Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

If the author has ever been to Oregon, she surely skipped the Oregon coast. There was absolutely nothing in the book that corresponds with how and what the coast and its inhabitants are like. That, however, is just the beginning. This author commits the cardinal sin of fiction writing: she lies to her audience solely to make the "plot twist" seem plausible. Since the chapters are all written as first-person narratives, we get to hear the inner workings of these characters' thoughts. There's no ambiguity; we KNOW what Lydia and Merritt know because the author gives us that unimpeachable First Person inner narrative. When that inner narrative is revealed to have been a lie (and not simply selective omission), we've been lied to. The "plot twist" (which was obvious from a mile away, even though it was - literally - incredible) couldn't have worked if the author had been honest with us, so she clumsily shoe-horned it in at the end, hoping the readers might forget the contradictory information that began the book. This novel could've worked if it had been told in the Third Person, where it might've been conceivable that some words and thoughts were misconstrued by other characters and, therefore, by the reader (us). But it wasn't. Nor did it help that none of the characters were sympathetic: I found myself wishing bad things would happen to each of them. I'm giving it two stars because it was free.