Tricolor

by Lisa Terry
191 pages
Published: July 16 2015

Blurb:

It’s the typical problem of can’t-stay-broken-up-with-your-boyfriend-when-his-parents-go-missing. Okay, so it might not be typical but O’Ryan’s lovelife is bumped to the bottom of the priority list when a madman shows up wielding a knife. O’Ryan has to meet his demands or everyone she cares about will be toast. 

The easy answer is to call the police, but it’s a bit much to ask them to protect everyone—the list of people he’s threatened is really long. When her boyfriend’s parents turn up dead, she realizes the man with the knife has to be beat at his own game because giving into his demands will make O’Ryan a criminal too.

Rating:

Thoughts:

I received a copy from the author in exchange for an honest review.
First off, I don't read much, if any, adult/thriller/suspense novels. It's not my typical read, and not something I'm usually in the mood for. You could even say I avoided these kind of novels, for whatever reason. But this fact made me more curious to read this book and finally see for myself what an adult suspense novel is like. 

This book surprised and slightly disappointed me. It surprised me because it was very entertaining and I found the plot to be very captivating. I was always interested to find out how things would unfold and it really doesn't take a long time to finish this book. It goes by very quickly, and its length was perfect for its story, since it would've been unnecessary to extend it beyond 200 pages. For my first suspense novel, I was pleasantly surprised by the plot. 

I was, however, pretty disappointed by the writing. I felt that it was too choppy at times and very unclear in others. Sometimes, the narrator would try to inform the reader about an event that took place before the starting point of the book and she would only do that through dialogue. That leaves a lot for the reader to assume, since the character obviously won't flat-out tell another person who experienced the event exactly what happened. She'd sound a bit mad. I just would've liked to see a little more told to us through O'Ryan's thoughts. The uneven flow of the writing also made it hard to understand what was going on at certain action scenes, and I'd have to reread lines to figure out who hit who, etc. I could never feel anxious whenever something intense happened and I think it's because of that. Another thing about the writing is the use of punctuation. It just stood out to me that there were too many exclamation points at times when a simple period would've made the sentence much more effective/dramatic and less like a line out of a children's book. If you get what I mean.

Now my favorite aspect of a novel is always its characters. Always. I don't know why, but-actually I do know why. Imagine a novel without characters... Exactly. Now imagine a novel without a plot or a setting. It can manage with the characters just yapping on at each other. My point is, I wasn't blown away by the characters in this book. At the beginning, I really enjoyed O'Ryan's character because she was very witty. As the book went on, she started to grow irritating and prioritised all the wrong things. I sometimes felt bad for the people associated with her. Peter, however, the 9-year-old in the book, made up for all of that in my opinion. He was such a clever, mischievous little boy and impossible not to like. I would've liked seeing the book from his perspective, if I'm honest.

If you're looking for a short read with a unique plot, and can look past a few issues like these, I can't see why you wouldn't enjoy this novel :)