every last lie book review

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EVERY LAST LIE

by Mary Kubica ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 27, 2017

Overwritten and sloppy with an oddly polarizing protagonist.

When a dentist dies in a car accident, he leaves behind a rattled and questioning wife who must try to come to terms with his death—and what she suspects may be his murder.

Nick Solberg practices dentistry in the Chicago suburbs, where he lives with his wife, Clara, daughter, Maisie, and newborn son, Felix. But when Felix is 4 days old, Nick is killed while driving Maisie home from ballet class. Although the girl is unharmed, she keeps telling her mother that a “bad man” was after them. Convinced that Nick’s death wasn’t an accident—despite official police findings—Clara digs through her husband’s life and finds a man of many contradictions. Told from alternating viewpoints—we hear from Nick before the accident and Clara both immediately before and then after the crash—the story weaves in and out of Nick’s impending ruin. As Clara skirts telling Maisie her father is dead, Nick skirts telling Clara they’re facing impending financial doom, hiding it any way he can. Clara’s bizarre reaction to her husband’s death snowballs into total denial that he could have engineered it himself; she continues to lie to her daughter, latching on to clues she’s convinced will prove he was murdered. While Nick's narrative fills in many of the blanks Clara’s finding, Clara remains in the dark about his activities and keeps dipping into her growing belief that Nick was murdered to point the finger at everyone—even family members—who comes into her line of sight. When all is said and done, Clara, who should be sympathetic, is not only a questionable mother, but also a not-very-reliable narrator who won’t earn many points with readers. And after a big buildup, the ending falls flat and is forgettable.

Pub Date: June 27, 2017

ISBN: 978-0-7783-1998-6

Page Count: 336

Publisher: Park Row Books

Review Posted Online: April 3, 2017

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2017

LITERARY FICTION | SUSPENSE | THRILLER | SUSPENSE | PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER | GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE

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BOOK REVIEW

by Mary Kubica

Awards & Accolades

Our Verdict

New York Times Bestseller

by Max Brooks ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 16, 2020

A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.

Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z (2006).

A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.

Pub Date: June 16, 2020

ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7

Page Count: 304

Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine

Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020

GENERAL SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY | GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE | SCIENCE FICTION

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by Max Brooks

More About This Book

BOOK TO SCREEN

THEN SHE WAS GONE

by Lisa Jewell ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 24, 2018

Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.

Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.

Laurel Mack’s life stopped in many ways the day her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, left the house to study at the library and never returned. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Ten years later, Ellie’s remains and her backpack are found, though the police are unable to determine the reasons for her disappearance and death. After Ellie’s funeral, Laurel begins a relationship with Floyd, a man she meets in a cafe. She's disarmed by Floyd’s charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Jewell’s ( I Found You , 2017, etc.) latest thriller moves at a brisk pace even as she plays with narrative structure: The book is split into three sections, including a first one which alternates chapters between the time of Ellie’s disappearance and the present and a second section that begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. Both of these sections primarily focus on Laurel. In the third section, Jewell alternates narrators and moments in time: The narrator switches to alternating first-person points of view (told by Poppy’s mother and Floyd) interspersed with third-person narration of Ellie’s experiences and Laurel’s discoveries in the present. All of these devices serve to build palpable tension, but the structure also contributes to how deeply disturbing the story becomes. At times, the characters and the emotional core of the events are almost obscured by such quick maneuvering through the weighty plot.

Pub Date: April 24, 2018

ISBN: 978-1-5011-5464-5

Page Count: 368

Publisher: Atria

Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2018

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018

GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE | SUSPENSE | FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP | SUSPENSE

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by Lisa Jewell

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Every Last Lie Book Review

Every Last Lie: Book Review by Dinh.

Clara Solberg’s world shatters when her husband and their four-year-old daughter are in a car crash, killing Nick while Maisie is remarkably unharmed. The crash is ruled an accident…until the coming days, when Maisie starts having night terrors that make Clara question what really happened on that fateful afternoon. Tormented by grief and her obsession that Nick’s death was far more than just an accident, Clara is plunged into a desperate hunt for the truth. Who would have wanted Nick dead? And, more important, why? Clara will stop at nothing to find out—and the truth is only the beginning of this twisted tale of secrets and deceit. Told in the alternating perspectives of Clara’s investigation and Nick’s last months leading up to the crash, master of suspense Mary Kubica weaves her most chilling thriller to date—one that explores the dark recesses of a mind plagued by grief and shows that some secrets might be better left buried.

Synopsis from hardcover book, 331 pages, copyright 2017 and published by Park Row Books.

I was so looking forward to read Every Last Lie by Mary Kubica because I loved her first book The Good Girl , which was very good! (Pun intended).   Don’t You Cry,  her third book was also enjoyable, though not as excellent as the first. Kubica’s second book,  Pretty Baby,  is on my to read list.

So going in I had high expectations.

With Every Last Lie I was expecting and looking forward to a great twisty plot and a great ending.

What did I get? A big fat disappointment. Her latest book could not be anymore disappointing.

Here’s why!

I liked the plot. It’s a straight forward premise with the question of who killed Nick? 

Nick gets killed in a car accident and it’s ruled as an accident from driving too fast. His wife Clara doesn’t think it’s an accident and puts all her effort into finding out the truth about his death.

Author’s Style

Kubica has good writing style so no complaints there.

“ The grief comes at me in many ways.

I spend my mornings with sadness, my evenings in melancholy. In private, I cry. I can’t bring myself to confess to Maisie why Nick is not here, and so I’ve taken to lying, to telling the girl who stands before me with pining eyes that her father has run out, that he’s on an errand, that he’s at work.”

There’s good flow and suspense in most of her work and Every Little Lie has it too.

What worked in this psychological thriller is that it’s told with alternating viewpoints: Nick Before and Clara.This works really well as we get parts of the story a bit at a time.

There’s a build up of suspense as the new info gives the reader more to chew on. There are people that you introduced to: the neighbor, Nick’s friend and colleague Connor, Izzy the healthcare worker who could be possible suspects.

The buildup in suspense is well paced and good, with the mystery is not explained until at the end.

• Nick Solberg

I liked Nick’s character. Nick’s perspective adds an interesting viewpoint.

Nick is a good guy but circumstances changes and his luck begins to down the drain. From making one error (not telling his wife Clara about it), his situation is compounded by further events. He gets himself into more trouble and before you know it there’s not a solution at hand.

I did sympathize with Nick. He was doing his best to support his wife and kids.

It was his hopefulness that things will get better that got him into trouble.

• Clara Solberg

Well, Clara definitely gets the medal for the worse mother of the year! The things she does in the book to her children…

You do have to give her some slack because she has after-all lost her husband right when she just had a new baby. She’s grieving and not in the right state of mind.

I couldn’t get a good grasp on Clara’s personality as in most of the book she is paranoid. She is grieving and isn’t sleeping or eating so there’s an edge to her. Her state of mind determines what she is perceiving and most of the time it’s she’s suspicious of everyone.

Whilst I enjoyed the main characters, I felt that more was needed in developing supporting characters such as Clara’s mother and father, Connor and Izzy.

The ending was a big let down. The build up to the end was great but it was just not what I was expecting. I did not feel satisfied at the end and was annoyed with it.

I was waiting for the punchline that never came. I waited all the way to the epilogue… where’s my twist?!

In the end, it was an ending that surprised me, in a bad way!

The only positive thing at the end was how Clara finally tells the poor child where her daddy is.

My Final Thoughts

Kubica told a good story, one with the possibility of a murder. I felt that I had invested all that time into the book but only to be disappointed. How maddening is that? I gave the book a low rating because I felt I wasted my time reading the book and then not being satisfied at the end. I didn’t like the bitter taste it left!

If you are a fan of Mary Kubica, I would say to check it out, but otherwise if you’re new to her just read The Good Girl,  it’s her best book!

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18 thoughts on “ Every Last Lie Book Review ”

This review is spot on. I’d also like to add that I thought it very strange that Clara’s father was portrayed as so elderly and forgetful. She worries about his ability to manage his bank account? He can’t keep up with the yard work “at his age”? The book states that he is 55!! This bizarre characterization bothered me the entire book.

Hi Abby! I’m happy you agree with my review. This book was poorly done. I no longer read her books and have moved on.

Thanks for stopping by and sharing your thoughts. What are you currently reading and would you recommend it?

Happy reading!

Hi there! Such a nice write-up, thank you!

Such is life, Dinh. The disappointments are what bring us moments of pleasure and fulfillment. Thanks for the review and the heads-up. I will look at “The Good Girl”. Paul

Such true words Paul!

I am so sorry that this one became a disappointment for you. I haven’t heard of it other than this review but it is always such a disappointment when you’re really enjoying a book and then you get to where all the suspense should come to point but it turns out to be a massive let down! 🙁

Hi Olivia. I guess I should read some reviews about the book before hand to know what to expect. LOL. Her other works are good so I was expecting the same caliber. Definitely her first book was the best. I hope the next by Kubica is better. 🙂

Enjoyed this review. You never know if the book you are reading will have a satisfying ending. Maybe this author stepped out of her genre (The Good Girl) and just went in a different direction. I guess that’s why we keep reading!

Hello Linda! It’s true you don’t know if you will be satisfied at the end of the book. It was a shame because it could have been great. When there’s a build up, I tend to like a big bang at the end.

Thanks for stopping by! 🙂

Totally agree! This one disappointed me as well. Such a letdown after her other books.

Hi Kristy! Ugh, I like Kubica but this one just had such a bad ending after the build up…it should have gone out with a nice bang!

I’m only 23% into the book but decided not to finish reading this one. Glad I read the reviews before I invested more time. On the other hand, I loved Local Woman Missing.

Hi Katie! Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I don’t like to DNF (did not finish) but I have been do so more often because I don’t want to waste my time. There are so many good books out there and so little time… I did take a long break and didn’t read any of Kubica’s book after this let-down but I came back around – this year after reading all the rave reviews I gave Local Woman Missing a go. What a nice surprise, I loved it too! That had everything I liked- great story line, awesome characters and lots of suspense and twists!!

I can sense your frustration in this review. I’m surprise that Clara seems to be such an awful mom. One would think that with her lose, she would find hope in the child. Maybe there is some. I will heed your warning and read The Good Girl should I ever try this author. Thanks, Dinh!

I was so disappointing with this book Lonna. It was good in many aspects but not the right ending.

Thanks for stopping by!

It’s my pleasure to visit. 🙂

I agree that the end does kind of suck. But all in all, I enjoyed reading the book and this review. Keep up the good work. I’m loving your site.

I really don’t like bad endings. You invested so much time in reading and then it just disappoints you. Oh well, next time I hope it’ll be better.

Thanks for stopping by Cameron!

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• About the Book

A widow’s pursuit of the truth leads her to the darkest corners of the psyche in this exhilarating thriller from New York Times bestselling author Mary Kubica

Clara Solberg’s world shatters when her husband and their four-year-old daughter are in a car crash, killing Nick while Maisie is remarkably unharmed. The crash is ruled an accident…until the coming days, when Maisie starts having night terrors that make Clara question what really happened on that fateful afternoon. Who would have wanted Nick dead? And why? Clara will stop at nothing to find out --- and the truth is only the beginning of this twisted tale of secrets and deceit.

Told in the alternating perspectives of Clara’s investigation and Nick’s last months leading up to the crash, master of suspense Mary Kubica weaves her most chilling thriller to date --- one that explores the dark recesses of a mind plagued by grief and shows that some secrets might be better left buried.

Audiobook available, read by Carly Robins and Graham Hamilton

Every Last Lie by Mary Kubica

• Publication Date: May 29, 2018
• Genres: Fiction , Psychological Suspense , Psychological Thriller , Suspense , Thriller
• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Park Row
• ISBN-10: 0778330923
• ISBN-13: 9780778330929
• Discussion Questions
• Reading Guide (PDF)

Every Last Lie

Some of us are old enough to remember the commercials and advertisements with the slogan, ‘Maybe she’s born with it; Maybe it’s Maybelline.’ The idea behind that old sales pitch is that ‘real’ can be disguised. Truth can be hidden behind some cosmetic applications. In Every Last Lie , Clara Solberg finds out just what cover ups can do when applied to a flesh and blood reality.

Clara’s son Felix is just four days old when her husband dies. Nick had taken their four-year-old daughter Maisie to a dance class and been picking up Chinese for dinner. It was a thoughtful act; he had called home and realized Clara was far too tired to cook. But rather than a dad and daughter with takeout it is a policeman that next walks through the door. Dreadful words fall from his lips: an accident, so sorry for her loss, she needs to come to the hospital. Amazingly, Maisie is unharmed by the crash that took Nick’s life; or at least, that’s what the authorities tell Clara. But within days of the fateful accident, the little girl starts having night terrors. She begins to cry out in her sleep, “It’s the bad man, Daddy. The bad man is after us.” Told by the police that Nick’s death had been caused by his driving too fast, her increasingly agitated daughter makes Clara question what really happened when her husband’s car met a tree head on.

Within days, and while Clara is still pondering what to do regarding Maisie’s nightmares, Nick’s secrets slowly start being exposed. The receipt for an expensive necklace is found in his underwear drawer but Clara had not received any jewelry from him. A close friend explains he had been laid off from Nick’s company due to financial difficulties Clara knew nothing about. Exhausted and overwhelmed by agonizing grief, Clara finds herself sinking down a rabbit hole. Realizing that what she once believed was reality was in fact just a clever façade, she wonders if investigating what happened the day of the accident will bring her answers, or just leave her with more questions. Only one thing is certain; the man she loved, the man she thought she knew so well was, in many ways, a stranger to her.

The story of Nick and Clara is told from both their viewpoints. We follow Nick in his last months of life, as he wrestles with the many things he is trying to keep hidden from Clara and the many reasons why. We follow Clara as she slowly investigates Nick’s death and the days and weeks leading up to it. Kubica is the queen of flawed characters, showing us a husband and wife whose exhaustion and struggles have lead them to some dark places. She reveals a relationship where the love is real but the people involved fear exposing too much of who they are. And ultimately we are forced to ask the questions, do we really want to know everything about our significant other? Does marriage end their right to privacy? Or ours?

Kubica does an excellent job of capturing the postnatal experience from the perspective of the mother. After the first few pages I was ready to take a sympathy nap, remembering well the exhaustion that accompanies being the caretaker of both a newborn and a toddler. The mental fuzziness, the emotional rollercoaster – they all came back to me as I turned the pages. I couldn’t imagine Clara’s torment as grief was added to that and then as that grief was intensified and confounded by the exposed secrets. The author invites us into Clara’s dark place and the invitation is so enticing it is impossible to say no to – but there are times you’ll wish you had.

Perhaps that wish is part of what kept this from being an A-grade read for me. Being inside the mind of someone who is exhausted and beleaguered was at times deeply uncomfortable. This is a woman completely overwhelmed – her mother has dementia, she fears her father is doing too much and dying as a result, she has a cranky infant and a traumatized toddler, financial troubles, a dead husband and a home that is breaking down around her. Just reading about her was incredibly wearying and I couldn’t envision how awful the life of a real Clara would be. Wait, I take that back – I could because I lived it with her page by page. I don’t know if it was because the author did such a good job of making these characters real to me or simply because I could relate to a young, exhausted mother but I became more obsessed by what was going to happen to her – how would she earn a living, take care of the kids, deal with the house – than what the tale was about. The past, the car crash and the marriage to Nick might have been the primary focus of the story but what occupied my mind was the present and future. The bills that needed to be paid and the home that needed to be made for two very vulnerable children. As a result, the book was less thriller for me and more women’s fiction tale about a struggling mom. The mystery is good, don’t get me wrong, but concern about the characters may very well draw your attention from it.

I think Every Last Lie will appeal to readers looking less for suspense and more for a cerebral yet emotional conundrum. The flawed characters, their very bumbling, human solutions to their problems, and their difficult relationships will draw your sympathy, frustration and admiration. You’ll find yourself challenged by trying to figure out just what happened and is continuing to happen. You may not be engrossed but you will be intrigued, which leads me to give the book a recommendation to those readers who enjoy spending time in dark places and tough spots.

Buy this book at Amazon / Apple Books / Barnes and Noble / Kobo

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• About the Book

New York Times bestselling author of THE GOOD GIRL Mary Kubica is back with another exhilarating thriller as a widow's pursuit of the truth leads her to the darkest corners of the psyche. 

Clara Solberg's world shatters when her husband and their four-year-old daughter are in a car crash, killing Nick while Maisie is remarkably unharmed. The crash is ruled an accident…until the coming days, when Maisie starts having night terrors that make Clara question what really happened on that fateful afternoon. 

Tormented by grief and her obsession that Nick's death was far more than just an accident, Clara is plunged into a desperate hunt for the truth. Who would have wanted Nick dead? And, more important, why? Clara will stop at nothing to find out --- and the truth is only the beginning of this twisted tale of secrets and deceit. 

Told in the alternating perspectives of Clara's investigation and Nick's last months leading up to the crash, master of suspense Mary Kubica weaves her most chilling thriller to date --- one that explores the dark recesses of a mind plagued by grief and shows that some secrets might be better left buried.

Every Last Lie by Mary Kubica

• Publication Date: May 29, 2018
• Genres: Fiction , Psychological Suspense , Psychological Thriller , Suspense , Thriller
• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Park Row
• ISBN-10: 0778330923
• ISBN-13: 9780778330929
• Discussion Questions
• Reading Guide (PDF)

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Book Review: Every Last Lie

Summary: Clara Solberg gives birth to son Felix just four days before her husband is killed. 

Authorities said he was speeding when he drove into a tree. He was driving their four year old daughter Maisie home from ballet. 

Clara had talked to her husband just minutes before and he said he’d pick up dinner for them on the way home. 

Maisie had virtually no injuries from the accident. But she evidently saw something, because she immediately begins to have nightmares and screams when she sees a black car.

Though the police assure Clara that her husband’s death was an accident, Maisie keeps telling Clara that “a bad man” was following them.

So was it a terrible accident or did someone cause the accident? It is with this in mind that Clara’s obsession with finding out what truly happened that fateful day takes over. This book is told from the alternating prospective of Clara’s investigation and Nick’s last months on earth. 

Life Themes: Relationships, grief  Who Will Like This Book: Lovers of suspenseful mysteries, thrillers and women’s fiction

Strong Points:   The real strength of this book is the characters. The author does a great job of clearly defining her characters and making each voice unique.

She manages to deftly interweave the excitement and exhaustion of childbirth with the first stages of grief.  

Final Thoughts: Mary Kubica has a way of building suspenseful plots that at first glance seem to be steering the story in one direction, but then veers off into another which keeps you guessing until the very end.

My Rating:   4/5  

About The Author: Mary Kubica is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of four novels, including THE GOOD GIRL, PRETTY BABY, DON’T YOU CRY and EVERY LAST LIE. 

A former high school history teacher, Mary holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, in History and American Literature. 

She lives outside of Chicago with her husband and two children, where she enjoys photography, gardening and caring for the animals at a local shelter.  

*I received this book free for my review.

I'm Brenda, creator of Cozy Little House. I live with my cat, Ivy, who keeps me laughing. I graduated from journalism school with a degree in professional writing and won awards for feature writing. I practice gratitude and enjoy my solitude. The glass is always half-full.

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This sounds like a book I'd like. I would like the characterizations and the plot, I think. Thanks for the review!

I really enjoy Anita Shreve's books, too. I haven't heard of the one mentioned, tho'. The Stars Are Fire will be one of my next books to read, Debby.

I like your book reviews, Brenda, even tho't some of the books you really like aren't ones I would read. I still like to be aware of what others are reading, what's out there, you know. I'm just not tough enough to read those murder mystery, suspense novels, I guess!

It's wonderful that you are feeling better. Let's assume that it will continue.

I will certainly place this book on my To Read list. I am reading The Stars Are Fire by Anita Shreve and it has been holding my attention. The main character is a young mother who confronts losses and finds a way to remake her life and finds her own strengths (based on a true story of the largest fire in Maine's history). Next up is Winter Solstice by Elin Hilderbrand. I have enjoyed many of her novels in the past so I hope this one will be good as well.

Hope you are feeling better and better. Your post yesterday was very upbeat; seems like your writing reflected improved health and high hopes! I found myself smiling as I read your post. Then a big frown as I realized I too need to cut back on the caffeine.

Take care and have a wonderful weekend. It is a beautiful day here, bright and sunny with just a hint of breeze — a high of 77 is forecast with a low of 61 this evening.

I have loved some of Anita Shreve's books. I will check into this one.

Hi. I rarely read suspense novels or mysteries because my life is kind of stressful and I don't want any additional stress or feeling of being keyed up when using a book to escape life for awhile. But, I do like to read your reviews of these books in case it might spur me to consider giving one of them a try. I am wondering why you rated this 4 out of 5 — what would have made it a better read for you? Thanks! Hope you are feeling better too.

I gave it 4 out of 5 because though I loved the book, it wasn't the best of this genre I've read. I hesitated about this rating, but then decided it was best to err on the side of caution because if I give every book I read a 5 rating, the ratings won't mean that much.

Thank you for this Brenda. I have taken note of the titles by Mary Kubica, I love suspense stories. Hope you are feeling better today. Give the pupsters a hug from me.

I am feeling better. Still can tell the cyst is there pressing against my bladder, but not drinking caffeine, which makes it worse.

Comments are closed.

The Library Ladies

Two librarians, one blog, zero SHH-ing

Kate’s Review: “Every Last Lie”

Publishing Info: Park Row Books, June 2017

Where Did I Get This Book: The library!

Book Description:   New York Times bestselling author of THE GOOD GIRL, Mary Kubica is back with another exhilarating thriller as a widow’s pursuit of the truth leads her to the darkest corners of the psyche. 

“The bad man, Daddy. The bad man is after us.” 

Clara Solberg’s world shatters when her husband and their four-year-old daughter are in a car crash, killing Nick while Maisie is remarkably unharmed. The crash is ruled an accident…until the coming days, when Maisie starts having night terrors that make Clara question what really happened on that fateful afternoon. 

Tormented by grief and her obsession that Nick’s death was far more than just an accident, Clara is plunged into a desperate hunt for the truth. Who would have wanted Nick dead? And, more important, why? Clara will stop at nothing to find out—and the truth is only the beginning of this twisted tale of secrets and deceit. 

Told in the alternating perspectives of Clara’s investigation and Nick’s last months leading up to the crash, master of suspense Mary Kubica weaves her most chilling thriller to date—one that explores the dark recesses of a mind plagued by grief and shows that some secrets might be better left buried.

Review:  I have many anxieties in my life, some that are realistic, others that are unrealistic. Or at the very least not worth worrying about. One of those anxieties is becoming unexpectedly widowed. I’m the person who can’t sleep too well at night if her husband isn’t home, especially if I’m expecting him home and he is late to return. Because OBVIOUSLY it isn’t that he’s just running late or finding that time has run away from him. Obviously he’s dead.

So reading “Every Last Lie” kind of made me confront my anxieties on that at least a little bit, so it has that going for it. Mary Kubica is one of those authors that I really, really want to like, mainly because I really enjoyed her book “Pretty Baby” and the subversion of expectations that we were given. I wasn’t as thrilled by “Don’t You Cry” (if you remember) just because it was less a subversion of expectations and more a tangle of unnecessary twists and turns. But I was willing to give “Every Last Lie” a chance because overall, I like the author. Unfortunately, this was less of a “Pretty Baby” experience and more of a “Don’t You Cry” experience.

Note: I am going to try avoiding spoilers here, but I can’t really critique it without saying at least a little bit of how scenarios kind of play out. So even though I’m avoiding specifics, you may want to skip this review if you want to read it.

“Every Little Lie” is told through alternating perspectives. The first is Clara’s perspective as she’s trying to piece together what happened to Nick, finding potential clues to suggest that maybe her husband didn’t die by accident and that perhaps he was murdered. The other is Nick’s perspective in the weeks leading up to that fateful car ride that sets the plot in motion. I will give this book credit where it is due, I really enjoyed this structure. It allowed for the reader to be able to see the clues that were presented in ways that Nick and Clara couldn’t see them, and I liked picking up on truths that one or the other weren’t privy to. It’s good when these books find fun and interesting ways to reveal the solution to the reader, and I definitely felt like Kubica did a bang up job in terms of pacing and reveal. It also made it for a fast read, and a pretty entertaining one in the moment.

But plotting aside, I didn’t really care for either Clara or Nick. I didn’t feel like I knew that much about Clara as a person outside of the trauma that she was experiencing and what it was doing to her mental state. Sure, that makes sense that we are only going to see that side of her in her chapters, but even in the chapters that Nick had before the car accident we only got a partial view, and it wasn’t a very telling one. Nick was a bit more interesting, seeing Clara’s views of him alongside the truths about him was a very good way to get to know him as a character. But ultimately, he wasn’t terribly interesting, and just fell into pretty familiar tropes of a desperate man with a lot of secrets. And then you add into that a lot of really odd red herrings that never felt satisfying, as they never led anywhere. I know that red herrings usually don’t, but there were so many things in this book that I wanted to have SOME sort of resolution, only to find that there is no resolution in sight for a good deal of them as we turn the last page. And some of them, I felt, really needed resolution for me to be satisfied with the story. I was left saying “Well what about ______?” too much to be happy or at least okay with how things ended up.

I still fully intend to keep giving Mary Kubica a shot, because there is a lot of potential there. And “Pretty Baby” was proof that I do like stuff that she has done, and can like it again. It’s just too bad that this one fell flat. I keep hope alive that the next will be better.

Rating 6: A quick and entertaining enough read, but none of the characters really grabbed me and I wasn’t terribly invested in how it all turned out. Especially when many problems were left unresolved.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Every Last Lie” is fairly new and not on many relevant Goodreads lists. But it is on “2017 Suspense and Thrillers”, and I think it would fit in on “Female Psychological Thrillers and Suspense” .

Find “Every Last Lie” at your library using WorldCat!

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How did that book end? Book spoilers to jog your memory.

Mary Kubica | Every Last Lie | Ten-Second Spoilers

“The bad man, Daddy. The bad man is after us.” Clara Solberg’s world shatters when her husband and their four-year-old daughter are in a car crash, killing Nick while Maisie is remarkably unharmed. The crash is ruled an accident…until the coming days, when Maisie starts having night terrors that make Clara question what really happened on that fateful afternoon. Tormented by grief and her obsession that Nick’s death was far more than just an accident, Clara is plunged into a desperate hunt for the truth. Who would have wanted Nick dead? And, more importantly, why? Clara will stop at nothing to find out—and the truth is only the beginning of this twisted tale of secrets and deceit. Told in the alternating perspectives of Clara’s investigation and Nick’s last months leading up to the crash, master of suspense Mary Kubica weaves her most chilling thriller to date—one that explores the dark recesses of a mind plagued by grief and shows that some secrets might be better left buried.

Izzy has been stealing from Clara’s parents and blaming missing money and checks on Clara’s mother, who suffers from dementia. Nick really did just die from speeding. Theo was the bad man. He threatened Maisie in his black car. Nick had gambled all their money but won it back before he died.

Love spoilers? Check out my full list of ten-second spoilers here.

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Every Last Lie

Clara Solberg’s world shatters when her husband and their four-year-old daughter are in a car crash, killing Nick while Maisie is remarkably unharmed. The crash is ruled an accident…until the coming days, when Maisie starts having night terrors that make Clara question what really happened on that fateful afternoon.

Tormented by grief and her obsession that Nick’s death was far more than just an accident, Clara is plunged into a desperate hunt for the truth. Who would have wanted Nick dead? And, more important, why? Clara will stop at nothing to find out—and the truth is only the beginning of this twisted tale of secrets and deceit.

Told in the alternating perspectives of Clara’s investigation and Nick’s last months leading up to the crash, master of suspense Mary Kubica weaves her most chilling thriller to date—one that explores the dark recesses of a mind plagued by grief and shows that some secrets might be better left buried.

READ AN EXCERPT

• Page Version Chapter 1
• PDF Version Chapter 1

“A page-turning whodunit, and a moving account of grief.” ~ Ruth Ware, New York Times bestselling author of The Woman in Cabin 10

“With Every Last Lie, Mary Kubica spins an utterly mesmerizing tale of marriage and secrets. Haunting, psychologically deft and full of hairpin turns (every one earned), it’ll have you rapt until its final pages, and also richly rewarded by them.” ~ Megan Abbott, author of You Will Know Me

“Brilliant, intense, and utterly addictive. Be prepared to run a gauntlet of emotions!” ~ B.A. Paris, New York Times bestselling author of Behind Closed Doors

“[A] chilling psychological thriller… [Kubica] shows herself once again to be a master of suspenseful manipulation.” ~ Publishers Weekly

“A woman’s husband and 4-year-old daughter get in a car crash. The husband dies, the daughter survives, and it’s ruled an accident. Turns out there might have been something muuuch darker at play. Think: “True Detective” meets “Pretty Girls.” Prepare for plot twists.” ~ theSkimm

“This chilling thriller is perfect for the upcoming long, hot summer.” ~ Redbook

“Kubica’s fourth stand-alone is a compelling… portrait of grief and coping chronicled through a wife’s determined investigation of the lies she’s discovered framing her life.” ~ Booklist

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