Rachel Howzell Hall

We still have a week of January left and this is the second book that I've abandoned. I feel like I should be giving an, 'It's not you, it's me' speech. Except it's not all me this time. Take a look at that cover. See where it says 'A Thriller'. That right there is the problem. I'm halfway through and I'm not feeling the thrill. Not even a little.

I can see that I should be and that, maybe, the last half of the book will suddenly become tense as the person or persons who are stalking our show more heroine finally take action beyond sending scary notes and threatening texts. I'll never know.

The thing I regret about setting this book aside is that I like Rachel Howzell Hall's writing. When I was a quarter of the way through 'These Toxic Things', I was having fun, mainly because of how well Mickie Lambert, the heroine of the story, was described. Her whole experience of life was so different from my own and I don't know anyone like her yet I found her very credible.

The thing that surprised me most is her relationship with her family. She's a grown woman, a college graduate a few years into a job with a start-up in an interesting field yet her baseline expectation is that, whatever happens, her family will take care of her. She breaks up with her lover, who is also her boss and she moves back home to mum and dad. She gets threatening messages and thinks she's being followed, she asks her father and her uncle (OK, they're cops) to fix it. Her relationship with her family is enviable but also feels juvenile. The degree to which she expects to be protected astonishes me. She seems to have led an incredibly sheltered life. She expects to be loved and she expects things to work out OK in the end.

Mickie has a strong tendency to romanticise her life, to turn everything into a story and usually a story in which everything is sweet and nice and people are good even if bad things do happen. She's been clever enough to turn this way of looking at the world into a job for herself. She 'curates' memories related to objects and places and people and stores them in a digital Memory Box. I know this idea would sell but I hated it as soon as I heard it. It's a turn-your-life-into-a-Hallmark-movie-with-you-as-the star approach that turns me off.

At the start of the book, I thought this was all good. I assumed that, when the toxic things promised by the title turned up, Mickie's worldview would be shattered, she'd discover that she's vulnerable to the nasty things in life and it would either break her or make her stronger. There are some good hints that her family know more than they're saying and it seems likely that Mickie is being pursued by two dangerous people, at least one of whom is a serial killer.

How can I walk away from all that? Well, because nothing is happening. I'm waiting for Little Red Ridinghood to meet the wolf but the wolf hasn't shown. And Mickie's groundless optimism and endless romanticisation alternating with complete panic when under any kind of pressure are beginning to irritate me. I'm starting to wonder if I'd end up cheering the wolf.

I'm six hours and a half hours into the audiobook. There are six more hours to go. I could almost read another whole book in that time. So, it's bye-bye Mickie. I hope your family can protect you from the monsters when they finally arrive - unless, of course, they are the monsters. show less

We Lie Here by Rachel Howzell Hall is a recommended domestic thriller.

Yara Gibson, a writer on a television crime drama, reluctantly leaves L.A. and returns to her childhood home in Palmdale, California, to oversee her parents’ 20th wedding anniversary party. Her 19 year-old sister can't help in any constructive way. Her dominating, bossy, and demanding mother wants a party, so Yara feels pressured into making sure she gets what she wants. Adding to the stress is the fact that Yara is show more asthmatic. The desert dust storms already present a problem, but her mother's demand that Yara stay at the family's home among the pervasive cigarette smoke surely mean nothing but wheezing and struggling for the next breathe.

Then, soon after her arrival, a stranger sends her a text saying, "I have information that will change your life." The message is from a woman called Felicia Campbell, who claims to be a childhood friend of Yara’s mother. She is insistent that the two have to talk. She leaves a key to remote lakeside cabin for Yara, but soon after this Felicia's body is found. What is the big secret and who would kill Felicia to prevent her from telling it to Yara.

Yara is the narrator of the novel and she is a completely realized and sympathetic character. She is really the only appealing character in the novel. She is likable, which kept me reading, but at the same time, there are a couple of fundamental questions that immediately came to mind. The first is the reliability of Yara as a narrator. She has admitted she's forgetful and has anxiety issues. The second is her maturity or inner strength. She is seemingly incapable of saying no to her mother. She didn't just tell her mother: No, I am staying at the hotel. I am trying to quit smoking and will not stay at the smoke filled house. Additionally, her mother demanded that Yara throw her big party for a 20th anniversary, not a really common thing to do.

The greatest drawback to We Lie Here, however, is the very slow pace through most of the novel. It requires a commitment to stay with it until the more intriguing questions arise. Once mysteries begin and secrets begin to be revealed, the plot quickly becomes more interesting, twisty, and intriguing. The ending was worth the long slog through most of the novel.
Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Thomas & Mercer via NetGalley show less

These Toxic Things is a book that I wanted to like a lot more than I did. I've read other books by Rachel Howzell Hall and really enjoyed them, but this book is definitely not being added to that list. Granted, I did like the premise: being a digital archaeologist, tracking down the original owners and histories behind cherished items. If there'd been more of that, my enjoyment of the book would have been greater. But alas, there wasn't. After a fantastic first chapter that really raised my show more hopes, These Toxic Things turned into a bloated, slow-moving thriller with few real surprises-- the exact opposite of what a thriller should be.

Another real hindrance to my enjoyment of this book was the main character herself. Michaela "Mickie" Lambert, one of these twentysomethings who would have to have her cell phone surgically removed from her hand. Spoiled rotten, overprotected Mickie Lambert who thinks nothing of wearing and ruining her mother's designer clothes and snooping in her things to the point of searching high and low for a key to unlock a box in her mother's bedside table. Mickie Lambert, who freaks out at every noise and shadow yet can't be bothered to turn on the alarm system in her apartment. Can you tell I just loved this girl to bits? There's a secondary mystery in These Toxic Things concerning the reasons why Mickie has been so overprotected her whole life, but her childish response to learning one of the secrets surrounding this just made me shake my head and roll my eyes.

These Toxic Things starts out with a killer first chapter and a very intriguing premise, but it's grievously hampered by a glacial pace, easily deduced surprises, and an extremely annoying main character. Sorry, Mickie. I'm not hiring you as my digital archaeologist. show less

I received a copy of this novel from the publisher via NetGalley.

I read and enjoyed a couple of this author's Elouise Norton books, but this one was a big disappointment. The only character who was at all likeable and normal was Yara's boyfriend Shane, and he was barely in it. Other than that the novel consisted of people quarrelling spitefully with one another, sending each other mysterious and/or threatening and spiteful text messages, Yara losing things and discovering things and show more repeatedly going places which would exacerbate her asthma. I am not a big fan of novels where the female protagonist's memory cannot be trusted because of past trauma or because she is on medication, but mainly this didn't work for me because it was all a lot of a fuss over not very much, and the characters were just so exhausting and unpleasant. show less