The Telling by Alexandra Sirowy
The Telling by Alexandra Sirowy
My rating: 2.5 of 5 stars
After Lana’s stepbrother Ben is brutally murdered she finds herself withdrawing from everything as she mourns until one night her long time crush Josh finally approaches her. Josh is a member of the “core”, the group of cool kids that Lana had never been a part of but now they let Lana into their world as she finds herself starting to heal from Ben’s passing.
One day Lana and her new friends are out swimming and when Lana dives under and sees a body. Diving down and freeing the body Lana discovers it was Maggie, her stepbrother Ben’s ex-girlfriend who police had wanted for questioning about Ben’s murder. Had the killer returned for Maggie or was something else going on?
The Telling is one of those books that absolutely sounded amazing but surprisingly when I began to read I just couldn’t find myself connecting with this one. Lana just seemed to have such a dull personality that I wasn’t getting excited to find out what had happened with her telling the tale which kept making it very easy to set this one to the side.
After a while the story seemed to pick up a bit more and made reading a bit more engaging as more began to happen. But unfortunately I also had a theory very early on that I hoped wouldn’t be that easy to figure out but in the end ended up exactly what I’d been thinking so I couldn’t help but feel a let down that it wasn’t a bit more of a twisty ride.
Overall, 2.5 stars for this one. I just didn’t find the MC that exciting and thought the ending was fairly obvious from pretty early on.
I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Carries Book Reviews 
Oh god, I hope it’s not what I think it is… But it probably is then because it’s soooo obvious. *Sigh* I’m at 65% now and all that keeps me going is the hope for an unexpected plot twist :’)
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Well, I had two theories right away… I thought well this is what i think but if that’s not the case then it’s this… And when you’re done I’ll have to send you a PM and tell you what I mean by that. 🙂
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I have 3 theories now, but my main two are: 1. Lana herself 2. Josh…but yes, let’s discuss this via PM when I’m done before we’re going to spoil it for for everyone else around here XD.
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Yes, I don’t want to say too much in case others come along and read it. But I’ll definitely tell you when you’re done. There’s a ton of high ratings on this one so I’m in the minority on not loving it too.
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Exactly. Wow, must be a different target audience than us then…
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I was wondering that. Being a YA thriller it could be the younger audience really liking it. But then again I absolutely love a lot of YA so I think it can’t really be that completely. With ARC copies though there’s usually not many or even any reviews when I pick up the book so usually I just read it to form my own opinion before I read any reviews that may be up by that time. Last night after posting my review I read over some others and really thought wow, what a difference in opinion. LOL
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Yeah, I noticed those positive reviews aren’t even from the younger audience (I just had to check now that you mentioned it 😉 normally, I wait until I’m finished as well!)
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Haha I didn’t look close enough to see when I was reading them over. Just goes to show that everyone’s tastes are different. I don’t fault them for loving it but just try to write my reviews on what I’ve found with my own experience reading, don’t expect everyone to agree with me. 🙂
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Great review Carrie. I also guessed who it was long before the big reveal, although that red herring gave me pause for a few moments.
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Thanks Kim 🙂
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