I suppose you could describe the types of novel I read and enjoy the most as literary fiction, but on occasion I will pick up a thriller for a change. I must admit I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with them – I love a real page-turner and thrillers often keep me hooked. However I think I’m sometimes a bit too cynical and can find the plots too far-fetched, and I also think there has to be a really good plot with believable twists. I often feel disappointed at the end of these types of novel as, although I may have been unable to put the book down, the ending often doesn’t live up to expectations!
Before We Met is told in the third person from the perspective of Hannah, who has moved back to London from New York after a whirlwind romance and marriage to Mark. Mark is back in New York on business, but when he fails to come home, Hannah starts to uncover information about Mark’s past that she wasn’t aware of…
At the start of Before I Met, I felt this novel was very much in the mould of Liane Moriarty. A thriller told from a female perspective, where we have to unravel what it is that has happened. However, while I have read two Moriarty books and found them very readable (even if I haven’t necessarily loved the books that much), this one failed to keep me hooked.
This should have been a really gripping tale, but it turned out to be a real slog and I really struggled with it. The story was slow and didn’t hook me in me at all, and there was a lot of unnecessary back story and repetition. There was one ‘reveal’ about half way through, but once this was out in the open I found I could guess where the story was going, and I found myself skimming pages in desperation to get to the end!
I was really disappointed with this book overall. It annoyed me more than anything and failed to ever get going. I rarely read thrillers but when I do I expect to be gripped by them – that just didn’t happen with this one and I was just desperate for it to end.
ahouseofbooks 
I felt exactly the same way I was hugely disappointed by this novel. There’s others out there that deal with a similar subject but do it so much better.
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Thanks – always good to know it isn’t just me! I found it more or less unreadable.
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