I picked this book up because I watched one of Lauren and the Books‘ videos (I’d link the actual video but it was months ago when I watched it and I don’t remember which one) in which her partner, David, reads this whole book in a weekend, and he doesn’t normally read that much. Lauren had apparently read it earlier and loved it, and based on her recommendation he picked it up and also was completely hooked. I was intrigued, and looking for a book that would have me flipping pages frantically late into the night.
Now, before I get started, I need to give you an idea of how this book is structured. It’s epistolary (I think) – it’s entirely told through emails, texts, notes and letters to and from various different characters, except one. The book moves back and forth between the source material and current reviewers of the material who seem to be assessing it and looking for connections, clues and inconsistencies. I’m still not 100% sure who these people were or why they were doing this.
First off, I have to acknowledge that I made a couple of mistakes with this book. The first was starting it as an audiobook. I love audiobooks, but this book does not translate well to that format, for two reasons. First, it’s constantly flipping back and forth between different characters’ correspondence, often quickly, and it’s hard to keep track of who is talking to whom – especially at the beginning when you’ve not yet built an understanding of the characters and their relationships. Second, each piece of correspondence necessarily includes all the identifying information – date and time it was sent, email addresses or physical addresses, phone numbers etc. It’s the sort of info you need to orient yourself in who is talking and when, but that you can quickly scan on the page. Hearing it read out over and over (particularly when it’s a series of short text messages) is so, so incredibly irritating. It made it feel like it was dragging and made my mind drift off so I then missed actual important bits. My fault, I should have thought about that before I started.
I then ordered the physical book, but I had to order it from the UK, so it took a while to arrive. I didn’t want to start it over again after having slogged through a couple of hours of tedious intro information for each message, so I found my place and started from there. This was, as it turned out, not a great plan. I had forgotten some of the characters completely, I’d lost some of the details that would, as it turned out, be important later, and whatever tenuous emotional connection I had begun to form had completely dissipated. It was really hard to get into, and by the time I did, the whole journey had me feeling a bit resentful and frustrated. So all of that definitely affected my experience of reading the rest of the book.
Now, as for the actual book itself. The story has a few different mysteries playing out simultaneously. Hallett slowly feeds the reader little tidbits of information that build an incremental picture of the events leading up to the climax of the book, and felt a bit like reading a locked room mystery where you know one of these people did something but you’re not entirely sure what, and have to piece together information to figure out whodunnit. (Also what happened, and why.)
One thing I did appreciate, once I got past the format issues I had on audio, was that the way this book is structured is unique in my reading experience. I didn’t necessarily enjoy it, but I did appreciate it, and I can see why (for readers who do well with complex epistolary narratives and have time to really immerse themselves in it) it would be intriguing and gripping. I didn’t guess all of the twists before I got to them, which is another thing I always look for when reading a mystery book, so that was good as well. I can definitely see why this book kept Lauren and David zooming through it, and I’m a bit annoyed that due to my mis-start, I didn’t get to properly delve into it to see whether I could have also had a similarly immersive experience. So word to the wise, if you’re going to read this, do it in one go. Preferably over a few days, or even in a day if you’re a fast reader and have time.
I did find it slow and clunky, which I fully realize was partly due to my own issues rather than the book, but I suspect that even if I had picked up the print edition and read straight through, there still would have been parts that felt repetitive and frustrating. I also didn’t like one of the main mystery storylines, that of the little girl’s illness, so that was a bit of a cringey aspect that carried through the whole book, and that I didn’t enjoy reading. The main character, Isabel, is also a bit difficult to spend so much time with. A lot of the story seems to be passed through her messaging, and it’s hard to pin her down. Is she dishonest? Simpering? Lonely? Unstable? Unreliable? Violent? It’s great in terms of creating intrigue, but at the same time reading her messages was really, really annoying. She’s one of those characters you just want to shake gently and tell her to stop worrying so much about everyone else and get on with her own life. It was a difficult reading relationship to handle.
I have a hard time summing up how I feel about this book. Because I do understand why it’s gotten a lot of praise – it does do something different, mostly does it fairly well, and kept me guessing. But I also didn’t really enjoy my reading experience of it, and when I got to the end I was mostly just relieved it was over. I’ve already forgotten who did what in the end, so was it even really worth it? I don’t know. If you’re someone who loves unique and interesting formats and enjoys mysteries you can try to solve as you read – and if you’ve a high tolerance for uncomfortable narrators – this might be a complete home run for you. So if you’re interested, by all means give it a try. Just please, learn from my mistake and get it in print!
The Fairway Players, a local theatre group, is in the midst of rehearsals when tragedy strikes the family of director Martin Hayward and his wife Helen, the play’s star. Their young granddaughter has been diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, and with an experimental treatment costing a tremendous sum, their castmates rally to raise the money to give her a chance at survival. But not everybody is convinced of the experimental treatment’s efficacy—or of the good intentions of those involved. As tension grows within the community, things come to a shocking head at the explosive dress rehearsal. The next day, a dead body is found, and soon, an arrest is made. In the run-up to the trial, two young lawyers sift through the material—emails, messages, letters—with a growing suspicion that the killer may be hiding in plain sight. The evidence is all there, between the lines, waiting to be uncovered. – Goodreads
Book Title: The Appeal
Author: Janice Hallett
Series: No
Edition: Audiobook/Paperback
Published By: Viper
Released: July 1, 2021 (first published January 14, 2021)
Genre: Fiction, Mystery, Whodunnit, Epistolary
Pages: 447
Date Read: August 1-31, 2022
Rating: 5.5/10
Average Goodreads Rating: 3.94/5 (29,906 ratings)