Uncategorized – Mrs Lola and the Bountiful Library

Goodread’s Page: The Au Pair

Author’s Page: Emma Rouse

“An empty double page marks the overwhelming grief that followed our arrival.” -Emma Rous, The Au Pair

Seraphine Meyers and her brother Danny are the true Summerbourne twins, born in the middle of summer on the estate that has been in their family for generations. Scandal and mystery has always filled the whispers and gossip spoke by the people in the nearby village about her family. They speak of changelings, affairs, and death. On the day of their own birth, their mother died by falling from the cliffs at the edge of the property.

When Seraphine, mourning the death of her recently deceased father, comes across a photograph showing her mother holding only one baby on the day that her and her brother were allegedly born, she begins to investigate the dark secrets surrounding her family.

What it Does Well:

The Au Pair does a surprisingly good job of predicting reader assumptions and throwing them on their head in the first third of the book. I will confess that I thought I had all of the “mysteries” completely figured out only to have characters point blank tell me I was wrong by revealing new information or negating information I thought to be true.

Additionally, each of Laura’s chapters (that take place in the past) is meant to address something that Seraphine questions in the present. Each new thing that Seraphine learns in the present is often subtly referenced by Laura in the past, weaving together a nice back and forth. Everybody has some piece of information to share as Seraphine and her family begin to construct the events that took place prior to and the day of her and her brother’s birth.

What it Doesn’t Do Well:

While this book kept me engaged and I DID want to know the answers to the many presented mysteries, I also didn’t feel any particular emotional connection to the characters. The book seems to claim “family relationships” as one of its themes, zeroing in on unhealthy or bad relationships within families, but very few of the characters ever do anything nice or pleasant to make the reader care about them either. People die and/or are murdered, and I felt very little shock value in the reveal.

While many of the “mysteries” revolve around affairs, a great many characters in the book don’t seem to like each other. Sometimes it seems like they can’t stand each other. In particular, every family member seems so incredibly rude to each other (both past and present) that I find it amazing that they have any relationship at all.

I think that one of the only relationships that exists in the book that seemed natural and kind was that between Edwin and his au pair Laura, but even then she was being paid to take care of him and the book didn’t dwell very much on if she enjoyed caring for him. Laura says repeatedly throughout the book that she doesn’t mind watching Edwin extra when his parents repeatedly ask for more assistance, but there isn’t a large amount of description to back up her claim.

Overall, it was entertaining, but it wasn’t riveting.

Rating:

3/5

Similar Reads:

The Flight Attendant by Chris Boujalian, The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins, and The Death of Mrs. Westaway by Ruth Ware

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Goodread’s Page: Sadie

Author’s Page: Courtney Summers

It makes my stomach ache, how, at a time like this, I can’t make that word come out of my mouth perfectly enough to convince him. I can’t describe how bad it feels, this inability to communicate the way I want, when I need to. –Courtney Summers, Sadie

Sometimes my vocabulary doesn’t contain words to describe the ability of a story to be so very gripping and so very terrifying all at once. This book tells a story that is so terrible, but therein lies the power of it. Except, at the same time, it feels so gut-wrenching and strange to praise a story like this because it’s so dark and just so deeply sad.

When Mattie is found dead, Sadie’s world crumbles. She hasn’t had an easy life–unloving mother, high-school dropout, and teased for her stutter–but it had all been worth it for Mattie, her little sister. After a half-hearted police investigation, Sadie sets out to avenge the death of her sister, but fast forward a few months and nobody knows what has become of her.

Before picking up the book, I had heard that the real way to read it was to actually listen to it, and now I understand why. The book is told from two perspectives. First, from the perspective of Sadie herself. Second, from the secondhand account of West McCray as he reports on his investigation of Sadie’s story on his serialized podcast.

What It Does Well:

The narrative style of this book is one of it’s most powerful story telling elements. The podcast transcripts of the book take place significantly after anything told from Sadie’s point of view, letting the reader jump back and forth between the visceral experience of Sadie on the hunt for her sister’s killer and West McCray as he stumbles from clue to clue, trailing after her, trying to piece together what happened as you, the reader, want to scream when you recognize the lies, deceits, and false assumptions that leave him (and the rest of the world) puzzled.

The second most powerful element of this book is simply its story. It starts out heavy, and I felt myself continuing to read with a growing sense of unease, dreading that the story would be dark and sad and–most terrible of all–quite realistic. While Sadie isn’t a real person, her story is more than likely similar to so many other girls who have gone missing. Sadie doesn’t magically escape from the danger around her; she suffers for having faced it.

Like the women whom Sadie and West McCray come across, and like Sadie herself, I could tell right when the book began to veer into the territory of abuse and I could feel myself trying to avoid it at all costs. It grips your stomach and you feel sick, but the allusion to something about which others won’t properly speak, the mentions of feelings and impressions that don’t seem right, makes it impossible to ignore. Yet, you ignore it. You conjure other explanations because it can’t be THAT. Not THAT.

I was trying to avoid coming to terms with what the book was about, I realized that I had become just like the characters, just like Sadie’s mother, Sadie’s grandmother, like towns poor and rich alike, refusing to believe that something so terrible could happen. I became like West McCray, cycling through excuses about why he doesn’t want to investigate the story of Sadie. I wanted to put the book down.

What It Doesn’t Do Well:

This isn’t something that the book didn’t do well, but it’s something to be aware of: this book is dark. It involves Sadie dredging up childhood traumas. It involves her investigating the trauma of others. And it also shines a light on the denial and behavior of others that allow a lot of different cases of childhood abuse to occur.

Rating:

5/5

Category: Uncategorized

Book Review: The Au Pair

What it Does Well:

What it Doesn’t Do Well:

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Book Review: Sadie

What It Does Well:

What It Doesn’t Do Well:

Rating:

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