Mini Reviews: An Anonymous Girl by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen and Us Against Them by Fredrik
3***
It took me a while to finish Anonymous Girl, though it wasn't boring. The story unfolded slowly, and the tension kept building, however towards the two-thirds mark, I was pretty sure I could guess how it would end and this was confirmed, so I can't say it was the most exciting thriller either. I also feel this will, unfortunately, be a little forgettable for me, since I read so many books in this genre and it doesn't stand out in my mind as one of the more original, exciting ones, I'm afraid. That being said, it's not a bad book by any means and if you are looking for a book that is more of a cat-and-mouse style mystery than a particularly twisty one, you might enjoy this.
write, but it was just too slow for what I was expecting.
Thanks to Netgalley for supplying me with a copy of An Anonymous Girl in exchange for an honest review.
4****
“It’s hard to care about people. Exhausting, in fact, because empathy is a complicated thing. It requires us to accept that everyone else’s lives are also going on the whole time. We have no pause button for when everything gets too much for us to deal with, but then neither does anyone else.”
― Fredrik Backman, Us Against You
It feels as if it took me FOREVER to finish this book, but it wasn't because I didn't like it. It's just a heavy sort of book and though it is written in the same vein as Backman's other books (all of which I love), I somehow felt this was so melancholy, i couldn't read too much of it at a time. At the same time, Backman imbues the book with a sense of undying hopefulness and it is this and his beautiful observations about human nature which make it another memorable read for me. Recommended!