Book Group - I Let You Go discussion thread

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Dec 2015
11:35am, 30 Dec 2015
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McGoohan
This thread is for discussionising I Let You Go by Claire Mackintosh. Read on if you have read it. Or if you haven't read it but don't mind a big morass of spoilers!
Dec 2015
8:52pm, 30 Dec 2015
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Deck the halls Daisy
I finished this a few weeks ago. It made me think the Archers scriptwriters must have read it a while back ;-)
Jan 2016
11:01pm, 12 Jan 2016
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McGoohan
My review is coming.

IT IS FULL OF MASSIVE SPOILERS!
Jan 2016
11:01pm, 12 Jan 2016
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McGoohan
Here:

I Let You Go.

My review then. I have some positive things to say, then some negative, then some more positive, then some more negative. :-o

First off, it gets off to a rollicking start. I wasn’t sure about the switches in tense/person in the first part at first but this sets it up nicely for Part Two when (like Complicity) we get the added Second Person voice. I was also initially reminded of The Mermaids Singing which started off with a will they/won’t they love thing with the cops. I think this handles that aspect slightly better than the McDermid because here we only see inside Ray’s POV. You get both sides of the will they won’t they in Mermaids and it’s a little bit too much like

One of the problems for me was the presentation of the big initial twist. This isn’t the author’s fault. It’s the cover. I know they wanted to indicate to potential readers that it is as twisty-turny as Gone Girl or The Girl on the Train, but the way the blurb is written on the book alerted me to where Number One twist was going.

It was a bit like my experience in going to see Sixth Sense at the cinema. Everyone went on about how it was the most amazing twist ever such that I went in thinking ‘well, there’s one obvious twist this could be…’ and if you are looking for *that* twist, lo and behold, you find the evidence for it within the first five minutes.

So, to ILYG, I expected The Big Twist and was insufficiently surprised when it came. As I’d got this twist half way through I knew what Twist Number two was going to be and was disappointed when that happened. I also thought it was particularly weakly handled. “I didn’t kill Jacob. But I feel like I did.” Really? You’ve got the opportunity to put away the man who has been brutalising you and raping you, but instead you’re happy to take the fall?

It’s Part Two where we’re introduced to Ian in detail. At first I was a bit unsure about this. He seemed a real pantomime villain. How could anyone be taken in by him? But then I had a think. I’m not a wife beater and as far as I know, I don’t know any (at least I hope I don’t know any!). So I don’t really have the experience to say how real he is. Clare Mackintosh worked for the police; she has experience of this. I was reading the book on the bus and I realised the top deck had ‘adverts’ everywhere for support groups and phone numbers for women who were being abused by their partners. There was even one for men who are being similarly abused. The Ians of this world are probably plentiful enough. With that in mind, I went back to the book and though ‘No, I can go with this.’

And I was about 95% there but for the final few chapters.

#1 Jacob turns out to be Ian’s son which can mean that Ian is responsible for all the evil in the book. He ran over the boy sort of accidentally, sort of on purpose. I’ll admit I didn’t see this one coming but that’s partially because it was preposterous.
#2 Ian’s chasing Jenna over the headland. It’s dusk. She doesn’t know if she can negotiate the landscape. She can barely see. He catches her. There’s a struggle. He goes over the cliff. She looks over. She sees his ‘rolled-back eyes before the waves suck him under’. How high are these cliffs? A second ago she could barely see him at all. Now she’s looking at his eyes as he goes under the waves?
#3 The epilogue. Ian’s body is never recovered. Could he still be alive? Jenna may or may not see her own name written in the sand. Too late, the waves have washed away the evidence. I realise that part of this is to imply that Jenna will never be entirely free of Ian’s legacy but another good part of it is to set up the possibility that Ian’s still alive.

In short, I was really enjoying this but the ending was a terrible disappointment, spoiled by the need to pile in a couple of twists too far. Having said that, I would be intrigued to see what Clare Mackintosh writes next.
Jan 2016
11:02pm, 12 Jan 2016
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McGoohan
Blimey. I do go on don't I?
Jan 2016
8:52am, 13 Jan 2016
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McGoohan
The para above that ends "You get both sides of the will they won’t they in Mermaids and it’s a little bit too much like"

was supposed to say

"You get both sides of the will they won’t they in Mermaids and it’s a little bit too much like Olivia Newton John and John Travolta pining over each other in Grease!"
Jan 2016
4:19pm, 16 Jan 2016
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LazyDaisy
Not a lot of comments on this one - is that usual or an indication of the opinions of Fetchies about this one perhaps?

I too wondered if a woman who had managed to escape her abuser would act as Jenna did in going through her trial rather than telling the truth. It's not within my experience whereas it apparently was for the author, so I grudgingly accepted it.

However I was much more convinced by the relationship between Ray and his wife, and with his colleague. I think this is because I could believe Clare Mackintosh was writing from what she knows (I don't mean personally, but generally, in her working environment).

I didn't believe in Patrick the handsome too wonderful to be true vet at all, and I completely agree that the relationship between Ian and Patrick was an unnecessary twist.

In short, it was quite good but certainly flawed, and I've already passed it on to the charity bookshop. I shan't need to read it again.
Jan 2016
7:08pm, 16 Jan 2016
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shyfire
Spoiler alert. I hadn't read the blurb or paid much heed to the 'major twist' warnings which I'm glad I didn't. In the first part I was almost completely taken in and assumed Jenna was Jacob's mother. However I was struggling with the idea that she would just up and leave. When the twist came I was taken aback, what I had assumed was going to be a theme about bereavement/loss of a child also became a psychological thriller with domestic abuse and family estrangement.

I think that it is quite likely that Jenna would have taken the rap. She was terrified of Ian and knew what he was capable of, she owned the car and at the end of the day it could boil down to her word against his. She was a young, relatively inexperienced woman who went straight from student life to living with a much older and controlling man. In the cottage at the beginning when she struggled to do simple practical things for herself I had initially put this down to grief whereas it think it was more to do with the mental abuse she had endured and the erosion of any confidence in herself.

Overall it was a good read, it held my attention and I finished it within a day. I like crime and psychological thrillers, it was engrossing .... and I was desperately trying to take my mind off going back to work in the New Year!

However I did feel the book was maybe too contrived, it had too many themes going on, not all were original. The backstory of cop struggling with work-life balance, marital discord and feelings for female colleagues has popped up in a couple of other crime series I've read recently. Several other psychological thrillers have had the main female character leave their life behind and move to a remote and isolated location (with cliffs/dangerous waters). Some violent and dramatic tussle ensues and she either rescues or is rescued by her new beau. The final twist and identity of the child fathers was also a step too far and wasn't really necessary.
Jan 2016
7:18pm, 16 Jan 2016
20,914 posts
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McGoohan
I think - just a guess on my part - that that's partly because she used up her Big Twist half way through the book (which reminded me of Gone Girl I suppose) and the demands of the genre are that more twists will be required at the end.
Jan 2016
7:44pm, 16 Jan 2016
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shyfire
Maybe. For me a twist that relied on coincidence stretched credibility, but then I suppose it did make him out to be even more of a monster.

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