The Sister by Louise Jensen
The Sister by Louise Jensen
This is a domestic based psychological thriller based in a large Oxfordshire village/small town. It reminded me of early Nicci French domestic thrillers, as it describes the plight of a lone female narrator as she deals with various mysterious happenings in her (reasonably) settled home life. The roots of Grace the narrator’s problems stretch back to her childhood and especially her childhood friendships and these sections are told in alternating flashback sections which are very easy to follow, as the book is divided into “Now” and “Then” chapters.
I quite enjoyed this book but it’s definitely a “summer” read. This book has been very successful but I only found it okay and not as dramatic or challenging as the aforementioned Nicci French thrillers, which contain darker and scarier moments and are generally a lot grittier.
The problem is that the narrator, Grace, is just too bloody nice and this makes her a dull, saccharine character to read – I mean, we all like old people, babies, pets, etc. – and she has no sharp edges to her at all. This made me tire of her as the book went on and she lets people walk all over her in the most passive manner imaginable. She also fails to spot rudeness (and worse) for far too long than is possible, even for the most naïve of characters. But maybe people are tiring a little of the endless stream of “feisty” female protagonists that pervade out there since the success of Stieg Larsson’s Lisbeth Salander all those years ago and are ready for protagonists that are a bit nicer and more down to earth.
The plot is quite complex, with plenty of questions along the way as to who the culprit or culprits are, but they’re all quite clichéd elements and they’re all here – anonymous phone calls, someone following her, etc. – but there’s nothing here that you haven’t seen before. It offers nothing new except a kind of watering down of other, darker and more interesting/challenging debut books in this mould, such as In the Darkest Corner by Elizabeth Haynes with its harrowing domestic abuse, or Paula Hawkins’ The Girl on the Train with its unreliably sozzled narrator. It’s a kind of psychological suspense lite: you won’t be disappointed if you read it but you’ll hardly be blown away either, especially if you’re already familiar with the woman-in-peril genre.
I hate to be so critical of what is a very accomplished debut, but as a very successful book it can withstand a little criticism and for me, Grace’s passive character almost ruined a fairly enjoyable story. In the end, this book only struck me as average, but maybe I just prefer my books a little darker and with less pages of domestic detail. Overall, a solid, (mostly) enjoyable mystery but with an annoying heroine and no real surprises, either.
3/5
