When Alice and Leo move into a newly renovated house in The Circle, a gated community of exclusive houses, it is everything they’ve dreamed of. But appearances can be deceptive…
As Alice is getting to know her neighbors, she discovers a devastating secret about her new home, and begins to feel a strong connection with Nina, the therapist who lived there before.
Alice becomes obsessed with trying to piece together what happened two years before. But no one wants to talk about it. Her neighbors are keeping secrets and things are not as perfect as they seem…
The multimillion-copy New York Times bestselling author B.A. Paris returns to her heartland of gripping psychological suspense in The Therapist--a powerful tale of a house that holds a shocking secret.
Thank you Netgalley and Macmillian Audio for an audio galley of this book in exchange for an honest review!
Most of the book isn't really a thriller but follows Alice in her day-to-day life as she struggles to piece together a mystery that happened in the house she and her boyfriend recently moved into. Even though these works aren't exactly chilling to read I did find them very interesting. I think it helped to add a lot to the suspense and add details into the story to help you figure out who did it. A lot of the chapters just follow Alice as she tries to make friends in the new community she's in and also later as she deals with a little bit of drama. All of these chapters do fit in with the mystery in the book, just not directly.
I did find some of it very mysterious and it had me on the edge of my seat but it took a little bit for this to happen. The book starts out pretty quickly leading us into the murder and mystery but then kind of pauses on this as the story develops. A lot of the beginning of the book is just setting up the world and giving us details on the people that will help lead us to the killer or draw us to the wrong conclusion. It continues we get that wanted psychological aspect and I definitely found myself wondering at some points what the heck was going on. I have to say I did not see the ending coming which now that I know I can't believe I didn't figure it out. Like with all psychological thrillers there was evidence throughout the book that pointed to the truth I just didn't happen to see it, which in my case I'm happy about because it made the book so much more interesting.
What made this book really unique was that there were chapters from the “past” which were very vague and each time they showed up it was re saying the same event in multiple ways. Each time different details were given and the story was changed slightly in what happened. These chapters definitely kept me on the edge of my seat wondering how they fit in with the rest of the book. They do come into place at the end of the book but I'm still not exactly sure how everything fit in. I think a lot of it was just to add to the confusion of what was taking place.
I think the setting also added a lot to the book. The setting was build up perfectly for a thriller like this, a gated community, secluded people who are reserve, and the mysterious past surrounding them. This makes it hard for Alice to integrate into the community which adds to the drama of the book because some people aren't so keen an Alice and her boyfriend's moving into the house one of their friends used to live in. I understand this did add to some of the backgrounds of the story but I think it made the book lean a little too much into the contemporary genre, but then again the book wouldn't it be the same without this.
Another reason I like this so book so much, even with some minor critiques, is because B.A. Paris is a wonderful writer that depicts characters with so much personality. I was drawn into their thinking and their worries. I felt my heart beating faster when Alice got into difficult situations. I could easily picture the worry and anxiety flooding into Alice’s life. The characters were easy to relate to and they were written in such a wonderful way that made it even more enjoyable. Like others are saying Alice is kind of naive and makes some pretty stupid decisions. But just like in horror movies when the main character goes into a shed with chainsaws hanging on the walls, Alice makes some of those types of decisions that add some tension and lead to some dangerous situations.
I personally really like the audio version of this book. There was nothing special included in the audiobook but I think the narrator instilled in her voice some of the anxiety that the character was feeling and helped to build the suspense more when suspenseful moments were taking place. I also really like the voice of the narrator, I feel like it fit the character very well so I had an easier time picturing the character and getting my mind wrapped around her and her situation. Unlike some other audiobooks, the narrator's voice is perfect for listening to and doesn’t change her voice in exaggerated ways for other characters.
Overall, I wouldn’t say this is anything special. I enjoyed reading it and I wasn’t bored during any part of the story. I didn’t see the ending coming and there were plenty of different subplots and people to keep the story going in a different direction. I am not interested in reading some of the other stories written by this author and will look for her next book to come.