Saturday, 27 July 2019

Book Review: UNRAVELING OLIVER by Liz Nugent


Author: Liz Nugent
Read: July 2019
My Rating: ๐ŸŒŸ๐ŸŒŸ๐ŸŒŸ๐ŸŒŸ1/2


Book Description:


Oliver Ryan, handsome, charismatic, and successful, has long been married to his devoted wife, Alice. Together they write and illustrate award-winning children’s books; their life together one of enviable privilege and ease—until, one evening after a delightful dinner, Oliver delivers a blow to Alice that renders her unconscious, and subsequently beats her into a coma.

In the aftermath of such an unthinkable event, as Alice hovers between life and death, the couple’s friends, neighbours, and acquaintances try to understand what could have driven Oliver to commit such a horrific act. As his story unfolds, layers are peeled away to reveal a life of shame, envy, deception, and masterful manipulation.


My musings:


What makes up a sociopath? Are people born that way, or are they a sum of their family histories and past experiences? It’s a fascinating topic that can be much debated, and Nugent does an excellent job in exploring it in this character study of Oliver, a man who almost beat his wife to death in a frenzied attack.

I loved the way the author chose to tell this story – not simply through the eyes of Oliver, her sociopathic main character, and not through exploring the events leading up to Alice’s beating through an omniscient narrator. Instead, she uses the voices of multiple persons who have had involvement in Oliver’s life to tell of their experiences with the man. It’s like putting a puzzle together in reverse – we hear snippets of Oliver’s childhood, his youth, and his later years closer to Alice’s attack. Bit by bit a picture of the man forms, and to the author’s credit I always managed to maintain a sense of sorrow and empathy for the man, despite the horrible things he has done. It is possibly the best portrayal of a villain in crime fiction I have ever read. And despite a decided lack of action there was an underlying sense of menace and mystery underlying the story that kept me thoroughly enthralled. As all the pieces fell into place, the sheer magnitude of Oliver’s crimes lay fully exposed – and it was truly shocking in every sense.


For me, some of the peripheral characters’ stories were even more interesting than Oliver’s, especially that of Veronique, who was my favourite character. My heart truly bled for her! I would have loved to hear from Alice herself, especially why she chose to stay with Oliver for so long, which probably remains my most pressing question that never got answered. Perhaps this was the author’s intent all along – it certainly made sure that this book will stay in my mind for a long time to come as I keep replaying some scenes in my mind.



Summary:



UNRAVELING OLIVER was a book that snuck up on me and took me totally unawares. It very quickly got under my skin and into my brain, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it! I wonder how this got past me when it first came out, and am so glad that I finally read it. If you love a well drawn villain that will haunt you long after the last page has been turned, then this book is definitely for you!


You may also like:


The Good Samaritan The Good Samaritan by John Marrs

Jane Doe (Jane Doe, #1) Jane Doe by Victoria Helen Stone

My Lovely Wife My Lovely Wife by Samantha Downing

The Memory Watcher The Memory Watcher by Minka Kent

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