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One of Those Faces
From debut author Elle Grawl comes a psychological thriller about an insomniac artist who discovers a shocking truth about a recent spate of murders in her city: the victims all look just like her.
Years after escaping her abusive childhood, Harper Mallen has only ever known sleepless nights—or terrifying nightmares. She’s struggling to maintain an artist’s life in a hip Chicago neighborhood, getting by on freelance gigs at a local painting studio, when she suffers another terrible shock.
A young woman is killed outside Harper’s apartment—a woman who chillingly resembles her. As Harper searches for information about the victim, she discovers unsettling links to two other murders. And then there’s a third doppelganger, still alive. Harper’s life is not the only one hanging in the balance.
As her obsession and paranoia deepen, everyone is a suspect: the handsome stranger in the café, the owner of the painting studio, even the ghosts from her past. The closer she comes to unraveling the truth behind the murders, the more Harper realizes there is no one she can trust—not even herself.
Years after escaping her abusive childhood, Harper Mallen has only ever known sleepless nights—or terrifying nightmares. She’s struggling to maintain an artist’s life in a hip Chicago neighborhood, getting by on freelance gigs at a local painting studio, when she suffers another terrible shock.
A young woman is killed outside Harper’s apartment—a woman who chillingly resembles her. As Harper searches for information about the victim, she discovers unsettling links to two other murders. And then there’s a third doppelganger, still alive. Harper’s life is not the only one hanging in the balance.
As her obsession and paranoia deepen, everyone is a suspect: the handsome stranger in the café, the owner of the painting studio, even the ghosts from her past. The closer she comes to unraveling the truth behind the murders, the more Harper realizes there is no one she can trust—not even herself.
365 pages, Kindle Edition
First published December 1, 2022
2127 people are currently reading
6616 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 467 reviews
July 31, 2022
Jeez, Louise......
One of Those Faces sets the stage in the first few chapters as a banger of a read. We don't know much about the protagonist, Harper Mallen, but she's suffering from some horrendously graphic nightmares. These god-awful nightmares must reflect her current life or has something to do with a deeply hidden past.
Harper is a twenty-five year old freelance artist in Chicago's Wicker Park who has been absolutely circling the drain. She's barely holding on as her legs are dangling in the pipes. She doesn't have a hint of a grip on things.....not her listless career or her random relationships.
Harper also has a job at the Tipsy Paintbrush where individuals imbibe on wine and dip brushes into paint jars to create a uniform picture. It's run by her sometimes friend, Erica. Erica has had a drinking/drug problem in the past and her father set her up in business to set her straight. Neither seems to be working out too well.
Enter Iann who took one of the classes and has now fallen hard for Harper. And then there's Danny, her childhood friend, who happens to show up. He's a reporter for the Tribune. Bug, her landlord, waits in the doorway each evening for the current month's rent. Our gal doesn't cash out for rent, but she has gobs of money for lattes and train tickets and drinks at high-end bars.
Heads-up: A body of a young woman is found just across the street from Harper's apartment in the wee hours of the morning. Said woman's picture appears on the news and she's the spitting image of Harper. And then more bodies turn up, and you guessed it, resembling Harper.
I think that the character of Harper Mallen is the most toxic individual I've come across in a long time. Everything and everybody she touches turns to crap. We only get snippets of her early beginnings when she ran away from a dysfunctional home at sixteen. And every decision that she does make is hepped up on alcohol/drugs. She's a talented artist, and because of her self-destructive nature, she trashes every opportunity.
One of Those Faces is an exhausting read. The adrenaline is pumping from the first pages. I was hooked. But then, it ran in circles as Harper bar hopped and pill-popped into oblivion. There were enormous gaps in the storyline and long conversations that just revved up the same topics with no adequate conclusion. And the ending was like a reckless CTA bus hitting ice patches. We never got to the "why" of Harper and the murders. And isn't that what we signed up for?
I received a copy of this book through NetGalley for an honest review. My thanks to Thomas & Mercer and to Elle Grawl for the opportunity.
One of Those Faces sets the stage in the first few chapters as a banger of a read. We don't know much about the protagonist, Harper Mallen, but she's suffering from some horrendously graphic nightmares. These god-awful nightmares must reflect her current life or has something to do with a deeply hidden past.
Harper is a twenty-five year old freelance artist in Chicago's Wicker Park who has been absolutely circling the drain. She's barely holding on as her legs are dangling in the pipes. She doesn't have a hint of a grip on things.....not her listless career or her random relationships.
Harper also has a job at the Tipsy Paintbrush where individuals imbibe on wine and dip brushes into paint jars to create a uniform picture. It's run by her sometimes friend, Erica. Erica has had a drinking/drug problem in the past and her father set her up in business to set her straight. Neither seems to be working out too well.
Enter Iann who took one of the classes and has now fallen hard for Harper. And then there's Danny, her childhood friend, who happens to show up. He's a reporter for the Tribune. Bug, her landlord, waits in the doorway each evening for the current month's rent. Our gal doesn't cash out for rent, but she has gobs of money for lattes and train tickets and drinks at high-end bars.
Heads-up: A body of a young woman is found just across the street from Harper's apartment in the wee hours of the morning. Said woman's picture appears on the news and she's the spitting image of Harper. And then more bodies turn up, and you guessed it, resembling Harper.
I think that the character of Harper Mallen is the most toxic individual I've come across in a long time. Everything and everybody she touches turns to crap. We only get snippets of her early beginnings when she ran away from a dysfunctional home at sixteen. And every decision that she does make is hepped up on alcohol/drugs. She's a talented artist, and because of her self-destructive nature, she trashes every opportunity.
One of Those Faces is an exhausting read. The adrenaline is pumping from the first pages. I was hooked. But then, it ran in circles as Harper bar hopped and pill-popped into oblivion. There were enormous gaps in the storyline and long conversations that just revved up the same topics with no adequate conclusion. And the ending was like a reckless CTA bus hitting ice patches. We never got to the "why" of Harper and the murders. And isn't that what we signed up for?
I received a copy of this book through NetGalley for an honest review. My thanks to Thomas & Mercer and to Elle Grawl for the opportunity.
November 6, 2022
What did I just read???!! Although I did find it interesting - not one piece of the puzzles was solved and there were a lot of puzzles laid out here!
I have no idea what the ending is supposed to tell us?
If anyone can tell me what she meant by the last sentence in the book - please enlighten me.
I have no idea what the ending is supposed to tell us?
If anyone can tell me what she meant by the last sentence in the book - please enlighten me.
June 15, 2025
2⭐
Genre ~ psychological fiction
Setting ~ Chicago, Illinois
Publication date ~ December 1, 2022
Publisher ~ Thomas & Mercer
Est Page Count ~ 365 (56 chapters broken up by season)
Audio length ~ 9 hours 58 minutes
Narrator ~ Lauren Ezzo
POV ~ single 1st
Featuring ~ debut, nightmares, dead sister, drugs
Harper already has nightmares from her past and it's not helping one bit that women are turning up dead that look exactly like her. Creepy. Is she going crazy, or could she really be the target?
Oof, this was pretty tough to get through. Loved the premise, but I did not care for Harper at all. She was all over the place and always ‘fine’ when asked a bazillion times "are you okay?", when clearly she was anything but. I didn’t mind her eagerness to get to the bottom of things, but she didn’t make many smart choices. Like her toxic friend as just to name one. I was sad for her with how her family treated her though.
Overall, I'm left with unanswered questions and a lackluster ending, but it wasn’t absolutely awful for a debut.
PS ~ hope Woodstock, the cat, is okay.
Happy to ✔️ an old one off the list.
Narration notes:
I did not listen to this one but am just giving the above info for reference.
Connect with me ➡ Blog ~ Facebook ~ X
Genre ~ psychological fiction
Setting ~ Chicago, Illinois
Publication date ~ December 1, 2022
Publisher ~ Thomas & Mercer
Est Page Count ~ 365 (56 chapters broken up by season)
Audio length ~ 9 hours 58 minutes
Narrator ~ Lauren Ezzo
POV ~ single 1st
Featuring ~ debut, nightmares, dead sister, drugs
Harper already has nightmares from her past and it's not helping one bit that women are turning up dead that look exactly like her. Creepy. Is she going crazy, or could she really be the target?
Oof, this was pretty tough to get through. Loved the premise, but I did not care for Harper at all. She was all over the place and always ‘fine’ when asked a bazillion times "are you okay?", when clearly she was anything but. I didn’t mind her eagerness to get to the bottom of things, but she didn’t make many smart choices. Like her toxic friend as just to name one. I was sad for her with how her family treated her though.
Overall, I'm left with unanswered questions and a lackluster ending, but it wasn’t absolutely awful for a debut.
PS ~ hope Woodstock, the cat, is okay.
Happy to ✔️ an old one off the list.
Narration notes:
I did not listen to this one but am just giving the above info for reference.
Connect with me ➡ Blog ~ Facebook ~ X
December 6, 2022
I hate leaving negative reviews. Usually, if I don't like a book I either don't even rate the book or only give a star rating but no review, but I decided to leave a review this time.
This story started out well and I was captivated by it, anticipating a 4 or 5 star read. However, about half to two thirds of the way through I started to change my mind.
The main character, Harper, made so many stupid choices from telling lies and being evasive to drinking too much, pill-popping and careening from Iann to Danny to Detective Wilder.
I also made up my own reason as to why there would be, apparently, six young women who all looked so much alike that people often mistook them for each other. This was not addressed in the book, however, and wasn't at all believable, especially when 5 of them all lived within a small radius of each other! How does that happen? I've heard of two unrelated people looking like twins and its pretty amazing, but 6 of them?
(My explanation, by the way, had to do with IVF, sextuplets and fertilized eggs sold to various families.)
Anyway, back to my review of the book...
The end was awful. There was so much left unanswered and/or only hinted at with no clarification or certainty. What mystery/suspense novel doesn't solve the crimes, explain how things were done, etc.? My gosh, that's half the fun of getting to the end!
Which deaths were accidents? Of the others, who killed whom? How did a certain character end up with items owned by the victims? Was that person the killer of all 3 women or not? What was with the sleepwalking? How did another character end up with photos of one of the victims? Was he or was he not the killer of that person? Did a certain character ever recover from the car accident? And what about two other characters who should be behind bars but at the end of the book were still free? And what about Woodstock, the cat? Alive? Dead?
We will never know any of this for sure.
Very engaging, but ultimately a waste of time.
This story started out well and I was captivated by it, anticipating a 4 or 5 star read. However, about half to two thirds of the way through I started to change my mind.
The main character, Harper, made so many stupid choices from telling lies and being evasive to drinking too much, pill-popping and careening from Iann to Danny to Detective Wilder.
I also made up my own reason as to why there would be, apparently, six young women who all looked so much alike that people often mistook them for each other. This was not addressed in the book, however, and wasn't at all believable, especially when 5 of them all lived within a small radius of each other! How does that happen? I've heard of two unrelated people looking like twins and its pretty amazing, but 6 of them?
(My explanation, by the way, had to do with IVF, sextuplets and fertilized eggs sold to various families.)
Anyway, back to my review of the book...
The end was awful. There was so much left unanswered and/or only hinted at with no clarification or certainty. What mystery/suspense novel doesn't solve the crimes, explain how things were done, etc.? My gosh, that's half the fun of getting to the end!
Which deaths were accidents? Of the others, who killed whom? How did a certain character end up with items owned by the victims? Was that person the killer of all 3 women or not? What was with the sleepwalking? How did another character end up with photos of one of the victims? Was he or was he not the killer of that person? Did a certain character ever recover from the car accident? And what about two other characters who should be behind bars but at the end of the book were still free? And what about Woodstock, the cat? Alive? Dead?
We will never know any of this for sure.
Very engaging, but ultimately a waste of time.
May 20, 2022
This was a quick read and was well written in a lot of ways, but it was also frustrating. This is one of those books that leaves you with more questions than answers. There are so many things that didn't make sense and were never resolved. It's an interesting premise but frequently very confusing, mostly intentionally. The implausibility was also off the charts on multiple counts. It's an interesting debut but it might be better as a movie than it was as a book. And I really wish so many things were not just left unanswered.
I read a digital ARC of this book via Net Galley.
I read a digital ARC of this book via Net Galley.
November 27, 2022
I just turned the final page, and I am SO pissed that I could scream. I followed the sometimes ridiculous peaks and valleys of this story, swallowing each “coincidence”, though bitter as rancid coffee on my tongue. I struggled through hoping that the conclusion would tie together the loose threads unfinished at the seams of each chapter. Instead, it’s as if Grawl herself, in the midst of penning the final chapters, either came to an untimely end, decided she had had enough, or thought she was being somehow clever (she wasn’t). The story just…..stops. There are no answers. Every mystery huddled in the pages, and there were many, was simply left to fester—a boil that ultimately infected the entire experience.
Where the hell is Woodstock? Did Danny make it? How much was Wilder responsible for? Who killed Harper’s father? Who sprung Erin from rehab? Did someone intentionally lace Erin’s final hit? What about the mud Harper found on her feet, on several occasions, when waking up in bed? Did Harper kill Jenny? Did the tapes in Bug’s apartment answer any of the questions about Harper’s missing time? Why did Bug have a pic of Holly’s corpse? This is just a shallow skimming of the questions left behind.
That an author would take the time to weave what seemed to promise an intricate plot, only to walk away before it was finished, is such a betrayal of trust. The reader trusts that they will be in some way rewarded with a conclusion—not watch the author become so tangled in the mess at her feet that she disengages and walks away.
Horrible experience, and a colossal waste of precious time. I will never again crack the spine of anything this author pens, recommends or even says she enjoyed.
Where the hell is Woodstock? Did Danny make it? How much was Wilder responsible for? Who killed Harper’s father? Who sprung Erin from rehab? Did someone intentionally lace Erin’s final hit? What about the mud Harper found on her feet, on several occasions, when waking up in bed? Did Harper kill Jenny? Did the tapes in Bug’s apartment answer any of the questions about Harper’s missing time? Why did Bug have a pic of Holly’s corpse? This is just a shallow skimming of the questions left behind.
That an author would take the time to weave what seemed to promise an intricate plot, only to walk away before it was finished, is such a betrayal of trust. The reader trusts that they will be in some way rewarded with a conclusion—not watch the author become so tangled in the mess at her feet that she disengages and walks away.
Horrible experience, and a colossal waste of precious time. I will never again crack the spine of anything this author pens, recommends or even says she enjoyed.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 29, 2022
This was a case of "loved the journey". The destination when I got there...not so much!! I still have no idea what I read or what I was really supposed to take away from that ending, and I absolutely do not like that. It makes me feel dumb. That beings said, the execution of this book was quite masterful. I was creeped out, tense, unsettled and downright scared at times. The things that this girl experienced would have had me rocking back and forth in a corner, but Harper didn't succumb to that. Granted, she's a mess with a lot of issues. She makes a lot of questionable choices and her "Woe is me. I'm so broken. No one could/should love me" spiel is tiresome, repetitive and grating. Every character surrounding her is suspect and seemingly shady. There's a lot here amongst these pages. A lot happens - probably too much - and a lot remains unexplained. But boy howdy, was I a bundle of nerves getting to the ending. That makes this a recommended read for me!
November 26, 2022
I flew through this book. It had some really creepy/thriller pieces and left me with a few head scratching moments too. I liked the story and the plot. It was confusing, but I could still follow it. That ending just didn't do it for me. We get pumped up and ready for this big reveal....and then it just falls flat. It almost felt like it was rushed.
Thank you Netgalley and Thomas & Mercer for the opportunity to read and review this ARC.
Thank you Netgalley and Thomas & Mercer for the opportunity to read and review this ARC.
November 5, 2022
You will not like the ending!!!
What a disappointment to read this and have it end that way.
Very sorry I wasted my time reading this
What a disappointment to read this and have it end that way.
Very sorry I wasted my time reading this
November 7, 2022
???
There were so many messed up characters that, in the end, I don’t know who was responsible for what. I honestly don’t know how all the people were related and who killed whom! And pages and pages of self-loathing is hard to read. I did not like any of the characters.
There were so many messed up characters that, in the end, I don’t know who was responsible for what. I honestly don’t know how all the people were related and who killed whom! And pages and pages of self-loathing is hard to read. I did not like any of the characters.
March 14, 2023
This is a fast-paced thrill ride! The book definitely had me going “WTF” quite a few times. The heroine is the definition of an unreliable narrator, and I loved her for it. The book is easy to read and lightning-fast paced. There are quite a few twists to the plot, and I really loved the concept of the book - how a woman’s lookalikes are being killed in her city. Is it all just a coincidence, or is she the real target? Does this have anything to do with the fact that her twin sister died years ago? There are so many fascinating characters to be suspicious of, from her love interest who keeps showing up everywhere, her old friend who knows the secrets of her past, to the mysterious cop who seems a little too invested in this case…
August 24, 2022
An interesting premise (really reminded me of Orphan Black, one of my favourite TV series), but unfortunately fell very flat for me. There were gaping plot holes, and very hard to believe scenarios.
I understand that the MC's past trauma was fed to us piece by piece to keep the tension and mystery up, but I felt that this seriously affected my compassion for her. All the things happened to her but I didn't really care very much as I didn't feel as if I really knew her at all.
The quasi love "square" was quite bizarre as well - towards the 75% mark I found myself struggling to keep up with who she was on the phone with, who she was hooking up with, whose apartment she was at! It was all a bit bizarre.
I feel like the ending was quite rushed, too, and actually left me with more questions than answers.
All in all, an interesting premise, but didn't quite hit the mark for me.
I understand that the MC's past trauma was fed to us piece by piece to keep the tension and mystery up, but I felt that this seriously affected my compassion for her. All the things happened to her but I didn't really care very much as I didn't feel as if I really knew her at all.
The quasi love "square" was quite bizarre as well - towards the 75% mark I found myself struggling to keep up with who she was on the phone with, who she was hooking up with, whose apartment she was at! It was all a bit bizarre.
I feel like the ending was quite rushed, too, and actually left me with more questions than answers.
All in all, an interesting premise, but didn't quite hit the mark for me.
November 29, 2022
Thrilling
The main character in this book seemed self centered in playing the victim and poor me. Needless to say, she wasn't my favorite.
That being said, Elle Grawl has written a fantastic book. I had an extremely hard time putting this down. At the moment you think you have the killer pegged something happens that compels you to believe it's someone else, and later you circle back.
The ending is a cliff hanger and I don't like to ruin a books ending for anyone so I'm going to stop there.
Will their be a follow up book, I truly hope so.
The main character in this book seemed self centered in playing the victim and poor me. Needless to say, she wasn't my favorite.
That being said, Elle Grawl has written a fantastic book. I had an extremely hard time putting this down. At the moment you think you have the killer pegged something happens that compels you to believe it's someone else, and later you circle back.
The ending is a cliff hanger and I don't like to ruin a books ending for anyone so I'm going to stop there.
Will their be a follow up book, I truly hope so.
December 5, 2022
My Selling Pitch:
Do you like thrillers that read like every other thriller you’ve ever read? Do you like purposely vague endings?
Pre-reading:
Amazon first reads is such a neat perk.
Thick of it:
Woodstock is a cute name for a cat, but also I'm always wary of cat people books.
I weirdly get mistaken for a lot of people when I'm out too.
Oh god, not a marble jawline book.
This is a bucket thriller.
My dog and I look nothing alike.
They could definitely get something from it even if you washed it. (So glad this plot point is completely abandoned.)
Stealing from your friend isn't cool.
How do you fuck up coffee like that?
This grown-ass adult doesn’t know how to eat food without getting hair in her mouth?
Why would a paint shop have a turtle name? I’m supposed to believe this man is a grad student with deductive reasoning like that?
How would the police not comment on her looking like the girl? (Literally never addressed.)
So Ian drugs the friend, and then she’s murdered. (Kinda? This book is vague for no reason.)
It’s giving the tv series you.
Ian’s not a student. He’s a patient, or he’s treating her sister or dad. (Waiting the whole book for some bonkers twist like this with all the red herrings and for the book to pick a lane.)
3 months and you don’t know his birthday?
Take a shot every time this book mentions coffee.
That’s a shitty thing to say. These girls are both users. Toxic friends.
Why is fentanyl so trendy rn?
Dear men, you know what a 16-year-old looks like. Also, ask your girlfriend how fucking old she is? What’s wrong with you?
The policeman feels like not a real policeman. How much you wanna bet he’s the same policeman from her #tragicbackstory?
Not a dead cat. Sad. (I’m glad we never address nor get clarity on this.)
How could it not cross your mind when your friend is telling you about murders of girls who all look identical to her and that’s where she lives? What the fuck are you on? And you’re literally a journalist?
Who would take this girl OFF anxiety meds?
How anyone can hear the name Debussy and not snicker is beyond me. I’m 12.
This end is really unraveling.
So what about this crazy girl leaving her clothing just lying around in dead people’s apartments? Go on and on about how everything is high-end and Harper’s so quirky and miserable she doesn’t own clothes, and no one is gonna question why there’s crumpled Walmart in a closet of Chanel?
Post-reading:
I hate a sloppy thriller. This book drops so many of its plot points. It can’t pick a lane. It can’t decide if it wants to be uncanny doppelgängers, or a stalker thriller, or a voyeur thriller, or a boyfriend isn’t who he says he is thriller. And it doesn’t do any of them well. It’s beyond the suspension of disbelief that all these murders could go on and no one would sweep for evidence or conduct interviews and that they would allow one officer to run the entire investigation and to disclose private information to a suspect. The ending isn’t satisfying. It doesn’t fully answer every problem introduced by the book and it’s too vague for a mass-market audience book. The characters are incredibly hard to keep track of because they don’t have distinct personalities or voices within the story. The main character is unbelievably annoying and immature and dysfunctional, but don’t worry every boy in this book wants to fuck her. Most offensively, the book reads incredibly slow. How you manage to get that kind of pace out of a book that has “twists” every few pages is wild, but inevitable when those twisty events take up all of a paragraph or two. Nothing has weight. Nothing has stakes. The book is so busy telling you what happened it doesn’t set anything up for the reader to figure out themselves which is the juiciest, most enjoyable part of thrillers. Let me play detective dammit!
Who should read this:
Bucket thriller fans
Do I want to reread this:
No
Similar books:
* The Perfect Marriage by Jeneva Rose-bucket thriller
* All Good People Here by Ashley Flowers-true crime fanfiction that red herrings and tells you what happened rather than lets you figure it out
* Killing Me by Michelle Gagnon-quirky voiced thriller
* The Ingenue by Rachel Kapelke-Dale-revenge fantasy thriller
* Verity by Colleen Hoover-writer investigates her love interest for murder
* Dark Places by Gillian Flynn-investigating a framed for murder case
Do you like thrillers that read like every other thriller you’ve ever read? Do you like purposely vague endings?
Pre-reading:
Amazon first reads is such a neat perk.
Thick of it:
Woodstock is a cute name for a cat, but also I'm always wary of cat people books.
I weirdly get mistaken for a lot of people when I'm out too.
Oh god, not a marble jawline book.
This is a bucket thriller.
My dog and I look nothing alike.
They could definitely get something from it even if you washed it. (So glad this plot point is completely abandoned.)
Stealing from your friend isn't cool.
How do you fuck up coffee like that?
This grown-ass adult doesn’t know how to eat food without getting hair in her mouth?
Why would a paint shop have a turtle name? I’m supposed to believe this man is a grad student with deductive reasoning like that?
How would the police not comment on her looking like the girl? (Literally never addressed.)
So Ian drugs the friend, and then she’s murdered. (Kinda? This book is vague for no reason.)
It’s giving the tv series you.
Ian’s not a student. He’s a patient, or he’s treating her sister or dad. (Waiting the whole book for some bonkers twist like this with all the red herrings and for the book to pick a lane.)
3 months and you don’t know his birthday?
Take a shot every time this book mentions coffee.
That’s a shitty thing to say. These girls are both users. Toxic friends.
Why is fentanyl so trendy rn?
Dear men, you know what a 16-year-old looks like. Also, ask your girlfriend how fucking old she is? What’s wrong with you?
The policeman feels like not a real policeman. How much you wanna bet he’s the same policeman from her #tragicbackstory?
Not a dead cat. Sad. (I’m glad we never address nor get clarity on this.)
How could it not cross your mind when your friend is telling you about murders of girls who all look identical to her and that’s where she lives? What the fuck are you on? And you’re literally a journalist?
Who would take this girl OFF anxiety meds?
How anyone can hear the name Debussy and not snicker is beyond me. I’m 12.
This end is really unraveling.
So what about this crazy girl leaving her clothing just lying around in dead people’s apartments? Go on and on about how everything is high-end and Harper’s so quirky and miserable she doesn’t own clothes, and no one is gonna question why there’s crumpled Walmart in a closet of Chanel?
Post-reading:
I hate a sloppy thriller. This book drops so many of its plot points. It can’t pick a lane. It can’t decide if it wants to be uncanny doppelgängers, or a stalker thriller, or a voyeur thriller, or a boyfriend isn’t who he says he is thriller. And it doesn’t do any of them well. It’s beyond the suspension of disbelief that all these murders could go on and no one would sweep for evidence or conduct interviews and that they would allow one officer to run the entire investigation and to disclose private information to a suspect. The ending isn’t satisfying. It doesn’t fully answer every problem introduced by the book and it’s too vague for a mass-market audience book. The characters are incredibly hard to keep track of because they don’t have distinct personalities or voices within the story. The main character is unbelievably annoying and immature and dysfunctional, but don’t worry every boy in this book wants to fuck her. Most offensively, the book reads incredibly slow. How you manage to get that kind of pace out of a book that has “twists” every few pages is wild, but inevitable when those twisty events take up all of a paragraph or two. Nothing has weight. Nothing has stakes. The book is so busy telling you what happened it doesn’t set anything up for the reader to figure out themselves which is the juiciest, most enjoyable part of thrillers. Let me play detective dammit!
Who should read this:
Bucket thriller fans
Do I want to reread this:
No
Similar books:
* The Perfect Marriage by Jeneva Rose-bucket thriller
* All Good People Here by Ashley Flowers-true crime fanfiction that red herrings and tells you what happened rather than lets you figure it out
* Killing Me by Michelle Gagnon-quirky voiced thriller
* The Ingenue by Rachel Kapelke-Dale-revenge fantasy thriller
* Verity by Colleen Hoover-writer investigates her love interest for murder
* Dark Places by Gillian Flynn-investigating a framed for murder case
July 19, 2022
Another one of those thrillers. About a girl with one of those faces. The young Ms. Mallen is twenty five and a text book definition of a hot mess, though apparently the focus here is on hot because the men in her life find her irresistible. Can’t get enough. Go crazy for her. About her. On her. Etc.
And she juggles them as expertly as a sleep-deprived, overcaffeinated, unreliable narrator can.
Someone is killing young women in her Chicago neighborhood, young women who look uncannily like her. Very triggering, especially for someone with such a difficult past.
What’s a girl to do? Well, try to get to the bottom of it way juggling all that male interest, of course.
What’s the attraction, one might ask? Well, presumably she’s a classic damsel-in-distress, perpetual distress, mind you.
Millennial through and through from her iffy career as a kinda sorta artist to her flat out disturbing living situation to her junkie tendencies and her prime network sitcom worthy relationships and friendships, this protagonist much like her story are very hip, very trendy, very much what’s IN now. None of which necessarily makes it good.
Perfectly readable, sure. Original and distinguishable from a million similar other books floating out there – not so much. Reads quickly enough, but nothing special, really. Thanks Netgalley.
This and more at https://advancetheplot.weebly.com/
And she juggles them as expertly as a sleep-deprived, overcaffeinated, unreliable narrator can.
Someone is killing young women in her Chicago neighborhood, young women who look uncannily like her. Very triggering, especially for someone with such a difficult past.
What’s a girl to do? Well, try to get to the bottom of it way juggling all that male interest, of course.
What’s the attraction, one might ask? Well, presumably she’s a classic damsel-in-distress, perpetual distress, mind you.
Millennial through and through from her iffy career as a kinda sorta artist to her flat out disturbing living situation to her junkie tendencies and her prime network sitcom worthy relationships and friendships, this protagonist much like her story are very hip, very trendy, very much what’s IN now. None of which necessarily makes it good.
Perfectly readable, sure. Original and distinguishable from a million similar other books floating out there – not so much. Reads quickly enough, but nothing special, really. Thanks Netgalley.
This and more at https://advancetheplot.weebly.com/
June 17, 2022
Phew! This book was such a fast, mind-f*ck of an interesting read that focuses on how trauma can really mess with perception. The writing is incredibly tight; Grawl's pacing is relentless. The entire impact of this book left me the good kind of frustrated, really grounding the point of view in reality. And the realism here made it all the more creepy! I would've ripped through this book faster if some of the scenes hadn't been so friggin' scary (and I was less of a wimp.) Elle Grawl is a stellar writer, with a really unique, smart take on the psychological thriller genre.
July 17, 2022
Taut with suspense, ONE OF THOSE FACES is a slow burn thriller that will make you deadbolt your door during the day. Grawl's debut hypnotized me from start to finish.
November 8, 2022
Harper?... Or Harpy?
No spoilers. 1 star. I rarely give a novel a one star rating but this story earned it...
I'll start off saying that this was my Amazon First Reads selection for the month of November 2022...
Our protagonist Harper would most definitely be renamed Harpy if MAD MAGAZINE was still around satirizing books and movies...
I'm not going to go into the plot because it was really a lot of nonsense about a young woman...
... who abused alcohol and drugs and every man who entered her life... and they (the men) still chased after this loser...
There was scant mystery surrounding the murder of women who resembled Harper and a twin who drowned...
Also, in the cast of characters, was an unexplored, abusive father not expounded upon to justify his existence in the story...
This story, defined as a suspenseful mystery, was nothing but a weird sort of romance novel which I felt tricked into choosing by false advertising and I could hardly believe it was written by a lawyer!
Even as a freebie I would avoid this overly long and trite novel.
No spoilers. 1 star. I rarely give a novel a one star rating but this story earned it...
I'll start off saying that this was my Amazon First Reads selection for the month of November 2022...
Our protagonist Harper would most definitely be renamed Harpy if MAD MAGAZINE was still around satirizing books and movies...
I'm not going to go into the plot because it was really a lot of nonsense about a young woman...
... who abused alcohol and drugs and every man who entered her life... and they (the men) still chased after this loser...
There was scant mystery surrounding the murder of women who resembled Harper and a twin who drowned...
Also, in the cast of characters, was an unexplored, abusive father not expounded upon to justify his existence in the story...
This story, defined as a suspenseful mystery, was nothing but a weird sort of romance novel which I felt tricked into choosing by false advertising and I could hardly believe it was written by a lawyer!
Even as a freebie I would avoid this overly long and trite novel.
December 23, 2022
The only thing that was a bigger mess than this main character was the plotting of this book. So many loose threads everywhere. The first half of the conclusion was far-fetched and the second half led to me shouting "duh!" at the main character. Some mysteries were never even definitively solved. Most of the characters were horrible and unsympathetic.
This was a disaster and I'm sorry to say I really can't recommend it to anyone.
Thank you to NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for the opportunity to review this book ahead of publication. This does not affect my opinion regarding the book.
This was a disaster and I'm sorry to say I really can't recommend it to anyone.
Thank you to NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for the opportunity to review this book ahead of publication. This does not affect my opinion regarding the book.
September 15, 2022
An exceptional debut for Elle Grawl … A complex psychological thriller that will keep you intrigued as you incessantly turn the pages. Brilliantly constructed with an excellent storyline. The characters in the story are wonderfully developed and the final twist leaves you breathless. Well worthy of five stars … well done Elle Grawl and her team.
February 5, 2023
Harper sees her face in other women and not just those she passes on the streets, but especially in two women recently murdered in the area. Her face, her exact image, almost her, but not. She knows he's back for her, that this killer is looking to kill her, and her sleep issues take her from scared to terrified to a paranoid space where fiction and reality blend.
Harper is the unlikeable, insomnia suffering lead in One of Those Faces. An artist at her core doing all she can to ignore the sleepless nights and popping pills to allow sleep to happen as needed. She lets no one too close, at least no one outside of her one friend and the boy who happens to be right where she is when she's feeling weak. What feels like the turn to something good, to something normal, is upended by the death of multiple women with similar looks and too many occurrences of strangers calling her by other names. We know she has a damaging, abusive childhood that haunts her, but her insomnia is just a piece of her, at least at first. Soon it is all consuming and we are taken on an obsessive, terrifying journey with an unreliable journey at our helm.
One of Those Faces reads incredibly similar to other works about women suffering from extreme insomnia and delusions. In fact, until about the 50% mark I was convinced I had read this book, or one exactly like it, before. While it didn't impact the overall storytelling, Grawl writes very well, it just wasn't exciting or new for me. I struggled to believe Harper could have coped as long as she had with no issues. In fact, it appeared as though her life was entirely together up until the events in the book, however we're expected to believe she'd dealt with sleep issues for much longer. How then, had she maintained friendships and work prior to now? Of course, there is the thriller edge and the twists presented, but I needed more believability with the sleep issues.
ARC issues.
Harper is the unlikeable, insomnia suffering lead in One of Those Faces. An artist at her core doing all she can to ignore the sleepless nights and popping pills to allow sleep to happen as needed. She lets no one too close, at least no one outside of her one friend and the boy who happens to be right where she is when she's feeling weak. What feels like the turn to something good, to something normal, is upended by the death of multiple women with similar looks and too many occurrences of strangers calling her by other names. We know she has a damaging, abusive childhood that haunts her, but her insomnia is just a piece of her, at least at first. Soon it is all consuming and we are taken on an obsessive, terrifying journey with an unreliable journey at our helm.
One of Those Faces reads incredibly similar to other works about women suffering from extreme insomnia and delusions. In fact, until about the 50% mark I was convinced I had read this book, or one exactly like it, before. While it didn't impact the overall storytelling, Grawl writes very well, it just wasn't exciting or new for me. I struggled to believe Harper could have coped as long as she had with no issues. In fact, it appeared as though her life was entirely together up until the events in the book, however we're expected to believe she'd dealt with sleep issues for much longer. How then, had she maintained friendships and work prior to now? Of course, there is the thriller edge and the twists presented, but I needed more believability with the sleep issues.
ARC issues.
November 22, 2022
I did not care for this book but kept reading because I hoped there would be some brilliant thing happen to tie it all together on the next page and I hate to give up. That sadly did not happen. It just kept going on and on with no real explanations. I did not think it was well written. I would have to go back and reread multiple sentences to know what the character was trying to say. Lots of gaps that never got concluded or explained. Again, I did not care for this book at all.
November 27, 2022
https://www.instagram.com/p/Cldk4x7rhUQ/
The description of this book got me intrigued in seconds and I was looking forward to reading it and find out why that hook is so powerful.
It’s an interesting story overall, one with a great start that builds up a lot of tension and suspenseful moments. Some twists are very unpredictable and some moments felt just too flat for me.
What I really liked to know was who was the actual killer? Because I feel like we haven’t really found out in the end.
Yes, I have my theories and I’m thinking that I might know exactly who that one is, but I also need it confirmed because there are way too many unanswered questions in here.
Many will enjoy it as well as many others will just feel like me , that it’s an interesting story but it’s missing something for me to love it.
📖Very grateful to the publisher for my review copy through NetGalley
The description of this book got me intrigued in seconds and I was looking forward to reading it and find out why that hook is so powerful.
It’s an interesting story overall, one with a great start that builds up a lot of tension and suspenseful moments. Some twists are very unpredictable and some moments felt just too flat for me.
What I really liked to know was who was the actual killer? Because I feel like we haven’t really found out in the end.
Yes, I have my theories and I’m thinking that I might know exactly who that one is, but I also need it confirmed because there are way too many unanswered questions in here.
Many will enjoy it as well as many others will just feel like me , that it’s an interesting story but it’s missing something for me to love it.
📖Very grateful to the publisher for my review copy through NetGalley
September 29, 2022
Talk about dark, devastating, and damaged. Elle Grawl’s One of Those Faces paints a vivid picture of a troubled protagonist whose doppelgängers are getting murdered. Is it connected to her? That question kept me turning pages late into the night. The writing is beautiful, intense and fast-paced. The book has all the twists and turns you’d want in a thriller. Bravo!!
December 20, 2022
I would have thought all through the book that this would have been a solid 4 star read for me. But then the book ended, and I stared jaw dropped for a solid 5 minutes.
Yes this book may have many puzzle pieces that you may feel never fit together, that things were never wrapped up….but man oh man I LOVED it. How the book ended let’s my imagination go wild on everything that happened.
I don’t know if we will ever have the answers…but am I hoping for a sequel…yes!
Yes this book may have many puzzle pieces that you may feel never fit together, that things were never wrapped up….but man oh man I LOVED it. How the book ended let’s my imagination go wild on everything that happened.
I don’t know if we will ever have the answers…but am I hoping for a sequel…yes!
October 12, 2022
Harper is a struggling artist and an insomniac. She is dealing with nightmares that keep her from havin a restful night sleep. She has secrets that she is determined to keep hidden in her past. Murders are occurring around the city and they has one strange commonlity, the victims all resemble Harper. As she investigates the victims, she makes a shocking discovery that brings her past rushing back towards her. A captivating story and plot, with mesmerizing characters. There’s enough twists and turns that keeps the reader guessing.
Disclaimer: Thank you to NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for this ARC, I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
Disclaimer: Thank you to NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for this ARC, I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
October 1, 2022
I loved this book! It is gripping and had me mistrusting and suspecting every character at some point in the narrative. The writing style is very easy to read, and the characters are real and believable, with just enough depth to make you think you know them; essential in a psychological thriller. Every now and then the timeline had me slightly confused, but not to any detriment in the storyline, and in hindsight, as I think about this, it fits the narrative rather well. As with many good thrillers, there are still some unanswered questions at the end of the book, which I like. My thanks to the publishers, Thomas & Mercer, and Netgalley for the opportunity to read it.
November 11, 2022
I got to page 56 of this book before DNFing it. I NEVER DNF books until now. The main character, who is so forgettable save for the fact that she is ENTIRELY unlikeable, is such a mess of a human being. Not in an interesting way, in a cliche, I wouldn't want to know this person at all or even watch a series about her kind of way. She drinks COPIOUS amounts and decides it would be a good idea with a stranger to mix it with BARBITUATES after pressuring him to also come up to her apartment and drink. This girl is toxic in every sense of the word. She speaks of the few people who care about her like they're absolute trash. She seems childish and immature and just GROSS. Not to mention how little sleep they say she has straight off the bat, but continues being able to function like other people including going to work. (I mean like an INSANE lack of sleep ok?) I should've liked this book. I wanted to like this book, but it's cliche and boring and ...bad. I hate posting negative reviews, but save your money on this one.
June 27, 2022
Fantastic story had me guessing the whole way. Grawl’s writing is fearless, and goes for it in this book. Loved it!!
December 15, 2022
2022 reads, #57. Ladies and gentlemen, stop the presses -- I've read an Amazon Prime Reads book I actually liked. Friends know this has become an ongoing crusade with me, having now read 14 of the free books Amazon gives out to all its Prime members, one a month (most of them crime novels), and being disappointed 14 times in a row with them. I continue to read them each month mostly because I have a growing amount of freelance clients who are crime novelists as well, so this is homework of sorts for me so I can see what the latest trends and average experiences are with people out there when it comes to this genre and the Kindle Unlimited program (where a huge amount of my genre clients exclusively publish). Where this one goes right, the literary debut of former working attorney turned full-time author Elle Grawl, comes down to a few issues done very well, the first being that it's simply an interesting, complex, surprising story, one that's hard to guess where it's going to turn next. That's important, I've discovered after reading a growing amount of crime novels recently, after not having been much of a natural fan before becoming an editor of them; because so many freaking crime novels tell the same freaking story just over and over and over again, a big part of why I've been having such bad experiences with Prime Reads titles.
To remind you, these are all recent releases by Amazon's own in-house publishing imprints, which like their film department considers keywords and algorithms as much, much more important criteria first, and only then hastily fill in any semi-competent writer they can find to actually flesh out their "1 Unit Of Content" that's been SEOed to death; so it's nice here to see a particularly smart and interesting writer be given the slot and elevate the material above what it technically needs to be (ah, the siren song of cheap quick genre publishing -- "it's exactly as good as it technically needs to be"). It gives us a strange tale of a now single twin sister in early adulthood, shuffling around a very realistic- and lived-in-feeling poor outer edges of the now trendily middle-class Wicker Park neighborhood here in Chicago, as a series of local murders of women who look just like her combines with a chronic case of insomnia that's starting to make her feel crazier and crazier, leaving it a surprise as to whether someone's messing with her head or she's all dreaming it up herself in her drugged haze (or even worse yet, if she's the murderer herself and is in a blackout fugue each time). And if this isn't enough, the real solution remains a legitimate surprise all the way until the end, and I mean so close to the end that you'll be saying to yourself, "C'mon, Grawl, you better zip all this stuff up soon! I can see you don't have too many pages left!"
That makes the book thrilling and fun to read, something that keeps you on your toes the whole time, when in so many of these Prime Reads cases they're stories that just thud along with not much elegance or grace, just the lowest you can go in quality before saying that it's just exactly good enough to bother reading for free at Kindle Unlimited. Boy, I hate it when companies churn out endless stuff that's just barely above the minimum threshold for justifying its existence, just another 1 Unit Of Content to be spun, folded and manipulated by the company's algorithmic dark magick. As I've discovered through some sometimes brilliant clients, and just from reading more and more within the category myself recently, there's a special pleasure in a legitimately great crime novel that can't be duplicated anywhere else, even in literary fiction; so if some press is going to be churning out quick genre work cheaply for the airport and convention crowd, I'd much rather they choose someone smart, interesting and unexpected, and this is exactly the kind of goal I shoot for whenever I work with my genre-writing clients to get their own novels into as great a shape as possible. Here's a very good example of a crime novel done right, which you can read at KU with all the endless other millions of terrible ones, so do yourself a favor and try to stick to the great ones as much as you can.
To remind you, these are all recent releases by Amazon's own in-house publishing imprints, which like their film department considers keywords and algorithms as much, much more important criteria first, and only then hastily fill in any semi-competent writer they can find to actually flesh out their "1 Unit Of Content" that's been SEOed to death; so it's nice here to see a particularly smart and interesting writer be given the slot and elevate the material above what it technically needs to be (ah, the siren song of cheap quick genre publishing -- "it's exactly as good as it technically needs to be"). It gives us a strange tale of a now single twin sister in early adulthood, shuffling around a very realistic- and lived-in-feeling poor outer edges of the now trendily middle-class Wicker Park neighborhood here in Chicago, as a series of local murders of women who look just like her combines with a chronic case of insomnia that's starting to make her feel crazier and crazier, leaving it a surprise as to whether someone's messing with her head or she's all dreaming it up herself in her drugged haze (or even worse yet, if she's the murderer herself and is in a blackout fugue each time). And if this isn't enough, the real solution remains a legitimate surprise all the way until the end, and I mean so close to the end that you'll be saying to yourself, "C'mon, Grawl, you better zip all this stuff up soon! I can see you don't have too many pages left!"
That makes the book thrilling and fun to read, something that keeps you on your toes the whole time, when in so many of these Prime Reads cases they're stories that just thud along with not much elegance or grace, just the lowest you can go in quality before saying that it's just exactly good enough to bother reading for free at Kindle Unlimited. Boy, I hate it when companies churn out endless stuff that's just barely above the minimum threshold for justifying its existence, just another 1 Unit Of Content to be spun, folded and manipulated by the company's algorithmic dark magick. As I've discovered through some sometimes brilliant clients, and just from reading more and more within the category myself recently, there's a special pleasure in a legitimately great crime novel that can't be duplicated anywhere else, even in literary fiction; so if some press is going to be churning out quick genre work cheaply for the airport and convention crowd, I'd much rather they choose someone smart, interesting and unexpected, and this is exactly the kind of goal I shoot for whenever I work with my genre-writing clients to get their own novels into as great a shape as possible. Here's a very good example of a crime novel done right, which you can read at KU with all the endless other millions of terrible ones, so do yourself a favor and try to stick to the great ones as much as you can.
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