He Said/She Said
Author: Erin Kelly
390 pages in Paperback
To Be Published: June 6, 2017
Dates Read: May 10-29, 2017
My Rating: 3.5 stars
Book Summary from Amazon:
In the summer of 1999, Kit and Laura travel to a festival in Cornwall to see a total eclipse of the sun. Kit is an eclipse chaser; Laura has never seen one before. Young and in love, they are certain this will be the first of many they’ll share.
But in the hushed moments after the shadow passes, Laura interrupts a man and a woman. She knows that she saw something terrible. The man denies it. It is her word against his.
The victim seems grateful. Months later, she turns up on their doorstep like a lonely stray. But as her gratitude takes a twisted turn, Laura begins to wonder—did she trust the wrong person?
15 years later, Kit and Laura married are living under new names and completely off the digital grid: no Facebook, only rudimentary cell phones, not in any directories. But as the truth catches up to them, they realize they can no longer keep the past in the past.
From Erin Kelly, queen of the killer twist, He Said/She Said is a gripping tale of the lies we tell to save ourselves, the truths we cannot admit, and how far we will go to make others believe our side of the story.
My Review:
The premise of He Said/She Said intrigued me, so I was excited when I received my ARC in the mail. I made sure to fit it in and have it read by the release date on June 6th. The two narrators are Kit and Laura and we get both of their perspectives of what happened. We also go back and forth in time starting in 1999 at an eclipse festival and fast forward to 2015. As the description says, Laura stumbles across a sexual assault and from there everything changes for Laura and Kit. The fallout from the events of that festival changes everyone’s lives who are involved.
The description of He Said/She Said really had me wondering what was going to happen in this novel. Why would Kit and Laura go to such extremes to stay hidden away from a sexual assault victim? This curiosity is what pulled me into the novel and kept me reading. I wanted to know how it was going to end!
He Said/She Said is a book that very slowly builds itself up to the fast paced ending. I will admit, I had difficulty with it until the halfway mark. I did debate stopping it, but some earlier reviews I read stated that it is worth it to keep reading, which ended up being true for me.
There are twists throughout the novel. I continually changed my mind on who to believe. This novel is truly a ‘he said/she said’ situation and I found myself having no clue who to believe. He Said/She Said is being marketed with #WhoDoYouBelieve and even after reading it I am still blown away by the ending. You continue to guess and have doubts up to that final shocking paragraph! Even with the slow beginning Erin Kelly had a purpose with her writing throughout the novel. I never saw the twists that she wrote coming and when you think you have it figured out, she goes and throws another twist at you.
I give He Said/She Said 3.5 stars as I did struggle for half of the novel. If you are struggling with it, keep going as it will be worth it in the end.
He Said/She Said is recommended.
**Thank you to Minotaur Books for my ARC copy and my solar eclipse glasses to use during the solar eclipse on 8/21!