. One June morning, one of the three brings a gun to school, shoots two of the girls (one fatally) and then herself. The novel then begins to unravel the story of what would have caused this horrible act of violence.
Lippman is an accomplished writer....more
Book was ok, but anti-climatic in the end. Listened to it on discs in the car, which was difficult because the point of view changed so often. I found myself listening to sections over and over to try and figure out who was speaking and wanted to flip the "pages" to re-read something. So if you are going to read it, choose the paper version, not the audio. Agree with other reviewers that it was too long. Felt like the writer realized that she was 500 pages and so needed to end it, fast. Also, I...more
1 like · like · see review
Laura Lippman’s “To the Power of Three” is advertised on the cover as a “novel of suspense”. Indeed. We know who pulled the trigger from the very beginning, but we do not know why and exactly how. Finding the answer to these questions provides sustained suspense throughout the book. However, to me, the suspense aspect is not the main reason that the novel is worth reading. I find the psychological and sociological observations of status structures in school quite interesting.
We follow the friend...more
We follow the friend...more
So many people have recommended Laura Lippman to me that I was extra disappointed that this book didn't wow me.
I thought the writing style odd at times-- even though it's in the 3rd person, the tone would change dramatically depending on which character it was following (gruff cop, ditzy teenager, etc).
The plot trods along dully, when a murder mystery should have an exciting pace... the big reveal at the end left me feeling like "OK, so that's what happened", not "OH SNAP! THAT'S WHAT HAPPENED!...more
I thought the writing style odd at times-- even though it's in the 3rd person, the tone would change dramatically depending on which character it was following (gruff cop, ditzy teenager, etc).
The plot trods along dully, when a murder mystery should have an exciting pace... the big reveal at the end left me feeling like "OK, so that's what happened", not "OH SNAP! THAT'S WHAT HAPPENED!...more
2 likes · like · see review
May 24, 2011
Lisa H.
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
anyone who was an outcast in high school
Shelves:
mystery
Lippman's freestanding novels are not your standard mysteries. (She has also written a series featuring a PI named Tess Monaghan, of which I've read part of one, that I'm not really interested in pursuing.) Yes, there's been a crime committed, and there usually are police involved, but her writing spends more time digging into the minds of the people involved, and looking at how their histories have led them to be connected to the crime in some way.
I remarked to a friend as I was reading this t...more
I remarked to a friend as I was reading this t...more
This long, complex, detailed book is well worth reading. Through flashbacks, different perspectives and a large variety of characters you learn the story of three friends, girls who have known each other for years, who supported each other, trusted each other, and were a bit jealous of each other from time to time. But no one can understand how, on high school graduation day, two of them wind up dead and one too rattled to tell what happened.
No spoiler alert needed, you find all this out in the...more
No spoiler alert needed, you find all this out in the...more
I have to say I found this book to be pretty disappointed. I expected much more. I think the author could have done a lot more with the story. It had the potential to be really good, but definitely fell short. The book went on for much longer than it needed to. I was interested enough to want to know what happened at the end, and when I finally made it there, I said, "that's it?" I wanted a lot more.
3 likes · like · see review
I've come upon yet another book set in my hometown of Baltimore, MD! This one mentions lots of places I know very well, so it makes the story more immediate.
Just finished the book...there are lots of things I love about Laura Lippman's writing, and I will definitely read more of her books, but as I have seen in many of the reviews, this is not her best work. The story started out like gangbusters, and I was very intrigued for about the first 1/3rd of the book, but then the story started to meand...more
Just finished the book...there are lots of things I love about Laura Lippman's writing, and I will definitely read more of her books, but as I have seen in many of the reviews, this is not her best work. The story started out like gangbusters, and I was very intrigued for about the first 1/3rd of the book, but then the story started to meand...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
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The award-winning author of the Tess Monaghan mysteries has written an independent crime thriller and coming-of-age mystery. The 1999 Columbine High School massacre received great media attention; here, Lippman shows that girls possess the same capacity for violence. Critics agree that Lippman writes with great empathy and insight into the ups-and-downs of teenage friendship, high school peer pressures, and the ways in which violence affects the community. But the novel is too long, contains ina
...more
Another engrossing read from Laura Lippman. Three close friends are victims of a school shooting. Most of the book is the back story - the development of the friendships amongst the three girls and their relationships with other students and with their parents. Sometimes we are seeing through the eyes of a teacher, sometimes through those of the father of one of the victims, through a friend's, sometimes through those of a "police".... The different points of view make for a satisfyingly complex...more
This is my first Lippman book and I will definitely be reading more. The story is so well crafted. Three friends found shot in their high school bathroom. It looks like a simple case of jealousy among teen girls but as the years of friendship unravel it's not what it originally seems, but then again, it actually is. I found the ending believable more than shocking. For me, it's not always important to have a *gasp* revelation in the final chapter. I think it's more difficult to slowly flesh out...more
i like laura lippman a lot, and i thought "to the power of three" was another tess adventure. turns out it wasn't but no matter. i love how lippman weaves multiple story lines to a single point. she's a brilliant writer and i'm amazed at how she is able to write from the point of view of SO many characters. it was hard to put this book down, and i could hardly wait to pick it up again. it starts with a school shooting, with what appears to be a clear cut murder scenario, but the easy answer isn'...more
Three high school girls who have known each other since third grade. A shooting in a school bathroom. No one's life is the same afterwards (if he/she is even alive) -- not the parents, not the friends, not their high school classmates, not the policemen' -- especially after the truth of what really happened is revealed. This is one of those carefully crafted novels that keeps you reading because you know that you haven't figured out the truth yet. The official version is the only one that makes...more
This is kind of a standalone book, based on a real crime. Rather than focussing on the detectives and their police work, it tries to sort out how three teenage girls, once best friends, hurt each other physically and emotionally, culminating in a fatal shooting. Because of the large amount of time it tries to cover (it flashes back constantly to show different stages of the girls' friendship from childhood onwards) and the attempt to solve the crime while delving into the psychological and relat...more
This book had a lot of promise: well developed characters, an intriguing plot and decent writing. The mystery began to falter and the ending really disappointed me. It was a good read, but probably about a hundred pages too long. The book lost steam about half way through for me, and I kept losing track of all the different characters. I had to constantly keep back tracking to remember who Susannah and Chloe and Barbara were, among others. Perhaps this is my own lack of concentration on the book...more
A light read. And a little bit silly. There are three girls who were all friends but they somewhat separated once they got to junior/senior years in high school. No one knows why and the girls aren’t telling. One day, one of them shoots the other two in a bathroom at school and the rest of the book is about trying to figure out what happened, who shot whom, etc. A little longwinded in parts. The ending was a bit unsatisfying and a bit of a “reach” in my opinion. There were also some parts where...more
I suppose the title might evoke "Charmed" for some, but never having been a fan, it didn't for me. There are any number of reasons I pick up a book, and not so long ago, I could have probably told you where I had purchased any given book and why. Funny, now that I have all the time in the world, such trivia is no longer important.
TO THE POWER OF THREE is humdrum and forgettable. I read it to the end and found that I would have pretty much gotten everything out of the book by just reading the fir...more
TO THE POWER OF THREE is humdrum and forgettable. I read it to the end and found that I would have pretty much gotten everything out of the book by just reading the fir...more
I think that there seemed to be a lot of characters introduced and some that had no point to the story, which kind of made me think that was similar to the other book of Lippman's I previously read. However, for the most part she was able to connect them all to having a point in the story. But it bogged the book down and took me awhile to get interested. I also found it slightly improbable and a little disappointing, but I think the key componets of a mystery were effectively used and in the sto...more
This book has layers, like peeling an onion. The relationship between three school girls was fascinating to me. Their family lives are what made them what they were. Kat with her manipulative father, Perri and her families idealism carried to the extreme, and finally Josi with the most normal and loving family. This one doesn't have a completely happy ending but I thought it was a good absorbing read. The build up of mystery is well done. The only fault I could find was that one of the character...more
I actually had 2 problems with this book. First, I didn't like any of the characters. Not one. I had no sympathy for any of the three girls, their parents, classmates, or neighbors. Every person in this book had an agenda and they were transparent about it.
Second, it reminded me of The Life Before Her Eyes by Laura Kasischke. It too is the story of a school shooting that takes place in a bathroom.
I give it two stars because some of the police that work with Tess Monaghan appear here. Those char...more
Second, it reminded me of The Life Before Her Eyes by Laura Kasischke. It too is the story of a school shooting that takes place in a bathroom.
I give it two stars because some of the police that work with Tess Monaghan appear here. Those char...more
This is my first Laura Lippman novel (despite it's age) so I have nothing compare it to except that I very much enjoyed the abridged CD version of this suspenseful crime drama involving 3 teenage girls that were once best friends but did not end up that way. In fact, ending in death of at least one of the girls when jealousy and rage overcome their senses. In this sense, it is not a terribly original topic but, nonetheless, well-written and I enjoyed it. I was not sure who did what until the ver...more
I really wanted to read this book and then found it to be disappointing. I really thought the ending was strange and unsatisfying. In the first chapter, the reader finds out that three friends entered a bathroom at school and only two emerge alive. The the rest of the novel provides multiple view points of what happened to lead up to this point and what happened after. I thought some of the viewpoints and various back stories did not need to be included (this book is a tad too long). The end rea...more
This was my first Lippman book, and I found it very unnerving. It was good, but there was something about the mood and story that left me thinking about it for quite sometime after I finished it. I read it several years ago. Have since read almost all of her books. I stopped reading her Tess books after the first 3-4 they seemed to be a repeat from book to book of a silly girl running around dabbling in things she had no business in. Definitely, Lippman is in another place when she writes those...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
I really enjoy Lippman's Tess Monahan series and didn't think I would like her other novels. However, I did enjoy most of this book about a school killing. Motive was the big mystery (and this was not a "typical" school shooting--how sad is it that schools and guns could even be considered "typical"?) The ending seemed very anticlimactic and was disappointing. It took me a while to finish. Once I put it down, I didn't feel very compelled to pick it up again.
I love Ms. Lippman's books and this one did not disappoint. It was a bit slower but with good reason. I found a couple of familiar characters in here, which I love. Although there is a school shooting involved, it goes much deeper and when the whole story is told we see how high school is now, as it always has been a treacherous and scary place -- not so much for the shootings but for the awful things that these young people do to each other without guns.
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Laura Lippman was a reporter for twenty years, including twelve years at The (Baltimore) Sun. She began writing novels while working fulltime and published seven books about “accidental PI” Tess Monaghan before leaving daily journalism in 2001. Her work has been awarded the Edgar ®, the Anthony, the Agatha, the Shamus, the Nero Wolfe, Gumshoe and Barry awards. She also has been nominated for othe...more
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“Sometimes you have to destroy things, even people, in order to save them. (7)”
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6 people liked it
“No one at fifteen was ever in love, outside of Romeo and Juliet, and maybe not even them. Old Giff used to argue that the star-crossed lovers simply were buzzed on the fumes of forbidden lust. Give them thirty years of togetherness, Old Giff always said, and Juliet would be plunging the dagger into Romeo.”
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5 people liked it
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Feb 23, 2009 10:47am