Title: UNRAVELING OLIVER
My Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟1/2
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.
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 by John Marrs
Jane Doe by Victoria Helen Stone
My Lovely Wife by Samantha Downing
The Memory Watcher by Minka Kent
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