Review: Alice's Island by Daniel Sanchez Arevalo
P L O T :
A happily married woman's perfect life shatters when her husband turns up dead hundreds of miles away from where he should have been, and she suddenly discovers that there was a part of him she knew nothing about. Imagine being woken in the middle of the night by a phone call letting you know your husband is dead. Then imagine suddenly discovering that there was a part of him you knew nothing about… Alice Dupont’s perfect marriage was a perfect lie. When her husband, Chris, dies in a car accident, suspiciously far from where he should be, Alice’s life falls apart. After the police close the case, she is left with more questions than answers. While learning to cope with her loss and her new identity as a single mother of two, Alice becomes obsessed with unraveling the mystery surrounding her husband’s death and decides to start her own investigation. Retracing her husband's last known whereabouts, she soon discovers clues that lead her to a small island near Nantucket. As she insinuates herself into the lives of the island’s inhabitants in an effort to discover what they knew about her husband, Alice finds herself increasingly involved in their private lives and comes to a disturbing realization: she has been transformed into a person she no longer recognizes. In seeking an answer to what her husband was doing before he died, Alice discovers not only a side of him she never knew, but sides of her own character she has never explored. Part mystery, part moving family drama, part psychological page-turner, Alice’s Island is a novel whose vivid characters hold the reader rapt right up until the final page.
M Y T H O U G H T S :
Alice's Island is part mystery, part family drama, part domestic fiction. The story is told in mostly one POV (with only a few parts in a second POV), and it covers a certain amount of time. Rather than numbered chapters there are dates/time-frame headers. It's also separated into five parts, each with a literary classic as the title (i.e Moby Dick, Treasure Island, Alice in Wonderland), and I thought the titles and quotes that introduced each section were a nice touch, and well-fitted. I felt the novel was a bit long, and slow in some parts- it could have done with some unnecessary detail and info trimming- but overall I was intrigued enough by the story to keep turning the pages. I was curious to find out what would come to be once the main character uncovered the truths she was in search of. Alice went to great lengths to discover what her husband was doing on the Island before he died. She lied, invaded the privacy of the townspeople, and utilized any and every spy method she could to get the answers she was desperate for. She may have made some unexpected discoveries along the way as well. All in all, this was a satisfying few hours spent. The main plot was interesting, and the majority of the characters equally so, making this a good read in my eyes. With some content trimming and a little more oomph to the ending, Alice's Island would have had the extra push from a good read to a great read for me.
**Complimentary copy for review provided by Simon and Schuster Canada. All opinions expressed here are honest and entirely my own.**
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