Its time for the first book review, and yall, this is a good one. I picked up this book as apart of "Reading Between The Wines" Facebook group by blogger Caitlin Covington! I've followed her for years and was super excited for her very own book club!
The book for February was the thriller Lock Every Door by Riley Sager. I have never been one to gravitate towards thrillers. I don't even like scary movies! ha! After reading through the first few pages, I was hooked! I couldn't stop reading! It has been a long time since I've found a good book like that! I finished the book in TWO DAYS, and its 368 pages long! So let's get to my real opinion of this book! No spoilers, I promise! Got your coffee ready??
My opinion of the thriller genre: With this being my first thriller, I had no clue what to expect. Reading the first part of the book, I was half expecting it to lean into the supernatural (boy was I wrong there...!) For the thriller aspect of this book, it was more of a mystery to see what the heck was going on in this apartment building and why these people were so messed up.
The book is set in New York City in a fictional historic apartment building. The main character Jules applies for a job as an apartment sitter in the building. The building has strict rules for the apartment sitters in the building that raise crazy red flags if you are anyone with a brain!
No visitors. No nights spent away from the apartment. No disturbing the other residents, all of whom are rich or famous or both.
As she meets residents and other sitters, she starts to uncover very strange and disturbing secrets about the history of the building and the residents. I found myself reading through pages so fast because I was so invested in figuring out these secrets: people lying, people disappearing, and a potential killer.
The main thing reason I think this book is such a page-turner is that it's written in the future and in the past. This allows you to think that you know the ending the entire time, but then there is a MAJOR twist that leaves you shooketh. I found myself rooting for Jules to figure this crazy story out.
Riley Sager is a pretty interesting author. The name is actually a pseudonym, meaning that he writes under a fake name. Yes, he. The author of this book is a man writing under a name that is genderless. The purpose is to remove any gender biases about an author or the quality of the writing. Before I read the book, I thought it was written by a woman. Considering the cover is neon pink and purple, I had my reasons. After reading, finding out that "Riley" is a man didn't change how I felt about the story, but it did make me reflect on it. This is an interesting concept to think about when you consider the descriptions and voice of the story when the main character of the story is female. This is just some food for thought for those of you who read the book! Tell me what you think about this!
Overall, I think that this book is excellently written and super easy to follow along with. I 100% recommend reading this book if you like mystery and suspense. I would love to hear what you think about it! It is also rumored this it is becoming a TV series. If this is true, its gonna be a good one!
-Jada