Shannon’s Reviews > The Guilt Trip > Status Update

WAIT AND THEN WE JUST FADED TO BLACK THE ENTIRE END OF THE STORY???????? WE SKIPPED THE CLIMAX ENTIRELY? AND JUST WOKE UP IN A HOSPITAL?!?!?!?!?!?!?

and what awful, fatphobic commentary to top it all off with!

Just crawling to the finish line. Rachel is so insufferable, I can't take it. Her elaborate without-cause fantasies she's concocted about Ali this entire book are finally starting to crumble, but like.....I am so sorry but a reader would have to be an **idiot** to have not seen this coming for hundreds of pages. With each revelation I find myself just... "Well, yeah."

Here I am again, hoping things change at some point, but really so far all I can say about the themes of this book so far are Internalized Misogyny x Confirmation Bias. And still.....NOTHING HAS HAPPENED.

I'm sorry, but this main character is insufferable. She's guilty, and projecting her mess all over everyone else. I don't know how much more I can take of her wringing her hands over unfounded suspicions and casting unfair judgements over everyone else for another how many hundred pages.

It's just all......jealous, snarky, judgmental, insecure women back and forth and back and forth.

My takes so far: It's moving slowly for something marketed as a mystery/thriller. I'm nearly 30% through and we haven't established a true conflict yet. It's reading more soap opera-y than anything else, just really domestic-y and gossip-y, where no one ever just says what they're feeling.