I've got slightly mixed feelings about Not Her Daughter by Rea Frey. The characters and plot were interesting enough to keep me turning pages and reading it almost straight through, but I always had a nagging thought in the back of my head that things couldn't happen that way, maybe because the events were just plausible enough for me to even bother thinking about that. Sarah, a young professional with no children of her own, sees Emma and her family rushing through an airport and has the kind of reaction to Emma's mother that we all do sometimes. That horrible woman doesn't deserve such a wonderful child. When Sarah encounters Emma again later, she decides to rescue the girl from the awful family who doesn't properly care for her or appreciate her.
Sarah thinks she is a perfect parent and that Emma is the perfect child, and the fact that the two of them never had any conflict at all made me wonder if maybe Sarah wasn't the most reliable narrator. Emma's mother, Amy, is stressed and unhappy and mean and once I found myself wondering if Sarah was as good as she saw herself as I also started to wonder if Amy was being presented in an accurate light... She is awful, but how awful?
Sara should have been caught almost immediately. There's no denying that her plan relied on a lot of unrealistic luck. I know that women like Sarah and Amy exist. Crimes slip through the cracks in real life. In order to enjoy this read, you'll have to suspend your disbelief.
Disclosure -- The publishers provided me with advance review copies.
No comments:
Post a Comment