*Spoiler Alert*

Blurb

That Night, The Calls, The Guilt

It all start with that night in the woods.

Cass Anderson didn’t stop to help the woman in the car, and now she’s dead.

Ever since, silent calls have been plaguing Cass and she’s sure someone is watching her.

Consumed by guilt, she’s also starting to forget things. Whether she took her pills, what her alarm code is, and if the knife in the kitchen really had blood on it.

If you can’t trust yourself, who can you trust?

Review

Cass Anderson isn’t much of a character… I feel her character development didn’t really take place until the last couple of chapters of the book. I feel I barely know the character so I couldn’t relate to her story. Well, I can’t relate to a murder situation but her character got lost somewhere. She’s concerned about getting early on-set dementia since her mum got it at the age of 45. In that respect, I felt sorry for her. She wasn’t a strong protagonist which is a shame when she had so much potential as a character.

The phone calls got me the most. The whole book is too fixated on them. Now I get it even says ‘The Calls’ on the cover but when she’s getting them constantly the entire situation gets a bit old. I appreciate that they made sense to the ‘bigger picture’ but it felt a bit too slow to get to the point for me. Since you’re already aware something shady is going on every other character you meet you know you can’t trust. At least, that’s how I felt.

In my opinion, this novel is quite far-fetched. A couple of main reasons: number one, a GP called out on a Saturday. That would be a miracle in itself for a start. The lack of contact with the police when she continuously gets cold calls and other suspicious things keep happening… Surely that would be enough to make anyone phone the police? Especially when it makes Cass feels as though she’s losing her mind and as though she can’t live in her own home. That didn’t add up for me.

This novel did disappoint me. I think it’s fair to expect great things from an author of a best-seller (Behind Closed Doors) but this book didn’t deliver. It had a good beginning and end, but the middle lasts too long. Some chapters could have been cut and it would still have went down the same plot twists and story line.

The Breakdown gets a solid 3.5/5 because it did redeem itself near the end and the story got exciting. It’s just a shame the rest of the book didn’t quite match that standard. I’ll give B. A. Paris credit for her writing style as it did make the book easier to read. It was a well-written book which is part of the reason I didn’t give up on it.

Until Next Time,

Luce xo