Member Review

It's funny how many books I've read recently that have featured true crime podcasters who end up solving the crimes they're covering. Not sure how much that's happening in real life, but it is entertaining to read about. This podcaster, Rachel, comes to the small town of Neapolis to cover a major case of a popular college athlete who's accused of raping a teenage girl. While she's in town, she gets wrapped up in solving another case - a murder that happened nearly 25 years ago.

First off, there are definitely major trigger warnings for this book - because it goes into detail about sexual assault and about rape culture in general, it could be really difficult for a lot of people to read. However, I appreciated how Goldin was able to incorporate discussions about this topic without it feeling sensationalized. The toxicity of victim blaming and the all-encompassing trauma that comes out of abuse like this is so important for people to hear about.

This was a fast-paced read that had lots of suspense and was effectively told through segments of the podcast, Rachel's own point of view, and letters that were written to her from someone who was connected to the old murder. The only thing keeping this from a five star review is that I did guess a few of the twists before they happened. Otherwise, I'll definitely be checking out other books from this author.