My honest review of All Good Things Come To An End by Deborah Jean White.
I was asked to read this quite some time ago but had way too much going on.
I’m one of those people who have to be able to focus while reading and I need to read everything to “get it”. And if I don’t “get it”, I’ll reread until I do. And if I reread several times and still don’t get it, I put the book down.
I’m a 5 on the Aphantasia Scale.
All of this may help you to know how to take my review.
This book started out giving me some serious “Evil Lives Here” vibes… but from the perspective of the killer. Not sure if anyone has seen that documentary series but it’s focused on family members or friends telling the back story of someone who is a killer.
I was intrigued from the get go.
I was eagerly turning pages to learn more about this child and his journey through life.
About midway through the book there’s a serious twist and that really kept the pages turning. At this point I was fully invested. My husband even said he was jealous and wished he could find a book that had him so hooked.
I couldn’t put it down. I needed to know how things would play out.
If you get hung up on type-os, be warned there are some. But that stuff does not bother me at all. My brain will just read it the way it should be. If child abuse or animal abuse is something you can’t read about, be warned there’s some in here. Not too much at all. But it’s there. That stuff doesn’t bother me. I have no triggers.
This story had a lot of main character building and I honestly love that. I love knowing back story and origin so I was all about it.
I also loved how the main character has a favorite book and nursery rhymes from the book were weaved throughout the story.
I felt a lot of different emotions throughout this story. Anger, sorrow, astonishment, disgust…
I love when characters can pull on my emotions. That’s what keeps you invested. You start feeling the story. The characters become personable.
However, about 2/3 through the story, confusion crept in and I struggled keeping up with what was going on. I had to reread several times. I felt like there were some holes in the story and it just felt very rushed. I felt like we went from “here” to “there” very quickly. I had to back track and see if I missed something. I didn’t. Also, it started flip flopping quite a bit with reminiscing in the middle of a present moment. Got a little bit of whiplash going back and forth. A couple of times, I didn’t know what was happening. I had to reread to grasp that it was a memory. However, that may have just been me. I was eager to get past that part of the story and see what was going to happen with something else. But nothing else actually came of it. There was a shocking moment but it was left hanging. Nothing climactic with it. Just shock then drop. Nothing came of it. That was disappointing. The way it ended seemed undone to me. Nothing really wrapped up. Almost like a song that trails off into the silence.
There honestly could be a sequel. If there’s a sequel, I’d read it for sure. Because there’s a lot I still need to know lol
No matter what, I don’t regret reading it.
I do wish it had a different ending though.