Review: I Let You Go by Clare Mackintosh

Title: I Let You Go

Author: Clare Mackintosh

Published by: Berkley

Released: May 2016

Summary: She let him go for one second, one second that she wishes she could take back. One second in which her life was forever altered. The car came out of nowhere. It sped across the rain soaked road and blended with the gray sky. Her son was in the road and the car didn't slow down. The car hit her son, as if in slow motion. Lying on the pavement, her son is dead, and the car has sped away into the night.

Two detectives are charged with the task of catching a killer. The investigation is slowed by few clues and no leads. They hope to bring justice for the boy, but nothing will bring him back.

My Thoughts: Thank You Goodreads First Reads Program and Berkley for letting me win a copy of this book. I love getting arcs. They make me feel so special for getting to read a book early. The most awesome thing in the world, to me, would be getting arcs all the time. I will continue to dream. Maybe one day, it will be my reality. Anyway, this book was awesome!

It's a thriller, which is very trendy right now. I love thrillers. In every review I read, I kept hearing about the crazy twist. They were all right, because this book had a MASSIVE TWIST! Everything I had been led to believe had been a lie. My jaw might have dropped open in shock. This book was very good. Very, very good.

This is a slow-paced thriller, which was very interesting for me. There is not action on every page, but rather a compelling fascination to keep on reading. I really got sucked in. I Let You Go was never boring. The unimaginable grief of losing a child, which I've never experienced and hope never to experience, just added a deeper, emotional layer. It was all done really well.

The author story was interesting too. Knowing that she worked in the police force, on cases such as this, made it less fiction and more real. And knowing that she went through the loss of a child, just made the emotions more real.

The twist was so good, so well done.

I wasn't a fan of the two detectives relationship. I'm not a fan of cheating, I think it's bad form. I would have been fine with Ray and Kate's connection, if Ray hadn't been married. I don't really care if he thinks his marriage is stale or ho-hum, you don't cheat. And Kate is just as bad because she knew he was married from Day 1. I feel like there still could be problems down the line because they work in such close proximity.

I also didn't understand why the problems with Tom were included and their overall relevance to the story. I'm thinking, maybe, they were just included to give Ray a reality check, but they did feel a little random.

I also want to say that not all the twists were spectacular. The best one happened in the middle, which made all the other twists seem not as jaw-dropping. I didn't really like the final, big reveal. It felt too coincidental for me.

Ian was a despicable character. I was supposed to hate him, and I did. Reading about that situation was so tough, and knowing that there are people that go through those situations every day was even tougher. He was an awful guy.

I thought this book was fantastic! Bravo, Bravo. Just a very compelling read that really gripped me. I'd definitely recommend to the lovers of the thriller genre, and anybody else really. Just a really good read.

BOOKCITEMENT LEVEL 4.2/5

A smack-you-in-the-face Twist!