Goodreads Choice Awards Book Club discussion

Voted by members as our Mystery & Thriller additional read



The Ghostwriter by Julie Clark

In June 1975 the Taylor family shatters in a single night when two teenage siblings are found dead in their home. The only surviving sibling, Vincent, never shakes the whispers and accusations that he was the one who killed them. Decades later, the legend only grows as his career as a horror writer skyrockets.

Ghostwriter Olivia Dumont has spent her entire professional life hiding the fact that she is the only child of Vincent Taylor. Now on the brink of financial ruin, she's offered a job to ghostwrite her father's last book. What she doesn't know, though, is that this project is another one of his lies—because it's not another horror novel he wants her to write.

I'm planning to read this one a little later in the month. Has anyone already read it? What are your thoughts about it? Anyone planning to read it this month?

Kristie wrote: "I'm planning to read this one a little later in the month. Has anyone already read it? What are your thoughts about it? Anyone planning to read it this month?"

I finished it last month and I liked it. There are multiple points of view, and the reader ends up knowing more than some of the characters which was a little confusing for me, but it all made sense in the end. It starts slow, but the build was worth it for me! :-)

Thanks, Lea.

Lea wrote: "I finished it last month and I liked it. There are multiple points of view, and the reader ends up knowing more than some of the characters which was a little confusing for me, but it all made sense in the end. It starts slow, but the build was worth it for me!"

Now I am not sure this is right for me. I am more a "police procedural" mystery gal because multiple POVs that are confusing are less likely in that type of mystery, and I hate confusing (as do we all, I suspect).

Also, I find that sometimes, when a book is confusing for any reason, it maybe seems to hide from the reader things that would be obvious otherwise. This often strikes me as lazy writing/plotting, and I always feel cheated at the end of books like these. So I am moving this down my list for now. I will try to get to it by the end of the month.

Lea, what did you think about the POV's in this book? Did you think they were there just because the author wanted to hide something or show off or for some not-so-good reason? Or did they make the book better? Could the book have been just as good without multiple POVs??

And now I sound like I'm running a reading group. Sorry, I will shut up now.

Kateblue wrote: "Lea wrote: "...And now I sound like I'm running a reading group. Sorry, I will shut up now."

lol, Kateblue! That's exactly what this thread is for! I'd be interested to know too.

I feel like a lot of books have multiple points of view now, as well as dual (or more) timelines. Seems to be popular in modern fiction.

Kateblue wrote: "Now I am not sure this is right for me. I am more a "police procedural" mystery gal because multiple POVs that are confusing are less likely in that type of mystery, and I hate confusing (as do we all, I suspect).

Also, I find that sometimes, when a book is confusing for any reason, it maybe seems to hide from the reader things that would be obvious otherwise. This often strikes me as lazy writing/plotting, and I always feel cheated at the end of books like these. So I am moving this down my list for now. I will try to get to it by the end of the month.

Lea, what did you think about the POV's in this book? Did you think they were there just because the author wanted to hide something or show off or for some not-so-good reason? Or did they make the book better? Could the book have been just as good without multiple POVs??

And now I sound like I'm running a reading group. Sorry, I will shut up now."

Kateblue, I basically found that there were two main types of readers in our group:

1) those who like to be told exactly what happened and what people thought and did by a reliable narrator, preferably one that is omniscient.
2) those who like the author to show, not tell, the story, which requires active engagement in deducing what actually happened.

If you are in group 1, this may not be the right book for you.

And sometimes it is hard to say which group you might be in. Most of the time, I'm group 2, but I do not enjoy authors who play games with us, so sometimes I'm solidly in group 1.

I personally thought the book would not have been as good without the multiple POVs, because it was part of the mystery to determine what parts of each POV was fact, versus inference. In fact, I found it to be clever plotting this time around, but your mileage might vary. We, the reader, know things that the others don't, because we have benefit of every POV. Similar to life, each POV knows certain things but not everything. Each POV also sees things that lead them to believe certain things happened, when another interpretation would show that event differently.

At the end, I was crystal clear about what happened and how it happened and felt as though it was a fun journey of discovery.

Some others (mainly group 1 readers) were not very clear about what happened, and it sounded like they struggled with distinguishing what was fact and what was conjecture in the various POV. Mild spoiler about the character POVs (view spoiler)[I mean, at the end, I knew exactly what happened, but I'm not certain any characters knew as much as I did, and some characters persisted in believing the wrong person did it! (hide spoiler)]

The one thing that annoyed me about the plotting and made me think lazy plotting was (view spoiler)[ there is a character that we don't get access to until the very end, and if we had access to this person earlier, a lot of the mystery would have disappeared. I find that contrivance to be annoying and that was a main reason this couldn't be a 5-star read for me. (hide spoiler)]

Lea, one thing that sometimes bothers me is when a narrator makes assumptions about something and no matter what else happens they stick to that assumption, even if it is obviously not true or another character presents a different option. They are absolutely certain that their incorrect assumption is correct. Is that the case with any of the narrators in this one?

I suppose I would be ok with one character doing that as long as it isn't the prevailing attitude. I'm also fine with people making incorrect conclusions or assumptions as long as they are able to change those beliefs when new information is provided.

The narrators in Ghostwriter do make incorrect assumptions, but they do not cling to them irrationally. Mild spoilers for where the misunderstandings originate (view spoiler)[ trauma, missing information, dementia (hide spoiler)] The story is built around a revision of beliefs as new evidence emerges.

Perfect, Lea. Thanks. I can handle that. Everyone misunderstands or makes wrong assumptions sometimes. It's irrational clinging, which is usually repetitive, that makes me crazy.

I picked this one up from the library yesterday. I'm hoping I have a chance to get to it soon.

Kristie wrote: "Perfect, Lea. Thanks. I can handle that. Everyone misunderstands or makes wrong assumptions sometimes. It's irrational clinging, which is usually repetitive, that makes me crazy.

I picked this one up from the library yesterday. I'm hoping I have a chance to get to it soon."

Sounds great, Kristie. I hope you like it, but still curious what you think about the book. Different perspectives keep things interesting. :-)

Lea wrote: "Kateblue, I basically found that there were two main types of readers in our group:

Thanks for the discussion, all of you.

1) those who like to be told exactly what happened and what people thought and did by a reliable narrator, preferably one that is omniscient.
2) those who like the author to show, not tell, the story, which requires active engagement in deducing what actually happened.

If you are in group 1, this may not be the right book for you.

And sometimes it is hard to say which group you might be in. Most of the time, I'm group 2, but I do not enjoy authors who play games with us, so sometimes I'm solidly in group 1."

I much prefer showing to telling, and I agree I don't like authors who play games. Tell me . . . did you like Gone Girl? Because I thought that author definitely played games with her readers. I never understood why people liked that book so much. More discussion about this if anyone cares :-)

I will still try to get to this by the end of the month, but no promises!

Kateblue wrote: "I much prefer showing to telling, and I agree I don't like authors who play games. Tell me . . . did you like Gone Girl? Because I thought that author definitely played games with her readers. I never understood why people liked that book so much. More discussion about this if anyone cares :-)

I will still try to get to this by the end of the month, but no promises!"

It's been a long time since I read Gone Girl, and I think it depends on what you didn't like about that book, but I don't think Ghostwriter has anything similar to Amy's diary. If you are able to get to this book, it will be interesting to see your take on it.

Lea wrote: "It's been a long time since I read Gone Girl,."

What I didn't like was that the guy was totally misleading for the first 2/3 of the book. I was actually upset about it because I thought the writing was so good and then THAT. Untrustworthy narrators are the worst.

Kateblue wrote: "What I didn't like was that the guy was totally misleading for the first 2/3 of the book. I was actually upset about it because I thought the writing was so good and then THAT. Untrustworthy narrators are the worst."

It sounds like you should skip this one. :-)

Lea wrote: "Kateblue wrote: "What I didn't like was that the guy was totally misleading for the first 2/3 of the book. I was actually upset about it because I thought the writing was so good and then THAT. Unt..."


OK! thanks for the advice. It's sad, really. I know people like these books, but I hates me an untrustworthy narrator

Kateblue wrote: "OK! thanks for the advice. It's sad, really. I know people like these books, but I hates me an untrustworthy narrator"

It's great that you know what you like, Kateblue. Not every book is for every person, but no doubt you have plenty of other books on your TBR that will hit better than this one.

One thing that I do is figure out whodunit before they tell me. That's part of fun of mysteries for me, to see if I can figure out what's happening before the end. And the currently popular untrustworthy narrators really screw that experience up.

Kateblue wrote: "One thing that I do is figure out whodunit before they tell me. That's part of fun of mysteries for me, to see if I can figure out what's happening before the end. And the currently popular untrust..."

I agree with this. I can't stand unreliable narrators when they lie directly to you. It's fine if they don't understand, misinterpret, can't remember, or something like that, but when they straight up lie it makes me crazy. When the narrator expresses a certain emotion to the reader or states that they did a certain thing, then you find out later that it wasn't true, that is writing tactic that I really dislike. It's not a misunderstanding on the part of the narrator, but a manipulation of the reader.

I also did not like Gone Girl.

Kristie wrote: "It's fine if they don't understand, misinterpret, can't remember, or something like that, but when they straight up lie it makes me crazy. When the narrator expresses a certain emotion to the reader or states that they did a certain thing, then you find out later that it wasn't true, that is writing tactic that I really dislike. It's not a misunderstanding on the part of the narrator, but a manipulation of the reader.

I think this is a writing tactic that shows that the author does not have an adequate plot or a decent rationale for the entire book. It's lazy writing.

Kristie wrote: "I also did not like Gone Girl."

You and I are soul-bookmates. I am going to see what books you liked and put them on my list right now!!

Kateblue wrote: "I think this is a writing tactic that shows that the author does not have an adequate plot or a decent rationale for the entire book. It's lazy writing."

I hate feeling like I was lied to.


Kateblue wrote: "You and I are soul-bookmates. I am going to see what books you liked and put them on my list right now!!"

I hope you find something good!

I haven't had a chance to start this one, so it looks like it's going to have to wait. I still hope to read it at some point.

I just got this from the library and am going to read it this weekend.
I also did not like Gone Girl, though it has been years since I read it.

I hope you like it, Vicki. I'll be interested to see what you think.

I really liked this one.
I agree with what Lea said.
Because there were a lot of characters who were related and multiple POVs and timelines, it took a bit to get acclimated.
I also needed to remember who knew what/when because the story was building slowly with different pieces from different characters.
I thought it was so clever because the author had instability/unreliability based on (view spoiler)[the times (being the 70's), family dynamics, being elderly, having a disease, trauma, and a scavenger hunt. (hide spoiler)]

Typically, I don't like a slow burn where I don't know what is going on, but this was was clever and unique and like Lea said was very clear by the end.