One night, Catherine picks up a random book from her bedside table. She's not sure how it's come into their home: maybe it was an old one that had reemerged after her recent move, or maybe her husband picked it up somewhere along the way. As she settles in for a relaxing read, however, she is shocked to realize that the book is about her. Not only that, the book describes the worst 24 hours of her life and a deadly secret that she's been keeping from her family for almost two decades. Then the book is sent to her son. Then the book is sent to her husband. It seems as though the author is out to destroy Catherine, but the only other person who knows the secret died with it.
This book has an interesting premise, but it just doesn't come together well. Real people just don't act the way the characters do; most of them come off as completely deranged. I had to suspend my disbelief during the entire book to get through it; the situations just aren't believable. The writing is repetitive, the characters aren't likeable, and I found it overly dramatic. When the big secret was finally revealed, I felt ticked off that I read through so much of the book for such a pithy little thing that could have easily been taken care of with a simple conversation.
It was a quick read, I'll give it that much, but it wasn't enjoyable.
Okay, so this book sounds really interesting, and things unfold at a pretty good pace, making you think that there’s this big juicy secret that was worth hiding for 20 years. It basically comes down to one summer night, when Catherine was raped by the son of the author of the book. The rapist holds a pocket knife or something to her throat in this 5 star luxury hotel in Spain and tells her that she has to take her clothes off while he takes pictures of her and then proceeds to rape her. Catherine was staying in this hotel with her husband and young son, but her husband had to leave the vacation early for work, leaving Catherine and the boy behind. The next day, the rapist continues to take pictures of her on the beach with her son. Catherine falls asleep, and her son gets swept away into the ocean and gets caught in a rip tide. Catherine wakes up, calls for help, and the rapist jumps in to save the boy, drowning in the process.
Twenty or so years later, the rapist’s father is cleaning out the family home after his deranged wife has died. His wife was obsessed with their son and his early demise, going so far as to try drowning herself to understand what he went through, before cancer took her away. As he is going through his wife’s belongings, he finds the pictures she developed that were left on his son’s camera when he died, the pictures of Catherine naked. He also finds a manuscript his wife wrote based on the pictures she found, in which she villainized Catherine as being a bad mother and slut who seduced and manipulated their son causing him to kill himself just to save her own. The father of the rapist decides to self-publish the book and send it to everyone Catherine is close to, causing her husband to kick her out, her son to OD, her employer to put her on suspension, etc.
And that’s basically the big secret. Her husband thinks she’s had an affair and can’t stomach being around her anymore, but she can’t just tell him she was sexually assaulted. The sexual assault thing was a bit hard for me to believe, too. It’s this luxury hotel, this guy has a little pocket knife, and she’s got her son in the adjoining room with the door open. Catherine even recalls that the rapist put the knife down on the table as he was taking pictures of her. I don’t know. It just doesn’t seem believable that someone would be like, “Sure, let me strip for you and let you violate me because you have a pocket knife sitting on a table in my room. Even though I could just go into my son’s adjoining room and lock the door and call the police, I’m so afraid that you could run across my room and pick up that pocket knife and poke me, I’ll just do whatever you want.” And then to not report it and not tell anyone, even when the police were interviewing her after the guy drowned. It was just unbelievable.
