The Likeness

The Likeness

 

Tana French

 

 

(3.5)

 

I was expecting to love this one! The first book was great, I was still thinking about it long after I finished and loved the idea of Cassie as the protagonist going undercover after Operation Vestal. What went wrong?

 

This is mostly getting a high rating because of French's ability to write. I saw most people complaining about the length of the book and how drawn out certain things were, but that was the most enjoyable part of the book for me. French is great with details and setting the atmosphere into spookiness/lovely everyday life.

 

A girl using the name & ID of Cassie's previous undercover persona is found dead with a stab wound in the middle of nowhere old town in Ireland. Cassie decides to go undercover (again) as Lexie to find out what happened to her. The decision was honestly the most drawn out part of the book. We know how serious the decision is, but we also know that she's going to do it, I don't think it needed 100 pages of going back and forth on what she thought of the case/Frank/Sam situation.

 

'Lexie' had taken up with four of her classmates. They're all ridiculously close and live together in an old house left to one of the friends by his ancestor. The friends were the shining stars of this book. There's Daniel, who seems very distant but is also ridiculously intelligent (he's basically the Dad of the group), Abby, a fun and wild free spirit (basically mom), Rafe, the one with the attitude (older brother), and Justin, the whiny little fuck (little brother). I obviously didn't vibe with Justin. He was more annoying than anything, always complaining about how he'll get sick or lost or wah wah wah who cares. Everyone else rocked.

But, you could always tell something was a bit off about the entire situation and the friends are clearly hiding something.

 

Overall, it was an interesting and hooking read, but the ending didn't feel worth it. I've been saying that a lot these days. Really though, the outcome or 'big reveal' made sense, I just felt like it could have been better. I hope Cassie is still in the next one, I enjoyed reading from her perspective.