Ugh

I wanted to like this book. I haven’t seen the movie, but reviews of the film made it sound campy and fun. I’m usually too wimpy to watch thrillers but I do enjoy reading them, so I thought I’d try the book instead.

I have never encountered a protagonist I found more off-putting than Stephanie. I know that the author was intending this to some extent, but the other narrative voices are not much better. I certainly don’t think that an unlikable narrator is such a bad thing, but to have three unlikable narrators – and to have two of those narrators also be unreliable- seems less like a choice and more like poor writing.

Large parts of the story are told through one character’s ‘Mommy blog’ and the narrative voice switches through to first person of the three main characters. Each character explicitly explains every action that they take and every thought that they have in reaction to another character. I think the book would benefit from a lot more showing than telling, as despite the narrative structure these character’s motivations still didn’t make sense to me.

This book was trying very hard to be a new Gone Girl. Instead of Amazing Amy, we have Elegant Emily and Sex-Fiend Stephanie. A Simple Favor was not as thrilling or mysterious as that book, and the mysteries were pretty easily guessed as the story progressed. The ending does seem like it is set up for a sequel but I won’t be reading it.