"Remember Me This Way": A Creepy, Twisted and Slow Burn Thriller

How well do we really know anyone?

Sabine Durrant's dysfunctional marriage thriller "Remember Me This Way" goes beyond the surface of the secrets in a marriage between a sociopath and an introverted librarian that he stalks and eventually marries to show how easy it is to be deceived.

I'm not always a huge fan of thrillers - especially thrillers that show how messy marriages between crazy people can be.  Infidelity, twisted psychotic episodes, abuse - both mental and physical . . . all of these traits seem to mark the "must reads" that deal with dysfunctional marriages.  Just like in "The Girl on the Train" Sabine Durrant gives us a clingy, passive woman as a main character.  Lizzie unlike Rachel in "The Girl on the Train" has some desirable traits.  For one, she isn't drunk all the time, and for the most part, she doesn't tell lies to everyone that she knows.  Lizzie's conflict is her husband's tragic death which happened a year before the book begins.  Due to her guilt over feeling a little bit relieved after his death, she hasn't been able to visit the site of his car accident.  When she musters the will to go there, she finds flowers from a woman named Xenia there already, and she begins to unravel the secret life that her husband, Zach led.

Was anything that he told her true? If he really was a horrible person, what does it say about her that she really loved him? What does it say about her that she often felt responsible for his abusive and erratic behavior?

The narration switches back and forth from Lizzie trying to figure out what really happened to her husband and what he was really up to during their brief and tumultuous marriage.  She also wants to answer the questions that she has about whether or not he even died or if he is just waiting to punish her for the break up letter that she sent to his art studio.  In Zach's chapters, the reader becomes privy to the world of a misanthrope who never really tells the truth to anyone in his adult life, and about how easily he can camouflage himself into the nice guy or the new guy or the artist guy.  It's a dark world that Zach inhabits full of stalking just to see if he can get away with it and a trail of lies and abhorrent behavior with people who foolishly trust and even love him.

Lizzie's story is sad, but Durrant handles her codependent behavior with care.  She gives Lizzie a backbone (even if it isn't a very strong one).  The biggest downfall in this novel for me was the ease that Lizzie excepted the obviously troubled and incredibly spooky teenager, Onnie, into her home.  Although Lizzie felt reservations in allowing Onnie into her life, she caves quickly due to the pity she feels for her.  I never got a true sense of Onnie, and I never really wanted to.  She was more of an annoyance even though her story was integral to the plot.

Overall, I found Durrant's book to be a sly and well crafted thriller that felt perfect for an overly rainy week of summer.  I flew through it, and was satisfied with the outcome.  Something about this dysfunctional marriage rang more true than the relationships in the wildly successful "Girl on the Train" characters and their flawed love lives, or even "Gone Girl" and the sadistic nature of the wife who wants to punish her husband for his infidelity.  The pace wasn't as break neck, but quieter and even a bit repetitious at parts.  Nevertheless, I enjoyed myself while reading it, and recommend it to anyone looking for a quick thriller for the beach.

"I'll Give You the Sun": A Magical and Passionate YA Masterpiece

Love does as it undoes.  It goes after, with equal tenacity: joy and heartbreak. 

There's something about looking at a beautiful painting or sculpture and noticing the fine details, the artistry, the imagination and the mystery that surrounds it.  Sometimes you see something so beautiful that you want to cry, or possess it, or to be the one who created it.  Jandy Nelson's "I'll Give You the Sun" is equal parts beautiful and heartbreaking. This YA coming-of-age novel shows how art transforms the characters and is itself a work of art.

It's been awhile since I've been so moved by a YA novel.  Nelson's gift is her lyrical writing which includes elements of magic and supernatural, but also gives heavy doses of reality.  She also nails what blossoming love feels like and looks like in two very smart protagonists.  The narrators in the alternating (and long but lovable) chapters are Jude and Noah, twins who are so close that they almost smother each other in their quest to curry favor from their artistic mother.  Each of them tries to forge their own paths, but life rarely plays fair.  After tragedy strikes their family and truths, secrets and lies mount, they compete with each other in dangerous ways that drive them apart.

I loved every second of reading this book because of the intricacy of the story line - how the characters intersect and bisect each other's lives. The idea of twins who can sense each other's pain hurting each other purposely, but ending up only hurting themselves was captivating as was the whimsy of the grandmother's character and the unforgiving mother who also needed to forgive herself.

On top of the brilliance of Noah and Jude and their original, artistic voices that realize things about love and life that most people never can quite get, the supporting characters all add to rather than detract from the story.  Noah's "split-apart," Brian and his denial of his sexual orientation hurts to read.  He and Noah are so in love, but it's not okay to be who they are in a world of "surftards" and dads who just want their sons to be normal.  And Jude's transformation from bad ass to recluse to emerging bad ass and truth sayer was not just believable but touching.  She falls for her destiny and doesn't realize it just like she doesn't realize her crazy haired, stone sculptor, mentor is actually more closely tied to her life.

All artistic elements of this book work harmoniously to create a gorgeous inner and outer work of art YA novel that is so original and fresh that it feels like a pop of summer sunshine to read, but the depth of it and the emotional charge that comes form reading it makes me want to meet Jandy Nelson and tell her I am in awe of her passion and talent as a writer.

Looking for a coming of age love story this summer? Read "I'll Give You the Sun" and prepare to be amazed.