GRETCHEN: A THRILLER by Shannon Kirk
✯✯✯✯ Review by Astrid Galactic
Living a life on the run often makes for an interesting premise for a novel. Gretchen: A Thriller by Shannon Kirk is such a novel that is packed with back history as to why one is on the run as well as where the run leads a character. This run takes 15 year old Lucy (as she's most often called in this story) around the country by her mother in an attempt to elude Lucy's father whom is claimed to want to take her off to a foreign country where women have no rights, where Lucy would be in great danger.
Lucy has been on this run for her life for most of her life. Her mother never allows her to make friends, stand out, get too familiar with anyone or develop any sort of a normal lifestyle of her own because of her mother's intense paranoia which we don't learn the reasons for until well into the book. Once we do, the two are already deeply involved in yet another very weird circumstance that has other life threatening implications. By this time, Lucy has had it with not being able to settle down and make a friend that she refers to as a Jenny. In their latest rental, Lucy rebels and insists they stay in what originally seems to be an idyllic location in New Hampshire. A place to settle and put down some roots.
One of the appealing reasons that Lucy finds in this place is that the landlord has a daughter, Gretchen, about the same age as Lucy. Both girls are desperate for friendship but it soon becomes evident that Gretchen is the much more needy one. Things get weird between the two rather early on and Lucy realizes that she must set boundaries as she continues to catch Gretchen sneaking up on her during Lucy's private moments. The girl, Gretchen Sabin, is just weird and doesn't seem to have any sort of understanding of how to be a friend, when to give space and how to properly react during various interactions. Gretchen is obsessed with puzzles and is very intelligent, yet there's clearly something else very disturbing about her. She has an extreme obsession about human bones, death and Dante's Inferno. Her puzzles, most of which she made herself, all contain these subjects and are framed throughout the equally strange house on the hill that she lives in with her concert pianist father. He's an oddball himself and very doting towards his daughter.
When Lucy attends a dinner at Gretchen's house, the book takes a turn towards the creepy side. That was when Lucy gets to see how odd the house is as well as seeing this personal museum of Gretchen's bone puzzles. To be honest, this was when I totally expected to find out at some point later in the book that Gretchen and her father Jerry were cannibals and that all the bacon they fed her was made from long pig. Nope. It certainly would have fit though.
As the story develops further, we get to meet all sorts of other characters, some whom are from Lucy's mother's past and eventually play a strong role within the rest of the story. Others are newer people who come into their present lives and play important parts but it's mostly those from the past who have the strongest impact. The most important character from the past is Laura who was a close friend to Lucy's mother for years at a camp the two attended as they were growing up.
Things get somewhat convoluted as the story unfolds and, at first, seems to tell several different stories at a time. Of course, they all merge together once everything is revealed. My biggest problem with the book is that I felt that, after all was said and done, there were still too many loose strings. There was an awfully lot left out about the Sabin family and what made them tick in such a psychotic way. Oh, there's a history there and some of it is revealed but so much of the connection to the characters we got to meet was just so vague. In fact, some of it made no sense as to why they treated certain family members the way they did. A little reasoning would have gone a long way with the storytelling. It just seemed that so much was left out.
Outside of the story itself, I really loved the author's voice. The way she tells the story, especially while telling it through Lucy's eyes. There's a certain realness and down to earthiness that I could relate to. I especially loved how she'd take a few extra words to get particular about some song, color, or item to set a scene that was otherwise unimportant to the story. These little descriptors helped to paint a picture of their environment and told us of pieces of her personality. The way Lucy spoke, or thought in her mind, made her come off as a likable person with a good sense of humor despite all the adversity foisted her way.
Despite some of its holes, I found that I liked the book. It's definitely a real page-turner and kept my interest from beginning to end.
(ARC/eBook)
Fiction
Psychological Thriller
Paperback, 363 pages
ISBN-13: 978-1542041348
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Release Date: July 23, 2019
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