August 6, 2024
Edelweiss download 5/11/24
Atria
Suspense, fiction, thriller, mystery
336 pages
3/5
12/21/25-12/26/25
Too many thoughts to express. It is a book filled with many trigger warnings and not for those sensitive to issues of drugs, alcohol, abuse, etc. I found the pace of the story slow and confusing as it begins with first person narrative from Amy. She is not a reliable historian which adds to the confusing narrative in which she is reliant on a "best friend" Lizzy at college who encourages her to drink and do drugs. This is after she picks her up from a psychiatric hospital for a suicide attempt!
I found it difficult to keep some characters straight when it transitions from Amy's story to Ila's personal experience. There were many of the same people, but their story and situation differed from Amy's recollection. The whole fixation on "Rule of Three" starts to get a little old after a while. Ila begins to research and unravel the similarities of her family tragedies with that of Amy's who was convinced her death was predetermined. Before Ila entered the story I was starting to lose interest. It picks up further when another girl enters years later named Eve. Again, the rumored urban legend of the Rule of Three gets stirred up. Eve identifies with the stories and is determined to uncover the mystery she calls "Three" convinced that it is a serial killer.
Eve spends her days and nights walking in the footsteps of the women who were compelled by "Three" in the past. What she learns only adds more questions than answers. Is she on the right path in thinking that "Three" is a person? If so, why is she endangering herself by approaching so many different men thinking they could be the answer to this whole ordeal? When Eve takes a deep dive into the origins and truth of the rumors the story begins to make sense until it doesn't. What didn't work for me was the layout of the story with the focus on Amy's unreliable view. Sometimes, an alternating timeline or character point of view assists with laying a foundation so that the reader doesn't lose focus on all the characters. By the end of the book, I was questioning my recollection of the characters so much that the ending, although a surprise, it was mostly because rarely mentioned characters were forgotten as their role was not developed into the plot.
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