Wow, just WOW! This book had me on my toes and will now forever have me on my toes.
Jane loses her teenage daughter in an accident and seems to be reeling afterwards. She decides to try and start over in a small seaside town. To Jane's dismay, children start to disappear. Things start to unfold shortly after this. Each page offers a new discovery with an ending that I did not see coming

I enjoyed this book but also found it to be a bit of a depressing story. I had figured out the ending but felt like it was a bit abrupt; it just seemed like it could or should have been a bit more fleshed out.

I would totally recommend this book however, because the mystery at the center of the story and the main character's issues were interesting and well written.

LaPlante's latest novel is filled with engaging characters and an interesting twist on the standard murder plot line. She evokes the Bay Area coastal communities with a lot of verite and verve. And the ending will literally leave you feeling you have been punched in the gut. I highly recommend this book. If you live in the Bay Area, you may never cross over to the beach again without thinking about this novel.

I’ve read Alice LaPlante’s previous novels, and thoroughly enjoyed them, this one not so much. Although I think the idea was that the reader was to sympathize with the main character, I found myself not really liking her. Also, I felt that enough wasn’t said about what exactly happened to her daughter, maybe the author didn’t feel that was necessary, but maybe I would have understood Jane’s behavior and choices better. Not a bad story, but I can’t call it great either.

A woman’s only child is accidentally killed and shortly thereafter her husband leaves her. She falls apart and, in an effort to become anonymous she leaves home and moves to Half Moon Bay to reinvent herself. Shortly after she arrives there little girls start to disappear and their remains are found days later. She, because she is new and because she is strange, is suspected of these murders and is befriended by a couple whom she describes as beautiful. This leads to more complications and her life becomes untenable. I will not go further into the plot because of spoilers but considered it to be well done. I did, however, have difficulty dealing with the fact that the entire novel was written in third person which I thought put a distance between the reader and the protagonists. Thanks to Net Galley and Simon and Schuster for an ARC for an honest review.

I enjoyed the tension, atmosphere, and mood of this deep, dark novel. Alice LaPlante writes beautifully, and I found her character Jane to be believable and interesting. Much of the story holds the reader's interest. However, there were a few plot disconnects and contradictions that interrupted the flow.

Jane O’Malley has suffered a life altering loss. She loses her daughter in an accident. Trying to cope, she picks up and moves to a new town where she has no memories to remind her of all she has lost. This is a pretty tired storyline, which I have read a couple of times this year. However, this novel has a twist or two, as less than a year after moving to Half Moon Bay, little girls start to disappear. Everyone around her thinks Jane has something to do with it.
Well, to be honest....I really didn't care. I couldn't connect to any of the characters and did not care about them one way or the other.
I really did try to like the book, honestly. A story must resonate with characters who jump off the page and make you live with them. Thankfully, this two dimensional characters stayed in the pages. I couldn't wait for the story to be over, and not in the manner typical of a thriller.

As I say to all readers, not every book will resonate with every reader. That is why there are simply millions of books. This one wasn't for me.

Thank you #netgalley and #scribnerbooks for generously providing me with a copy of #HalfMoonBay in exchange for an honest review.

This book has an extremely slow pace... The writing is a bit jagged and not very cohesive. It is marketed as a psychological thriller but I was never very engaged with the story.

Wow... so I'm not going to sugar coat anything in this review. This was just awful. I don't like giving negative reviews but this was not a well written novel AT ALL.

The only thing I liked about this book was the cover. It's gorgeous! Unfortunately, I just could not get into Half Moon Bay by Alice LaPlante.

The two main issues I had with this book was the writing style and the main character Jane. I felt for Jane... how awful to lose your child. BUT, I didn't like her character at all. The author wrote based on Jane's consciousness or in and out... I think? This was very confusing for me and I felt it was all over the place. I should have put this in the DNF pile... but I wanted to see if the ending had the bang for the buck. WELL.. that will teach me.... ugh :(. The ending came out of nowhere and it didn't even make sense to the story?

1 star.

Thank you very much to Netgalley and Scribner for the arc.
Publication date: 7/10/18
Published to GR: 4/22/18

No one writes psychological novels like LaPlante. Once again, she has created characters the reader instantly cares about...and embeds their lives with time bombs just waiting to go off.

Jane’s life changed forever when her daughter was killed in a car accident. She moves from San Francisco to Half Moon Bay to try and start over.
She gets a job and friends. But when children start disappearing her neighbors start to wonder if she has something to do with the disappearances.

a gripping psychological thriller of a woman in desperate grief when her daughter is killed. Suspense at its finest.

Thank you @netgalley and @scribnerbooks for generously providing me with a copy of #HalfMoonBay by #AliceLaPlante.
Jane O’Malley has suffered a life altering loss. She loses her daughter in an accident. Trying to cope, she picks up and moves to a new town where she has no memories to assail her. Less than a year after moving to Half Moon Bay, little girls start to disappear. As the residents of the town become aware of Jane’s history, they start to think she is the culprit. Are they right?
I didn’t really like this book. I did not connect to any of the characters and did not care about them one way or the other. Well, actually, Jane drove me crazy. At one point in the book, she’s like oh, I lost my child, why should I care about these other kids that are being harmed? Um, excuse me. I know she suffered a loss, but that is just one of the things that made her unlikable to me. Also, her vague answers got on my nerves. Like lady, it’s no wonder the police think you are a psycho killer. I really kept reading because I wanted to know if my hunch was correct. Oh! And after all the buildup the ending was so abrupt! I felt like I wasted my time.

Never had a chance to read this. Perhaps will read it at a later time from the library

It hurts me to give a bad review, but I did promise to be candid. I truly hope that the author takes this constructively and not personally. I really hate to hurt anyone.

Hmmmm... Something good: I finished this book. It was readable. But not at all realistic or believable. Most of the characters were unlikeable including the woman who lost her daughter. You sympathize with the horrible tragedy, but most readers don't want to be immersed in it. At least not like this.
The main premise, which disturbed me was that every mother begins losing their children the moment they are born. It almost implys that it would be better to not have children. As a mother of two now 20 year olds....I completely disagree. And yes, they were each horrible in their own way during their teens. Still, having kids was the most amazing thing that I have ever done in my life. Sooooo......this book annoyed me to no end. It really makes you wonder why the main character ever had a child.
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When the killer is finally revealed----it was obvious.....and the book ended two seconds later.

No, I would not recommend this book to anyone.

Half Moon Bay by Alice La Plante.

My first comment on this book was that it was an interesting start and second, that she wrote a lot of half sentences. At that point, I said, some would like that style, some will not. However, after around 10% of the book, that style was used so often and so much that it became totally annoying. It should not be used INSTEAD OF writing full sentences. It should be used to emphasize a point.

At times the narration delves into being a history book or a science commentary. An example is location 131 (on my Kindle) where she goes into a non literary speech on the percentage of deaths of a child in the population. Too much unnecessary information. Another example is location 318, a digression into how teenagers use phones. All this unnecessary commentary, which does not relate to the story, slows down the story and makes it a yawn.

By location 317 we still didn’t know what the problem is with Jane and it’s beginning to irritate. I hate when you are “teased” about what is going on with the character(s). The mystery is what happened and how to solve the mystery but there shouldn’t be a mystery as to what the story is about. By this time, I wrote in my Kindle notes:

“ What the hell is the author trying to say? And why is Jane conflicted … and by now, who the hell cares? If we are going to play guessing games all through this book, I am not going to play and will stop reading.”

A further major problem is the style of having the protagonist not speak for herself (i.e., the narrator tells her story and tells when she is upset and for what reason) and that has the result of totally separating the reader from any kind of connection or empathy or sympathy for the character. There is zero emotional connection with her. Instead we have clinical definitions of all the parts of grief!

Not only is it annoying that the narrator speaks for Jane, but he speaks in the present tense for past events, and then in the future, and then in the past. Ayyyy. Why does the editor leave this nonsensical style?

Note to the publisher. You don’t do any favors to the author by rushing books like these into print before they are properly edited. I haven’t the faintest idea if this book could have been salvaged by proper (and extensive) editing but right now, for me, it is unreadable.

Absolutely awful. I felt no affinity or sympathy for Jane at all. The storytelling was so dry and boring that I barely made it through. Save yourself the agony and skip this one.

Awful. I'm not a fan of first person, but the writing is so stilted it's almost like reading William Shatner speak. Every. Single. Sentence. I couldn't finish it, and there's rarely a book I do that to. I couldn't get into the plot because I was so distracted by the way it was written. Hard to follow because of that. I only gave it two stars instead of one because the plot itself seems good if you can put up with the writing style.
Edit: I came back to this book because of so many good reviews to try it again. I didn't even make it past the page I stopped at. Nope. It reads worse than a term paper.

If you enjoy beautifully written descriptions of native California flora, or beautifully written descriptions of the California coast, you might enjoy this book. If you expect a likeable heroine who captures your heart? You will be disappointed.

I wanted to like Jane. She’s lived through the worst nightmare a human can endure, the lose of a child and the subsequent disintegration of her marriage. Her childhood pretty much sucked, too. She’s depressed and adrift when she moves to a town near Half Moon Bay and takes a job at the local nursery. Her sleepless nights have her walking the nearby beaches late at night, and when local girls disappear and turn up dead, she comes under suspicion. She makes many bad decisions and can’t seem to see the clues starring Her in the face.

The author writes beautifully. Her descriptions of locations and topography are lyrical. I thought the plot was a little thin, with too many twists to retain a modicum of believability. Even grief-stricken, lonely and depressed, I just never felt any sympathy for Jane. At the end, I felt that the author had gotten fed up with Jane, as had I. It was abrupt. While I would love to read more from this author, this book didn’t work for me.

2shay Arc graciously provided by the publisher and NetGalley for an honest and voluntary review.