The Never List

For years, best friends Sarah and Jennifer kept what they called the “Never List”: a list of actions to be avoided, for safety’s sake, at all costs. But one night, against their best instincts, they accept a cab ride with grave, everlasting consequences. For the next three years, they are held captive with two other girls in a dungeon-like cellar by a connoisseur of sadism. Ten years later, at thirty-one, Sarah is still struggling to resume a normal life, living as a virtual recluse under a new name, unable to come to grips with the fact that Jennifer didn’t make it out of that cellar. Now, her abductor is up for parole and Sarah can no longer ignore the twisted letters he sends from jail. Finally, Sarah decides to confront her show more phobias and the other survivors—who hold their own deep grudges against her. When she goes on a cross-country chase that takes her into the world of BDSM, secret cults, and the arcane study of torture, she begins unraveling a mystery more horrifying than even she could have imagined.
Every woman or girl has a list of "NEVERS". It may. or may not be down on paper but it's in their heads. They follow that list religiously in order to keep themselves safe. "Never walk to your car alone late at night". "Never accept an open drink from anyone you don't know", and that goes double for unknown men. "Never get into cars with strangers". Never, never, never....

Everyone’s "never list" is going to be different. For me the cardinal rule is never get into a car with strangers, or allow them in your house, and that is the same rule that best friends Sarah and Jennifer violated one night. They had a long list of "nevers" that ranged from avoiding natural disasters, to avoiding rape and kidnapping. Their never list had served them well all the way up into college... until one night they decide to take a cab. That cab ride turned into "the ride from Hell"...literally.

For three long years, Sarah and Jennifer endured torture, disturbing sexual acts, beatings, and starvation. Sarah was eventually released along with some of the other girls, but Jennifer, alive or dead...was never found. Ten years go by, and Sarah has tried to move on with her life and forget the past. She has taken a new identity as “Caroline” but unfortunately, she is struggling to live her life. Her never list is now longer than ever, she rarely leaves her apartment and is struggling for closure....and Jennifer has still never been found, dead or alive. Then the unthinkable happens…. Sarah finds out her abductor is up for parole! Sarah and the other survivors see this as a way to gain closure and make sure that their abductor never sees the light of day again.

I really liked the complexity of the plot and the characters. It’s definitely a dark, dark, psychological thriller. I also liked getting to know the Sarah character. the author did a good job of allowing the reader to explore her character and yet allow a small bit of uncertainty about her to remain. You can’t help but feel like Sarah is holding something back, but not so much that you can’t trust her. It was equal parts of reliable and unreliable. Sarah’s paranoia and PTSD came across brilliantly and added depth as well as anxiety to the story.

There was enough description to give the reader an idea about what’s going on, but a lot is left up to the imagination. For example, the sexual and physical assaults in the novel were explained but not written in graphic detail leaving it up to us to imagine it happening, which made it all the more chilling. Overall, the story was realistic and believable.

The only things that I didn’t care for in the book was that some of the supporting characters seemed a bit flat and the ending seemed to wrap up too quickly. There was such a large build up to the end of the novel with a lot of twists and turns but when it finally all came together…. I found myself wondering if that was all there was. The actual climax and action sequence needed a tad more.

Overall, there are many aspects of the story that will not appeal to some readers, but if you are able to overlook some of the more "unconventional" material, you'll find this to be a mind-bending thriller. show less

Eek, this was a creepy, disturbing book, but in an edge of your seat, can’t turn the pages fast enough kind of way. These two young women, Sarah and Jennifer, end up torture slaves in the cellar of a sadistic sociopath for three years, even though they took safety precautions to the extreme. Still, it can happen. Scary. Ten years later, Sarah is still mourning the fact that Jennifer never made it out of the cellar, and she’s terrified that the sicko could be free on parole very soon. *shudders*

Sarah was a well-drawn, sympathetic character, and my heart went out to her. For the past decade, she’d basically shut herself off from the rest of the world, preferring the solitude of her apartment to having contact with other people. show more It’s the threat of having her abductor paroled that forces her out of her shell. He has been sending cryptic letters from prison to Sarah and the two other cellar survivors, Tracy and Caroline. Sarah is convinced these letters hold clues to his true motives behind the madness, and finally, she may be able to lay Jennifer to rest.

THE NEVER LIST is a chilling read that alternates between Sarah’s present day quest to discover the truth and flashbacks to her time in captivity. I’m thankful the author left out really gory details, but she did give readers enough that we could imagine the horrors going on. The plot was fast paced with many twists and surprise revelations along the way, and the ending was brilliant!

I have two complaints about the book. First, there was a scene toward the end that just didn’t add up. I can’t go into details without spoilers, so I’ll just say that either the police missed something major, or I missed something! Secondly, I wish that Jim the FBI agent’s character had been developed more. He seemed like a big part of the case and one of the few people Sarah trusted, so I wanted to know more about him.

Overall, this was an awesome thriller, one that will haunt my brain and keep me looking over my shoulder for a long time to come. show less

It takes a lot to get 5 stars from me. This book pulled me in from page one, and I finished it the same day.

A very current plot, great characters, and enough plot twists that just when you've figured out "who done it" something changes your mind! It was a little bit too graphic in a few spots, but not there just for shock value. This is a book I'll read again. There's so much I read quickly because I had to know how it ended that I want to ponder on.

I love a book you can't wait to finish and dread finishing it!

This review first appeared on my blog: http://www.knittingandsundries.com/2013/07/7222013-never-list-by-koethi-zan-book...

My Take:

"Human beings are so terrible. . . . They can bear anything." - From the film The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, director and screenwriter

(from the flyleaf of The Never List)

Book beginning:

There were four of us down there for the first thirty-two months and eleven days of our captivity. And then, very suddenly and without warning, there were three. Even though the fourth person hadn't made any noise at all in several months, the room got very quiet when she was gone. For a long time after that, we sat in silence, in the dark, wondering which of us would be next in the box.
Sarah show more "Caroline" and Jennifer have been best friends since elementary school. On the way home from middle school one day, a tragic accident brings them even closer than before. In the wake of the accident, they became extremely cautious and compiled a "Never List" - a sort of safety list of things both to do (in case of accident/natural disaster/kidnapping, etc.) as well as things never to do to avoid being in any of the aforementioned situations.

When they are both 18, they finally step away from the comfort of home to attend Ohio University (neighborhood, car services, dorm all researched beforehand to ensure safety). Upon returning from a party (not too late and definitely without too much to drink), riding in the back of a car from a car service they had presumed to be safe, they are kidnapped and held for three years in a dark basement along with two other girls, tortured victims of a sadistic man.

The novel begins ten years after their release, with Sarah living basically as a hermit in her NYC apartment. Food and necessities are delivered, and, since she works from home, there is basically no need for her to leave. So she doesn't. Until she is contacted by Agent McCordy, who asks her to go to the parole hearing and testify against the release of her former captor. Coupled with a recently received letter from her former abductor, this request causes Sarah to leave the safety of her "nest" in search of answers.

You see, one of the girls didn't make it out of that basement. Since a body was never found, their captor couldn't be convicted of murder. Sarah is determined to find the missing girl to ensure that their captor is never released from prison.

This novel begins with a lot of promise. The beginning chapters make you want to keep reading and reading until you find out what's going on. The back story of each girl is revealed in bits and pieces, and there are glimpses (not TOO detailed, but still rather stomach-churning) into their lives in the basement. As I read, I wondered why each of the surviving girls seemed to dislike each other so much - one would think that their shared experience, no matter how devastating, would make them feel close to each other, but that doesn't seem to be the case. They've each dealt with their ordeal in totally distinct fashions.

This IS a fast read, surprisingly so considering the subject matter. Once past the beginning chapters, however, a huge chunk of the action and, most assuredly, Sarah's investigation, becomes so implausible that it breaks belief. It also felt somewhat rushed, as though the author tried to insert too many outre' plot outtakes and questions into the narrative flow: a religious cult, S&M practitioners and their club, intrigue at a college campus, the mysteriously missing wife of their captor, the relative ease with which Sarah again enters the outside world.

There is a big twist near the end that caught me by surprise and sort of made up for the middle parts of the book :)

I do love dark fiction, but I feel that the comparison to "Gone Girl" and "Before I Go to Sleep" are a bit stretched. This title has the promise and the hook, but flagged for a while before it picked back up, while the two mentioned titles pretty much never let up and did not stretch my credulity.

I live blocks away (literally, two blocks over and two blocks down) from a house where three young women were held captive for over a decade. The timing of this book release was not intentional, but definitely made me even more interested. I think that this is a promising debut author and I look forward to seeing what she comes up with next as she fine-tunes her art.

QUOTES:

The summer before we went off to Ohio University, our anxieties reached a fever pitch. We would soon be leaving my attic room, which we shared, and go into the vast unknown: a college campus. In preparation, we made the Never List and hung it on the back of our bedroom door. Jennifer, who was plagued by insomnia, would often get up in the middle of the night to add to it: never go to the campus library alone at night, never park more than six spaces from your destination, never trust a stranger with a flat tire. Never, never, never.

He got inside your mind, crawled in like a venomous snake slithering into a hole in the desert, then twisted around in there until he was fully comfortable and at home. It had been hard to resist him when physical weakness made you turn to your attacker as a savior. Harder to push him away when, after taking everything away from you, maybe forever, he doled out the only things you needed to sustain you - food, water, cleanliness, the least sign of affection.

We were waiting. Always waiting. As though we wanted something new to happen. Often wishing it would, because the boredom made you even crazier. But when something new did happen, it usually hurt, and then we ended up taking all our wishes back.

Writing: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Plot: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Characters: 3 out of 5 stars
Reading Immersion: 3 out 5 stars

BOOK RATING: 3.25 out of 5 stars

Sensitive Reader: Maybe a bit risky. Rare profanity, an F-bomb dropped here and there, and sexual and torture references that may be a bit much for the more sensitive reader.

Book Club Recommendation: I think this depends on the members. Some may be put off by the subject matter, but others may find discussion material such as "How would I react in that situation?", etc. show less

The Never List starts with a bang and ends with barely a fizzle. The first paragraph immediately grabbed me and drew me into the story. I wanted to empathize with these women who had been so unspeakably abused that their lives for years later was still affected. The main character found it difficult to even leave her house for groceries and couldn't bear human contact, not so much as a handshake...at first. But the erratic writing made it impossible for me to care about any of them. I felt like I was the one being tortured. Well....maybe not tortured, but definitely irritated.

I think SOME of my disappointment with The Never List stems from the fact that it had been compared favorably with Gillian Flynn's thrillers. That was not the show more case, the only similarity was perhaps in the darker theme of the story. Otherwise, nothing about this book could be compared with Flynn's writing. One of the things I love about Flynn is the way she explores down to the darkest part of her damaged characters to find the things that motivate them. I found nothing resembling this kind of character depth in The Never List. These characters not only lacked depth, they lacked even the slightest bit of consistency. They acted in ways that made no sense whatsoever.

I have so many gripes, this review is probably going to be a bit all over the place. But then, so was most of this story. It bounced back and forth between past and present seemingly at random. Even though the reader is given glimpses of these women during and after their ordeal, the relationships between them is never effectively demonstrated. I did not have any grasp on their individual personalities or where their relationships with one another stood.

After one absurdly contrived plot twist too many, I gave up even trying to enjoy this book. With the character inconsistencies, the contrived plot twists, convenient rescues (deus ex machina much?), info dumping, and a completely far-fetched and over reaching ending, it's easy to see that this is not a book I would recommend. Although I will say that my friend read it in a day and a half and loved it and I've read many other reviews that also rate it highly. Unfortunately, I am not a fan. I wish, with this fascinating premise, that the story would have been more cohesive because I can see where this could have been, in the right hands, an incredible book. show less

The Never List starts with a bang and ends with barely a fizzle. The first paragraph immediately grabbed me and drew me into the story. I wanted to empathize with these women who had been so unspeakably abused that their lives for years later was still affected. The main character found it difficult to even leave her house for groceries and couldn't bear human contact, not so much as a handshake...at first. But the erratic writing made it impossible for me to care about any of them. I felt like I was the one being tortured. Well....maybe not tortured, but definitely irritated.

I think SOME of my disappointment with The Never List stems from the fact that it had been compared favorably with Gillian Flynn's thrillers. That was not the show more case, the only similarity was perhaps in the darker theme of the story. Otherwise, nothing about this book could be compared with Flynn's writing. One of the things I love about Flynn is the way she explores down to the darkest part of her damaged characters to find the things that motivate them. I found nothing resembling this kind of character depth in The Never List. These characters not only lacked depth, they lacked even the slightest bit of consistency. They acted in ways that made no sense whatsoever.

I have so many gripes, this review is probably going to be a bit all over the place. But then, so was most of this story. It bounced back and forth between past and present seemingly at random. Even though the reader is given glimpses of these women during and after their ordeal, the relationships between them is never effectively demonstrated. I did not have any grasp on their individual personalities or where their relationships with one another stood.

After one absurdly contrived plot twist too many, I gave up even trying to enjoy this book. With the character inconsistencies, the contrived plot twists, convenient rescues (deus ex machina much?), info dumping, and a completely far-fetched and over reaching ending, it's easy to see that this is not a book I would recommend. Although I will say that my friend read it in a day and a half and loved it and I've read many other reviews that also rate it highly. Unfortunately, I am not a fan. I wish, with this fascinating premise, that the story would have been more cohesive because I can see where this could have been, in the right hands, an incredible book. show less

Fantastic, addictive read. One of the few books that made me feel disappointed my train ride came to an end! I actually had to read the last couple chapters at work one morning because I had only 15 minutes left (according to my Kindle) and I just had to know what was going to happen.

This isn't a perfect book. The baddies are one-dimensionally bad and Sarah's/Caroline's swift change from agoraphobe to awesome detective isn't immediately convincing. However, the book is written so perfectly for a thriller. Zan gets inside Sarah's/Caroline's head in such a compelling and realistic way. The book is paced perfectly, with past events revealed just in time with current events. Most of all, I was really impressed with Zan's writing. I couldn't show more believe this was a debut novel. It's written deftly.

Recommended.

*
Reread July 2016: It doesn't hold up as well as I'd hoped. While the pacing is still excellent and the mystery exciting, the novel let me down with some of its more interesting components (the participants in the cult, for one, and of course what happened to Jennifer!). show less