Just One Look

Just finished Harlan Coben's Just One Look, which I started reading Saturday afternoon (after finishing Dalton). If that time frame (which includes lost time due to spending the weekend with my Twiin - and during the time I spent with her I didn't read anything, and taking a break in reading the book yesterday to read more fanfics, as well as normal sleeping yesterday) is not a hint to how nail-biting the book was, then I don't know what is. Like always with Harlan Coben (who is one of my favourite authors - did I mentioned he tweeted me?! Some time ago I wrote something about the opening line in The Innocent, "You didn't mean to kill him", which possibly is the beat opening sentence I've ever read, and he responded with something like "enjoy the rest of the book"! Ok, enough rambling..) the language pulls you forward and the plot unfolds in such a way that it's difficult to stop reading. If you've ever read a stand-alone novel of Coben, you know what I mean. There's also the way he has several characters in focus and you won't know how they're all connected until the last couple of pages (and it's often a very surprising connection at that). I love it.

The difference between the previous novels of his that I've read and Just One Look, is that the main character (if you can say that there is one, which I think you can) is a woman. Ok, scratch that, I just thought of two other novels where you could argue that the lead character is a woman. Anyways. Grace Lawson is this suburban mother and painter with a nice life and then her husband goes missing after seeing a photograph from his past, and she's determined to find him. Grace's wit, if you could call it that, is a great contributing factor to the book, and it gives a fun edge to even serious situations. Also, her annoyance with perfect housewives and suburban mothers is hilarious.

It is not my favourite book by Harlan Coben (that is and will probably always be Hold Tight), but it was very good. I really recommend that you read it, even though I don't quite know how to grade it (I've found that grading stuff really isn't my strong suit). Maybe a 3,5 or 4 out of 5.

xoxo
Frida