review - the serpent's skin
2/5 Stars Pub Date: Mar 2, 2021 2021 Goodreads Goal: 46/150
Thank you to Pantera Press and Net Galley for this ARC.
Some of my favourite stories are quiet ones about desperate people in isolated locations. So reading the synopsis for The Serpent's Skin it sounded very up my alley.
It's 1968: Where did JJ's mom go? It's a cold wintery night and no one knows where she is. The freezer is stocked with a week of dinners, but there is no note, and she hasn't called, so where did she go and why?
JJ is a volatile and precocious child, blaming herself for her mother leaving. They fought the day her mother disappeared, so it must be her fault. But as the days pass things just aren't making sense. Why didn't she say where she was going? Why hasn't she called to check in? Why is JJ's father acting so strangely and why is his story constantly changing?
This book unfortunately, is impossibly slow and repetitive. The reader ends up being miles ahead of JJ as she's unraveling the story of what happened the week before her mother died.
I was hoping it would pick up speed when it switched to their adult lives, but it didn't.
JJ is a character that is impossible to root for, as she makes every situation she's in harder than it ever has to be. It was absolutely infuriating.
Not for me.