Book Review: All The Beautiful Lies By Peter Swanson

All The Beautiful Lies By Peter Swanson

Genre: Mystery, Fiction, Thriller
Pages: 287 pages
Published: April 3rd 2018
Publisher: William Morrow
My Rating: 2 out of 5 Stars

Synopsis: Harry Ackerson has always considered his step-mother Alice to be sexy and beautiful, in an “other worldly” way. She has always been kind and attentive, if a little aloof in the last few years.

Days before his college graduation, Alice calls with shocking news. His father is dead and the police think it’s suicide. Devastated, he returns to his father’s home in Maine. There, he and Alice will help one another pick up of the pieces of their lives and uncover what happened to his father.

Shortly after he arrives, Harry meets a mysterious young woman named Grace McGowan. Though she claims to be new to the area, Harry begins to suspect that Grace may not be a complete stranger to his family. But she isn’t the only attractive woman taking an interest in Harry. The sensual Alice is also growing closer, coming on to him in an enticing, clearly sexual way.

Mesmerized by these two women, Harry finds himself falling deeper under their spell. Yet the closer he gets to them, the more isolated he feels, disoriented by a growing fear that both women are hiding dangerous—even deadly—secrets . . . and that neither one is telling the truth.

My Thoughts: So I ended up winning this book last year during a goodreads giveaway. I haven’t picked it up yet so finally when spookathon came around I thought why not since it fit one of the prompts. Well I am sad to say I did not like this book at all. I feel giving it 2 stars was generous. I did want to DNF it but decided to keep reading anyone.

So let me tell you what this story is about. The story starts off with this boy named Harry traveling back to his old home because his father recently passed. What at first looks like an suicide might not be that at all. Harry stays to figure out what happened to his father. He begins to discover secrets from his stepmom and a young woman he comes across in the bookstore his father use to own. Who can Harry trust?

I have to say this book disturbed me a lot. I don’t mean the creepy kind of disturbed. I mean the disgusting kind of disturbed. There were plenty times Harry talks about how attractive his stepmom is. I understand that she’s a lot younger than his father but I just have to say it really was unsettling. Plus the chapters in the book go back and forth with the past and the future. The future scenes were told from Harry’s point of view. The past scenes were told from Harry’s stepmom, Alice, point of view. As you learn more about Alice, you began to learn she had a relationship with her stepfather. I feel once learning about how he came into her life I was very grossed out by that. I probably should have stopped reading but I was close to the end of the book I just continued but man were things very unsettling.

I also just felt a lot of the story was very slow paced as well. I feel a lot of times nothing is really going on. I knew what was happening majority of the time but honestly this was a story I was never excited to go back to. I never had that feeling like oh man I gotta see what’s going to happen now or I gotta find out what actually happen. I think I just stuck with the story because I wanted to have another book read.

Overall this book was not for me. I also didn’t find the revel to be that shocking. No I didn’t figure it out but it wasn’t something that surprised me. I also felt that the ending was very satisfying. It’s messed up but I was happy with how things were dealt with. I don’t want to say anymore because I don’t want to spoil anything but when I say this I mean the very end of the book. I honestly wouldn’t recommend this book. I have only read one other book by Peter Swanson which I liked. I do plan to read more of his books. This one just dealt with a lot of things I was not a fan of.

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Have you guys ended up reading this book? If so what were your thoughts on it. If not, is this book on your TBR? Are you planning to read it? Let me know in the comments.

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