Adventures in Reading: A Simple Favor

So I've been pretty good about not falling asleep on the train lately so I was able to devour "A Simple Favor" by Darcey Bell really quickly and then to start "The Girl on the Train" (which I'm 120 pages into so far).

All done!  What a quick read!

I enjoyed reading A Simple Favor.  It was a quick read for me that really got me turning pages.  It's similar to Gone Girl in a lot of ways but perhaps less shocking and in a way, easier to read due to the language.  Since one of the main characters is a "Mommy Blogger" the writing style is quite accessible. I enjoyed Gone Girl when I read it but I hated the ending.  I really, really hated the ending and if you've not read it, I won't spoil it but I know a lot of people felt the same.

A Simple Favor does have a very similar vibe but the premise is slightly different. The story starts out with our Mommy Blogger posting about her missing friend.  It's a similar mystery to that in Gone Girl.  What has happened to this woman? Where did she go and why? But the narrative is not split between husband and missing wife.  The first half of the narrative is told from the "loving" friend. Then later on different narrative voices are introduced at the second half of the book.

And the twists abound.  I don't know if I found it as realistic as Gone Girl.  With Gone Girl, I really did believe the sociopathy of certain characters.   Here, I found certain twists not as realistic. In the first two chapters, we find out that our Mommy blogger is putting up a front of perfection.  Which feels realistic to the social media world.  Very few people focus solely on the negatives in their worlds on social media so that made sense to me.  But her secret was so out there for me that it was hard to reconcile her two personas.  Then she was so easily manipulated at times that I wasn't sure what to feel about her. She was manipulated by the other characters but sometimes I felt like she was manipulating herself as well?  Do you feel bad for her?  Or are you annoyed by her lack of moral compass in regards to certain actions?  She's a good mom, that's her saving grace. I spent a lot of the book trying to figure out if I sympathized with her or not.

The other two main characters are equally problematic but in different ways.  But it's hard to go into detail without giving away the middle or the ending.  I could believe Sean's character even though I was vaguely irritated by his naivete. He was also an easily manipulated character whereas his wife was just a manipulating force.  For her, I just don't know if I believed her motivation for certain things.  Although she said she felt certain things, it was hard for me to believe her. She didn't always feel real to me.  Her relationships were especially problematic. 

I enjoyed the perspective shifts as they gave interesting insights into each character and I liked the development of the children (the only likeable characters).

I liked the twists and turns but didn't find it as shocking as Gone Girl (maybe because Gone Girl came out first and prepared me for books following this genre of shock fiction).  And I wasn't as angry at the ending.  Although, I'm still not sure how I feel about it.  I found it more realistic but more of a cliffhanger.

It's left so open-ended that I just don't know what will happen and my imagination has so many possibilities that I don't have to settle on one.  But I wanted to know ultimately what happens to each character.  Currently, each is waiting in a limbo in my mind. I wanted to know who, if anyone was actually going to suffer the consequences.
I liked this book but I'm still a bit conflicted about it.

I'm very curious to see the movie which I believe comes out soon.

Currently reading: The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
Next up: The Heretic Queen

2 more to finish in the pile!