Hi, darlings!

  I hope that you are having a good weekend so far! Yesterday, the weather was a rainy day, I got a lot of work done. I worked on my Nanowrimo which I will put in a separate post. Today though, I wanted to share my thoughts on A Simple Favor by Darcy Bell. I picked this book up because I wanted to read it before I saw the movie. This review is going to be spoiler free in terms of the plot.

A Simple Favor is a thriller about a single mother named Stephanie that has a dark family secret and befriends another mother that she perceives as honest, elegant, and the perfect mother. Stephanie soon finds out that best friends that ask for simple favors aren’t as simple as she thought.

The cover isn’t my favorite thing about this book but it does give you the impression that this book is suspenseful. Diving into what I did like about this book is that it is evenly divided into three parts. They are centered around the three main characters Stephanie, Emily, and Sean. We get the whole picture where things slide into place. Stephanie’s blog posts are placed evenly so that the book isn’t cluttered. I really liked Stephanie and Miles’ relationship. It was the only healthy relationship in the book. Stephanie’s secret was better than the actual reason behind Emily’s disappearance. I don’t mind slow burn books that are evenly paced and this book delivered. I will say that this book is like Gone Girl’s little half-sister trying to imitate her older sibling.

The list was short for the things I did enjoy but let’s move on to the things that I don’t like about the book. If you are looking for a thriller that has character development this is not the book for you. The three main characters figure out information about one another but they do not learn anything. I actually really liked Stephanie. I thought of her as still good-natured despite her past but Bell molded her into a mindless twit by the end of the book. Honestly, I could have lived without Sean’s part. His section didn’t offer more to the story line. Emily’s parts were the most consistent in terms of characters. That leads me to think that Bell had put the most thought into Emily.  What made me lower the rating by two points is  the reason behind Emily’s disappearance. I was left feeling cheated and I couldn’t shake that feeling. It made it difficult to finish the book. I am still disappointed! I had high hopes and they were crushed.

My overall thoughts are that this book is a good book. I do recommend the book but I think it isn’t necessary for the movie. I think the movie has gone ahead and took some artistic liberties to spice up the plot where Bell had left it dry. The flow of the book was good and I was on the edge of my seat until I found out the main reason for Emily’s favor. Books are personal so while I give this book a three out of five stars you may enjoy it more or even less. Let me know down below if you prefer the book or the movie? I will post the second part to this once I’ve seen the movie. I will compare the two in that review!

Till next time.