Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This review is for the Audible version I bought this novel because it had many good reviews as a thriller (one of my favorite genres) and one reviewer compared it to Gone Girl, which is one of my all-time favorites, a true masterpiece. I figured that if this was anything like Gone Girl it had to be fabulous. Sigh. So wrong. One neutral thing I'll say up front is that this novel is clearly targeted at a female audience, unlike Gone Girl, which had extremely broad targeting and appeal. I'm a late-middle-age guy, so this novel had one small strike against it for me through little or no fault of its own. The only 'good' thing I'll say about this novel is that it held my attention well enough that I finished it, as I really did want to know how it ended. Another big mistake. The first major criticism I have is that the 'heroine' of the story is an utter idiot, constantly getting into trouble through her own carelessness and stupidity. It's impossible to root for a character who does one dumb thing after another. Over and over as I read, I wanted to scream at this lady, "Don't DO that you jerk!" This was not a novel about a woman cast into hard circumstances and battling her way out through her own spunk and cleverness. Rather, this was a novel about a woman digging herself into a deeper and deeper hole through her own 'bad choices' (an understatement). I promise that my next comment is not a spoiler; it's just my opinion about the ending, given in vague generalities. I admit that the premise and promise were wonderful, driving me to keep reading so I could find out how it all resolves. In short, I trusted the author to pull off a great twist or other satisfying conclusion. And clearly, it was the author's intention to deliver a shocking surprise ending. Unfortunately, the only reason the ending was a surprise is that the author repeatedly lied to the reader during the novel, misleading the reader in ways that I believe most people would call massively unfair. It's as if the reader sees a character get a letter that's printed on red paper, and only at the end do we learn that the paper was actually blue. The author shows us things through the main character's eyes that at the end we are told were not really what she/we saw. I'm sorry, but that's cheating, plain and simple. I was so angry at the ending that I immediately sat down and pounded out this review. I can't believe I wasted all those hours not only being frustrated with the 'heroine's' stupidity as she did one bone-headed thing after another, but when the end finally came it was a horrendous letdown and a revelation that the author had lied and cheated all the way through. Honestly, I wish I could give this book a negative star rating.