REVIEW: The Woman in the Library by Sulari Gentill

Title: The Woman in the Library

Author: Sulari Gentill

Publisher: Poised Pen Press

Published Date: June 7, 2022

Genre: Mystery/Thriller

Rating: ★⍣☆☆☆

REVIEW

I received a copy of this ebook from the publisher and NetGalley in return for an honest review. Let me tell you, this book was nothing like I was led to believe. Based off the synopsis it seemed like one thing but turned out to be completely different. It seems to be divisive in the ratings from what I've seen as well. 

SYNOPSIS

The ornate reading room at the Boston Public Library is quiet, until the tranquility is shattered by a woman's terrified scream. Security guards take charge immediately, instructing everyone inside to stay put until the threat is identified and contained. While they wait for the all-clear, four strangers, who'd happened to sit at the same table, pass the time in conversation and friendships are struck. Each has his or her own reasons for being in the reading room that morning—it just happens that one is a murderer.

MY THOUGHTS

Based on that synopsis, you'd think this book was about a murder in a library. In a sense, it is, but that whole plot you quickly find out is not real. Instead, it is the plot to a book being written by an author, who is the "main character" of the actual story. Because of that, I started to not care about anything that was happening in the book because it was of no consequence. 

This plot alternated with a subplot where the authors critique partner was giving her advice on how her writing can come off as "more American". I could definitely tell that the author herself was not from the United States because quite a few of the things thrown in, such as, and I'm paraphrasing American's don't use the word beanie we just use hat, a white person cannot live in that neighborhood, American has trash coffee and we have to have bacon with everything, and various other things. I get that the author was making some social commentary, but it was not subtle at all. When I read the part about how other countries pay their workers fair wages and don't have to rely on tips, I literally rolled my eyes. Is it true that we don't pay our wait staff enough? Yes. Are we idiot American's who don't realize this? No. She literally made the doorman sound like the dumbest character I've ever read about. 

She calls a lot of thing reductive which is exactly how I feel about a lot of issues touched on in this book. By the end I was neither surprised nor particularly invested in what was going on. For a book about a murder in the library, there was very little suspenseful or particularly mysterious about it. Both plots held very little tension. The first because it was completely fictitious, and the second because the critique partner was so obvious. And being a world apart (she was writing from Australia and he was critiquing in the States) I never felt any real danger. The ending wrapped up way too quickly as well. Both plots were over in a matter of ten pages. Overall, the book left me feeling like "that was it?"