This is the stellar writing that I expect when I pick up a book by Mary Kubica! The characters are well developed and the plot moves along at a great pace. I became invested in Jessie's journey from the first page. This is how psychological thrillers should be written!

I hate to leave a negative review on an ARC however this book was so disappointing. I feel like the author really let the readers down with this one. Readers deserve better than this ending.

When the Lights Go Out by Mary Kubica is a so-so novel of psychological suspense.

Jessie Sloane's mother, Eden, dies from cancer and now she must try to continue on with her life after spending her teen years, since she was 15, caring for her mom. When the college she has applied to informs her that her social security number belongs to a 3-year-old girl who died 17 years ago, she needs to find her social security card, but can't. Jessie can't even find her birth certificate and she doesn't have any other identification, like a driver's license. Eden never told her the name of her father, so Jessie is running out of options. She is also struggling with insomnia, which is causing hallucinations and paranoia.

Between Jessie's narrative are flashbacks from Eden's past, beginning in 1996. Eden and her husband were newlyweds in 1996 and wanted to start a family. Soon her inability to conceive became an obsession for Eden and led to more expensive medical intervention to assist them. Her obsession becomes increasingly unhealthy and threatens her marriage.

The quality of the writing is great, but the actual plot, not so much. I struggled to get through this novel and kept talking back to the plot/action because it didn't make sense. The ending, which was likely supposed to explain all the things I was upset with in the novel only resulted in pure disgust and reduced my rating to 2 stars. (It is 2 stars because Kubica gets 1 for her writing ability. Great writer; bad plot device.) Saying anything about the extremely disappointing "twist" at the end will ruin the novel for others, but I feel like it was a lazy ending. When the ending technique used here has been tried in other circumstances, it is consistently a hit or miss for people. This was a total miss for me.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Park Row Books.
http://www.shetreadssoftly.com/2018/09/when-lights-go-out.html
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2519976205
https://www.librarything.com/work/21688012/book/160127537
https://twitter.com/SheTreadsSoftly/status/1037393710844194817

When the Lights Go Out is the story of a mother desperate for a child, Eden, and a daughter trying to find her identity after her mother's death, Jessie. Eden is married to Aaron, and they struggle with fertility issues. How far will she go have a baby or get a child? Jessie is trying to recover from the loss of her mother and find the father she never knew. Will she succeed before it drives her crazy?

The story is told from two points of view, and in two time periods, the mid 1990's and current day. This worked well keeping the suspense extremely high for most of the book. Eden was my favorite character to read, because the descriptions of the cottage and the lake were beautiful and her musings were somewhat normal. Jessie was erratic and harder to follow, being that she was living on 10 days without sleep. I feel like the ending should of shocked me more than it did, but once it was revealed, the rest of the novel made much more sense. It was definitely a page turner for me, I had to know the ending.

This is the first time I have been disappointed by a book of this author's. It starts out with an intriguing mystery and characters that you become invested in. That's about the only thing about the story I enjoyed. The pacing is slow and I found myself skipping sections to get to more interesting points. You go on this journey with Jessie and go back in time with Eden. These alternate POV's draw you into the mystery and have you wondering how it will tie together. Just when you think you have it figured out the author will throw in a small twist so you keep reading because you just want to know, and you overlook the flaws in the pacing. And then comes the ending. A terrible conclusion to all that build up and I felt like I wasted my time reading this book. I have always enjoyed this author and will give her another try with the next book, but I would recommend skipping this one.

I received an advanced copy of When the Lights Go Out from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

First of all I am a huge Mary Kubica fan and I was super excited to receive an early copy of her newest novel When the Lights Go Out. This is the story of Jessie Sloan, a young woman coming to terms with the only person in her life, her mother, dying of cancer. She is not sleeping at all and the stress is weighing on her. She is not sure what she will do when her mother does leave her. As an act of bravery she applies for college but when the enrollment department calls to tell her there is a mix up, the Jessica Sloan with her social is dead. The news spins Jessie out of control trying to discover who she is and where she came from.

The story is suspenseful and dark as we follow Jessie down her sleep deprived rabbit hole. Overall I liked the premise of the story but I had a hard time fully liking the characters and emotionally connecting to them. Kubica is fantastic at twisty endings, and does it again in this one, although for me it was a little anticlimactic. Enjoyable novel for suspense fans.

I love Mary Kubica and have read all of her other books, this one unfortunately was my least favorite.

The good - the writing. Her writing style is really beautiful and made reading this book enjoyable while I didn't love it. The first half was beautifully done. I really enjoyed the different viewpoints and the transitions were smooth and added to the story. As always her characters are well thought out and relatable even when there are some you don't like.

The bad (for me) - the plot twist. It's not that I didn't like the twist, more that I didn't understand it. I don't think it added to the story or made a ton of sense.

I think this book will have two camps of people, those who loved it and those who do not. Enjoyable read for the most part but just not for me. Will still pick up all of her books as I think she is a great writer.

Many thanks to NetGalley, Park Row Books, and Mary Kubica for the opportunity to read her latest thriller. I'm a big fan of Kubica's writing and this one - for the most part - didn't disappoint.

Told in the voices of Eden in 1996 and Jessie in present time, Jessie is struggling to start a new life after the death of her mom and years spent taking care of her. When Jessie tries to enroll in a community college to fulfill her mom's wish that she move on with her life, she finds that her social security number shows her as being deceased. In fact, it shows her as being a deceased 3 year old child. Jessie has horrid insomnia and hasn't slept in days - she starts imagining things and people in her home and on the streets.

Meanwhile, twenty years earlier, Eden and her husband Aaron are starting their lives with a new home on the lake and are anxious to have children. But Eden struggles with infertility and it's causing a rift in her life and marriage.

I couldn't put this down but I'll admit that the ending was disappointing and had me reeling! Go into this one blind, without reading the reviews (except mine maybe!). Kubica's beautiful writing kept me glued to the pages.

Have you ever read a book where you were loving it and then the ending comes and it sucks and you feel cheated?? That was me reading When the Lights Go Out. I was really liking it, wondering what was going to happen as I was going on a twisty ride and then the ending happened…WTF was that. Seriously?! It was disappointing.

When the Lights Go Out has an unreliable narrator. Jessie has been dependant on her mother and when her mother passes, Jessie is in grief and can’t tell the difference between reality and imaginary. I felt for Jessie, but couldn’t trust her completely even she had no idea what was going on.

I also liked the other perspective of Eden (Jessie’s mother) when she was young, recently married and unable to have a baby. I felt so much for Eden and it was tough reading about her struggles and watching her breakdown.

I’m so torn on my rating because I enjoyed it, except the ending, which was a big slap in the face. I don’t know if I want to recommend this novel to others because I don’t want other readers to share in my disappointment. Of course, you are welcome to read it if you want to know what the ending was!

Wow! Mary Kubica has done an amazing job with writing When the Lights Go Out. This was such a twisty tale that kept me guessing and confused the entire read. Just the kind of stories that I love! Just when I thought I had it figured out what had really happpened, Kubica would twist the storyline so that yet again I was confused. This just made me want to read it all the more. I had to know, who was Jessie and where did she come from? I really enjoyed reading this and I know anyone who likes mystery/thriller type genres will enjoy it also. I want to thank NetGalley and author Mary Kubica for giving me the opportunity to read and enjoy an early reader copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion. It’s truly a great read!

I am at a loss for words on this ending. I don’t know if I liked the end of the book or not. I had several different scenarios playing out in my head and none that were correct. The end threw me but there were plenty of clues peppered throughout that I didn’t pick up on until they all came crashing back to me once I realized what was going on. Seriously 90% in.

This story has alternating time lines with Jessie in the present and her mom, Eden, in the 1990s. Jessie suffers from insomnia after her mother’s death. Her mom’s final wish: Jessie find herself. Jessie finds she doesn’t know who she is and seems to be living a life with a stolen identity. Eden’s past has everything to do with Jessie’s present. This was a great read and will definitely be reading more from Mary Kubica. That ending still has me shaking my head. Well played, Kubica, well played.

Many thanks to Netgalley and Harlequin for this ARC!

I have really enjoyed Mary Kubica's other books, so I was looking forward to this latest read. I'm afraid to say it wasn't my favorite. It did have twist and turns, but you could easily figure them out. I like books where the past and present come together, but in this book only the past was interesting, the present was just to far-fetched to believe.

As usual, Mary Kubica does not disappoint! I enjoyed this book, as I knew I would. I love everything by this author.

Suffering from severe insomnia and grieving the loss of her mother, Jessie tries to figure out her true identity. Will she find the answers she seeks? Is Jessie even her real name, who is her father, and why did her mom keep his identity a secret? Is her lack of sleep causing the paranoia and hallucinations, or could it be something else?

As always, I enjoyed the author's writing style and the story itself, and had fun trying to guess where it was going. However, I found myself extremely distracted and even somewhat irritated by the insomnia sections and, in turn, the unreliable narrator. By the time I reached the end, I understood why the author wrote it the way she did, and while I found some portions of the end sweet and touching, it fell flat for me overall.

With that being said, I would highly recommend The Good Girl (4 stars) by this author!

Trigger warning: Breast cancer

I received an advance copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

Location: Illinois (Albany Park and Chicago)

2.5/5 This book was frustrating to read. It switches between two POVs- one that is desperate and the other that is slowly losing a grip on reality. Both were tedious and stretched out far too long. Then after all of that there's a "twist" ending that's even more frustrating than the rest of the book. Ugh.

When the lights go out was such a beautifully written story. This tale was told from different POV's but it was really easy to follow.
As I read a story I love to feel the characters emotions, as though it is happening to me. And Mary Kubica described these characters so thoroughly that I could experience the highs and lows.
Just when I thought I had the ending figured out I was wrong, right to the very end.
This story was 6 stars!

I have read all of Mary Kubick's books. From the blurb of this book I was really excited to read this book. It is about a girl named Jessie and her mother Eden. Her mother is on her deathbed and Jessie is very distraught. She gets tired and it seems she falls asleep. From that point on the book goes back and forth between Jessie's story to Eden's story. I thought i had it figured out by one third of the book. But without giving away spoilers all I can say is by the end of the book it was not what I though but for me the ending did not make sense why Jessie had this point of view. I felt cheated and left hanging. I received this book from netgalley.com as an ARC for an honest review.

This was definitely not my favorite Mary Kubica novel. I usually submerse myself into the book, not coming up for air until the last page. This one was easy to put down, and not at all what I'm used to from her. The book was good, but the ending was a complete let down! The characters were unlikeable, and the story just seemed like it could do so much more, especially with Kubica being the one to write it!

I've been a fan of Mary Kubica's writing ever since reading Pretty Baby in 2015. With When the Lights Go Out, Mary delivers a suspenseful and haunting story that I can't stop thinking about.

I like how Mary shifted between two perspectives, one in the not-so-distant past and one in the present. I had no idea what to expect from this novel and was definitely surprised. I was so nervous for Jessie and Eden the entire time and kept guessing what was going to happen for both of them. I also like that the story took place in Chicago, as most of Mary's novels do. Having lived in the area for most of my life, it was easy to visualize some of the city locations that were mentioned.

My only concern is that after all the build-up, the ending felt a bit anticlimactic. However, I didn't see it coming either.

This novel will give you the chills during what is looking like an unseasonably warm autumn.

Suggestions for Hollywood's consideration:
Jessie: Chloë Grace Moretz
Eden: Brie Larson
Aaron: Michiel Huisman
Liam: Jack Reynor
Miranda: Aly Michalka
Mrs. Geissler: Fionnula Flanagan

My Review of “When the Lights Go Out” by Mary Kubica, Park Row Books , September 4, 2018

Bravo to Mary Kubica, Author of “When the Lights Go Out” for for her vivid descriptions, and her riveting, captivating, intense, and suspenseful writing. This is a page-turner chock full of surprises, that questions everyone and everything. The theme in this story is insomnia. Does anyone really know what happens when one is sleep deprived? How do you determine reality vs. illusion? The Genres for this novel are Mystery, Suspense, Thriller, and Fiction. The timeline for the story is in the present , and goes to the past when it pertains to the characters or events in the story.

The author describes her colorful and dysfunction cast of characters as complex and complicated. Jessie Sloane has taken care of her terminally ill mother, and is now ready to move on with her life. Unfortunately, that is not easily the case, as Jessie stumbles upon one problem after the other. Her Social Security number is that of a dead person. Jessie discovers that her mother had deep dark secrets, and a picture of a man surfaces that her mother had hidden. Who exactly is Jessie Sloane? As Jessie encounters another sleepless night she fights for the recognition of reality and her imagination.

The author also goes back twenty years and explores how Jessie’s mother might hold the key to unlock many of the answers. Be warned, the ending is not at all what it seems to be. All the clues lead you to a place where it is indeed difficult to foresee the conclusion. I was totally taken by surprise. No peeking now, be sure to read the book!! I highly recommend this novel to those readers who appreciate a tense, roller coaster of a ride thriller, with suspense and surprises. I received an ARC from NetGalley for my honest review.
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