Book Review #112

Listen to Me
by Hannah Pittard

In all honesty I cannot understand why the critics raved about this book, calling it chilling, suspenseful and unsettling. Frankly, I hated the first half and almost stopped reading it. There is virtually no suspense, until you reach one of the final chapters. While reading the second half of the book, I noticed words like "limbo" and "purgatory" and a number of references to ancient time periods. I began to wonder if perhaps I had been missing something. Maybe these annoying and banal characters were dead. Perhaps their dog, who was often referred to in human terms as if it were the child they never had, represented Cerberus, guardian of the Underworld. So I actually went back to the beginning and skimmed through the first half of the book and found what appeared to be some other "clues." But by the end of the book the couple is indeed very much alive. So in its favor I will say it is a fairly fast read and it did get me thinking. But this is hardly the thriller of the year.