How I lost you is a gripping psychological thriller by Jenny Blackhurst which already is a number 1 best seller no doubt. It’s about Susan who doesn’t recall murdering her newborn son but after a trial, evidence linking her to the crime she accepts it was clearly her. After her son was born she had suffered post-natal depression so they determined this the reason behind the tragedy so she gets shipped off to a mental health hospital where she meets her best and only friend Cassie. When she’s let out on parole now goes by the name Emma she receives a photo addressed to Susan. First of all how do they know where now known as Emma’s new address is and the little boy in the picture there’s no way it could possibly be her son? The flashbacks build up and get more intense with more information so it’s something you got to keep up with kind of like watching Inception (or is that just me?). What I mean is as you get further in the book I had to stop put my kindle down and revaluate what I just read as of course all the characters join up in the end and maybe it’s just my bad memory but it’s definitely hard to remember the roles of all of them. The flashbacks give a sense of not everything is as it seems. The first flashbacks bored me slightly and made me wonder what this has got to do with the book but trust me as you get further on, it’s got everything to do with the book. Although even as you get to juicy flashbacks I still wondered how it all adds up so like every book you got to wait till the end for all the dots to join together. I got to say I love how Blackhurst named one of the characters after her so keep an eye out for her in the book. I’ve just started getting into psychological crime thrillers and this is the second one I’ve read, (I know what an amateur right pshh). Well the only other book I can compare it to is the highly successful Girl on the train and in my opinion out of the two this one has got to be my favourite. The girl on the train was just as gripping as how I lost you however How I lost you had more surprises up its sleeve. The Girl on the train is about this divorced alcoholic who is still trying to get over the fact her husband left her for another woman and as the title suggests she takes the train and sees this couple regularly on the porch of their house. One day while on the train she sees something on the porch he can’t keep to herself when she discovers that the woman in the couple has gone missing but with her alcohol problems will anyone believe her? What I love about them both is you can’t determine your feelings for each character till the end because it changes from sympathy to suspicion to seriously I thought you were the innocent one you’re such an imposter. It’s what I love about this genre you always got to think outside of the box and trust no one. It makes you think though like how did you write this masterpiece, it makes me kinda worried what was going through Gillian Flynn’s head when she wrote Gone Girl. These books make me so jealous because of the writers talent in writing like you just wrote this whole series of psychological crime thrillers and I just wrote some smut on Calum Hood. Even then I can’t relate because one never had a boyfriend and two never even meet Calum Hood but hey a girl can dream. Not that you have to experience love firsthand to write about it but it’s just something I would like to not just for my writing but obviously the boyfriend part. I mean writing comes from your imagination which shows in these books and I love how they create this whole new world conjured just from their brains. Come on these guys don’t get enough appreciation as it is and any other type of genre writer well done on your brains? Or should I say imagination (yep that sounds a whole less weird).
Just adding do you know how hard it is to write about these books without any frickin spoilers seriously them plot twists are hard to keep to myself guys so do me a favour and read the book so we can all discuss this together.
Love, Priya