The Couple Next Door: Shari Lapena

“HOW WELL DO YOU KNOW THE COUPLE NEXT DOOR?  OR YOUR HUSBAND?  OR EVEN—YOURSELF?  PEOPLE ARE CAPABLE OF ALMOST ANYTHING…

“A twisty roller-coaster ride of lies, betrayal, and the secrets between husbands and wives…  How far would you go—if pushed to your limit?

“Anne and Marco Conti seem to have it all—a loving relationship, a wonderful home, and their beautiful baby, Cora.  But one hot summer night they were invited to a dinner party next door, and a terrible crime is committed.  Suspicion immediately focuses on the parents.  But the truth is a much more complicated story.

“Inside the Contis’ curtained house, an unsettling account of what actually happened unfolds.  Detective Rasbach knows that the panicked couple is hiding something.  Both Anne and Marco soon discover that the other is keeping secrets, secrets they’ve kept for years.

“What follows is the never-racking unraveling of a family—a chilling tale of deceptions, duplicity, and unfaithfulness that will keep you breathless until the final shocking twist.”

Here’s the last of my delayed reviews!  Hopefully I do a little bit better the rest of the year.  This one comes courtesy of a recommendation from a friend of mine.  She told me she had a hard time putting this book down so, naturally, that piqued my interest.  It took me a while to finally get my hands on it and I’m pretty happy that I did.

What starts out as a seemingly insignificant night out turns into a family’s worst nightmare.  Anne and Marco Conti live in a beautiful townhouse and seem to have everything they could hope for.  Anne comes from a great deal of money.  She left her job in an art gallery to be a stay-at-home mom to her beautiful new daughter, Cora.  Her husband, Marco, runs his own business.  One evening, they’re invited to a dinner party by their immediate next door neighbors.  They contemplate canceling when their babysitter backs out, but Marco convinces Anne that they’ll only be next door – in reality, just on the other side of the wall from Cora.  They take the baby monitor and check on Cora every half hour.  When they finally return home in the wee hours of the morning, something doesn’t seem right.  The unthinkable has happened:  Anne discovers Cora is missing from her crib.

From the start, the Contis are a source of great suspicion.  The lead detective has seen his share of missing children and strongly believes the Contis are involved in some way.  Clues like a loosened lightbulb in a backyard motion-detecting spotlight, a silent car seen driving down the alley at the perfect time, and Anne’s diagnosis of postpartum depression all serve to cast doubt upon Marco, Anne, and their story.  The media vilifies them as horrible parents who left their infant unattended – that they got what was coming to them – while their marriage falls on rocky ground as Anne wonders what really happened to her missing daughter.  Could someone they know be involved?  What could their motivation be?  If it’s money, they’re willing to offer up any amount to have their daughter back.  However, when the ransom is paid and Cora still isn’t returned, they realize something much darker and more complex is taking place.

What ensues is a story filled with all the great twists and turns of a successful tale of lies, suspense, and hidden motives.  This book will make you question your own morals and ask yourself just how far you would be willing to go to save your family.  This story really does beg the question of how well you really know your neighbors, the people you consider friends, and even the members of your own family.

A captivating read, this book was very difficult for me to put down.  I found the pacing quite well done and the story, exciting.  I definitely recommend this book to lovers of mystery and suspense.  It has a twisted, complicated plot that will keep you guessing and fascinated right up until the very end.

Happy reading!

The Girl on the Train: Paula Hawkins

“THERE SHE SITS, THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN.  WHAT SHE SEES, GAZING OUT THE WINDOW, WILL CHANGE EVERYTHING.

“EVERY DAY THE SAME

“Rachel takes the same commuter train every morning and night.  Every day she rattles down the track, flashes past a stretch of cozy suburban homes, and stops at the signal that allows her to daily watch the same couple breakfasting on their deck.  She looks forward to it.  She’s even started to feel like she knows them.  Jess and Jason, she calls them.  Their life – as she sees it—is perfect.  Not unlike the life she recently lost.

“UNTIL TODAY

“And then she sees something shocking.  It’s only a minute until the train moves on, but it’s enough.  Now everything’s changed.  Unable to keep it to herself, Rachel goes to the police.  But is she really as unreliable as they say?  Soon she is deeply entangled not only in the investigation but in the lives of everyone involved.  Has she done more harm than good?

“Compulsively readable, The Girl on the Train is an emotionally immersive, Hitchcockian thriller and an electrifying debut.”

Here’s another delayed review (sorry!).  I’d been meaning to read this book for a while now, especially after I’d been told by people who weren’t avid readers that this was worth the read.  I still have not seen the film adaptation, but I’m now definitely looking forward to watching it.

I think what really makes this book the Rachel’s unreliability as a narrator.  A majority of the book is told from her perspective with interjections from other characters – most of which take place prior to Rachel’s experiences.  At first, Rachel seems stable, employed, and – though she’s upset about her divorce – she seems to have tried her best to move on.  As the story progresses, however, we learn the depth of Rachel’s inability to cope, the lengths to which she goes to hide her life from her flat-mate, and how she simply cannot let go of her ex-husband and former life.  She paints a relatively rosy picture of her former married life; one with a loving husband, a home she adored, and the possibility of a future.  As she opens up more to the readers, we learn how much her own dysfunctionality played a part in the downfall of her marriage and her husband’s affair and subsequent marriage to his mistress.  I was torn between feeling sorry for Rachel and getting the sense that she was more than a little to blame for all of it.  Her drinking began during her marriage and only intensified afterwards.  We learn that she cannot wait for her drinks on the train ride home – that she practically lives for them.  Her other obsession is watching a beautiful couple with their (she believes) idyllic life on her train ride into the city.

Each morning, Rachel spies the couple breakfasting in the sunshine.  She imagines lives and hobbies and romance for them.  She pictures the perfection of their life in their trackside home and feels as if she truly knows them.  Surely they must be the epitome of happiness?

Rachel lives for the little ray of sunshine spying on them brings to her miserable existence.  It isn’t until she sees something very unexpected in their back garden that the story seems to spiral out of control.  What shows up on the news shortly thereafter convinces Rachel of the importance of what she witnessed…

Who do we believe?  Rachel, the woman who drinks and cannot recall what happens during her all-too-common blackouts?  The snippets of information we are given from the points of view of the other characters in the months leading up to the incident?  When she cannot take it anymore, Rachel goes to the police with her suspicions and her information.  They largely appear to dismiss her – especially when they learn of her volatile history and habits of contacting and harassing her ex-husband and his new family where they live several doors down from her idyllic fantasy couple.  Could Rachel have had something to do with what happened?  How can anyone trust her – how can she trust herself – when her memory is filled with a large black void during with absolutely anything could have happened?  Frustrated, Rachel takes some drastic measures and entangles herself in a web of lies as she tries to do what she believes is right.  As the story unfolds, however, she wonders if she’s done the right thing – and whether or not she’d just jumped head-first into dangerous waters.

The dark twists and turns of this intense story will keep you on the edge of your seat.  The unreliable narrator makes you second guess your own opinions and assumptions.  The surprise ending will leave you breathless.

I definitely recommend this book for any fan of suspenseful fiction.  The characters are raw and real; that reality is very slowly unveiled, making you question what you thought you knew about them.  Hawkins is a talented author with a knack for keeping her readers in the dark until just the right time (even though I did end up guessing the surprise ending, I still give her props for disguising it so well).

Sagan: My World: Peter Sagan

“If there are a hundred riders at the start of a race, there will be a hundred stories told at the end.  Mine is a story about wearing the UCI Rainbow Jersey three years in a row.  That’s something you can only hear from me.

“From 2015 to 2017, Peter Sagan achieved the seemingly impossible:  He won three UCI World Championships in a row, ensuring his entry into the history books as one of the greatest riders of all time.

“But Peter doesn’t just win.  He entertains.  Every moment in the saddle is an opportunity to express his personality, from no-hands wheelies on the slopes of Mont Ventoux to press-conference mischief with clamoring journalists.  Peter exudes a passion for the sport and a lovable desire to bring smiles to the faces of his fans.

“What motivates the man they call the Tourminator?  How does he approach a sprint?  What’s his take on the other guys in the peloton?  With unwavering honesty and characteristic humor, My World reveals the man who has lit up the world of professional cycling.”

I’ve been woefully behind in my reviewing…  This book was actually a February read!  Life is starting to calm down in some ways, but it’s picking up in others – we’ll see how that bodes for my reading/reviewing schedule.  For now:  The long-delayed review.

I received this book as a holiday gift from my husband’s aunt out in California.  She and I have a similar passion for professional road cycling (and I’ve been trying to make it out to visit her for the Tour of California for several years now…alas…it has never quite worked out).  I fell in love with the sport in 2010 when I moved to Charlotte, NC.  My uncle has loved it for years and is an avid amateur cyclist, himself.  He showed me my first stage of Le Tour de France and took me to my first spin class.  A couple of years ago I finally purchased my first real road bike and boy did I put it to good use.  I’ve yet to ride a race or with a group, but I love the thrill of it.  In order to truly appreciate the sport, you have to fully comprehend just how much cyclists put their bodies through.  My husband (lover of American football and hockey) will disagree with me, but I fully believe that cyclists are some of the world’s most elite athletes.  They constantly push their bodies past breaking points; they test physical, mental, technological, and emotional limits; they hurt themselves on agonizing race days and pick themselves up to do it all over again the next morning; they ride with broken limbs and shoulders and even backs.  This is not just a sport or a passion:  this is their life.  There’s no true lengthy off-season for them unless they decide to remove themselves from the sport entirely because there’s almost always a race somewhere around the world or some sort of different training or conditioning to be done.  This leads me to one of my favorite riders:  Peter Sagan of Slovakia.  He’s a three-time UCI World Champion.  He’s won stage after stage of Le Tour de France, taken home the Green Jersey for sprint points on several occasions, and won a significant number of other races and accolades.  He’s a jokester, one of the most entertaining (and exciting!) riders to watch in this sport, and he’s also one of the most decorated.  Not to mention he’s my age – it blows my mind that he’s accomplished all of this before the age of thirty.  When I heard Sagan was putting out a book detailing his unprecedented sequence of years in the revered Rainbow Jersey, I couldn’t wait to read it.  I was even more excited when I realized that there was no co-author.  When I began reading, I could hear Sagan’s sense of humor and passion – notes of which I’ve witnessed in various interviews and the like over the years.

I knew what I thought was a fair amount about Sagan from my years of watching him ride the Grand Tours.  What I didn’t know was just how he’d struggled in his early years and how much he and his brother (also a professional cyclist worth his own salt) owed to their dedicated father.  They grew up in a country with little to no support for a youth cycling circuit.  When faced against other European countries, theirs looked like a ragtag bunch.  Still, Sagan persevered and knew that he loved the sport and he could be damn good at it.

We get to witness a side of professional racing that isn’t often covered in media:  the behind the scenes with the politics of owning, forming, and running a team, coupled with attempting to decide just who would be the “leader.”  (For those of you who aren’t big cycling fans it may be strange to know that cycling is BOTH an individual and a team sport AT THE SAME TIME.  Teammates will sacrifice themselves to get their leader or sprinter into a good position for points or a stage win, but there are instances where the plans may change if someone else has a clearly better shot.  Sagan details all of this in a much better way than I ever could.  If you’re ever curious, I highly recommend watching a few stages of Le Tour this year – the commentary is usually excellent and very beginner-friendly.)  For the most part, teams are comprised of riders from all over the world.  There are language barriers, culture differences, and clashing egos.  The same goes for the support staff (the sometimes dozens of people who train, manage, transport, support, etc. the riders).  This can lead to some volatile situations and difficult decisions.  I found this insight to be particularly interesting coming from Sagan’s point of view.  He manages to delve deeply into this hidden side of the professional cycling world while still maintaining his happy persona.  Not once does he attack anyone and, in fact, he seems to like (or at least respect) just about every single person he discusses.  I was especially impressed with his views on other riders.  He remained very diplomatic and had something complimentary about every single rider he mentioned – even Cavendish.  Those of you who do watch the sport will know all about Sagan’s controversial expulsion from Le Tour de France a few years ago after a sprint collision between Sagan and another well-known sprinter from the Isle of Man, Cavendish.  I encourage you to look up the footage (it shouldn’t be too hard to find).  I had my own personal opinions on the incident, but I was extremely excited to read Sagan’s point of view.  His take was straightforward and, to my surprise, he wasn’t bitter toward Cavendish at all (I’ll leave my personal opinions about this out).  I found it extremely admirable – especially when the media and frustrated cycling teams/fans definitely made an enormous deal out of the situation (and they’re not wrong).

I feel like this review has strayed a bit from a review of a book and more into an account of my love for cycling and how impressed I am with Sagan.  What this really boils down to are the facts that I enjoyed reading this book, I loved all the insight and personal jokes, and I had a lot of fun seeing a more personal side of a very, very popular cyclist.  This book humanized him and made me even more impressed with the man and athlete that he is.  There really are a hundred stories in a hundred-man road race and Sagan makes it very clear that these are just his own experiences, his own time in the saddle.

Parts of the book do jump around a bit, though they do, for the most part, circle back fairly well.  It reads less like a structured nonfiction book and more like a stream of consciousness in which there’s somehow an underlying tie-in to it all in each chapter, you just may not see it yet.  I feel the included pictures were a great touch for a book written by a man with as much vivacity, humor, and tenacity as Sagan.

If you’re a lover of cycling, then this is a must-read.  You get some very interesting personal stories and glimpses into the ins and outs of the sport.  It’s fairly quick and easy to read because it rings of Sagan’s easygoing attitude.  It definitely doesn’t take itself too seriously (read the book and you’ll get the inside joke there).  If you know nothing about cycling or have some vague notions, then there are probably some terms or races you’ll have to research and the structure of the sport may be a bit beyond you; however, I have faith that Sagan’s personality will help draw you in and, perhaps, even make you a fan of cycling, too.  This book is clearly not written by a professional author, but I think that makes it pretty charming.