Someone Knows
Author: Lisa Scottoline
Published: April 9, 2019
Audiobook
Reviewed By: Jessica
Dates Read: April 30- May 7, 2019
Jessica’s Rating: 2 stars
Book Description:
Twenty years ago, in an upscale suburb of Philadelphia, four teenagers spent a summer as closest friends: drinking, sharing secrets, testing boundaries. When a new boy looked to join them, they decided to pull a prank on him, convincing him to play Russian roulette as an initiation into their group. They secretly planned to leave the gun unloaded—but what happened next would change each of them forever.
Now three of the four reunite for the first time since that horrible summer. The guilt—and the lingering question about who loaded the gun—drove them apart. But after one of the group apparently commits suicide with a gun, their old secrets come roaring back. One of them is going to figure out if the new suicide is what it seems, and if it connects to the events of that long-ago summer. Someone knows exactly what happened—but who? And how far will they go to keep their secrets buried?
Jessica’s Review:
I adore Lisa Scottoline and she is one of my ‘go to’ authors. I will want to read her upcoming book without even knowing what it is about. That being said, Someone Knows had an intriguing description that failed miserably for me. It was like she went solely for the ‘shock factor’ with this one, with a lot being unnecessary. For me all of the characters except for Allie are 100% unlikeable. They all are dysfunctional in some way, some worse than others. With their issues combined you also see their immaturity.
Scottoline doesn’t usually write teen characters, and this novel shows she may need to stay away from teens and stick with adults. The backstory to all the characters was not needed for me as I was not invested in these characters. I wanted to get to the night in question and back to present day.
The last quarter of the book involved the climax, but I just wanted to get to the end. When I got to the final twist it was so unbelievable I just rolled my eyes. Everything was ‘to the extreme’ on this one, especially with one particular character, and I am still not sure why this character did what they did. The story also comes around full circle and tied in a bow for the ending, but that bow was not pretty.
I hate to say this, but stay away from Someone Knows and read Scottoline’s other novels.