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Feb 04, 2015LT rated this title 4.5 out of 5 stars
This whole book is like being in the middle of a white-water canoeing trip in particularly treacherous rapids. The guide is missing, supplies have gone overboard, and a bunch of petrified amateurs are trying to keep from being dashed against the rocks. I flipped the pages so fast my thumb got paper cuts. If you stop and think about the narrative at the end, some of the tightly spun strands begin to separate*. However, Barr is very compelling and I was more than happy to suspend disbelief. It's also refreshing and unusual to have a picture of five female heroines at different ages/stages, all in very different life circumstances. Each of the women displays her own strengths and weaknesses in dealing with the events described. Without wanting to spoil anything, I give the book a trigger warning. Warning notwithstanding, Barr is less guilty of sensationalism than most thriller writers would be when describing the circumstances. I found her character observations moving, plausible, and evocative. With regard to alpca4118, below, I strongly disagree with his or her complaint that too much time is spent on the disabled woman's circumstances. IMHO, any boredom with the subject might have more to do with one's discomfort with the condition of paraplegia than Barr's writing. *Criminal motivation, mostly.