This book was trying so hard to be a clever psychological thriller and it missed its mark. I think it was weighed down by an excessive amount of verbiage. It could have been helped by some healthy editing to unearth the plot.

This is one of those compelling stories that has a downward spiral and an ending you can predict, but that you must read anyway--and quickly. The central character is Dustin, a practicing psychologist who has made his reputation based on work about repressed memory therapy and hypnosis. His dysfunctional family background has included the murder of his parents and aunt and uncle when he was a child, followed by his testimony leading to the conviction of his adoptive brother for the murders. Although told in the first person, the point of view is predominantly Dustin's, but along the way the reader begins to question his reliability. Still grieving for his wife, who died a year and a half before the book's present, Dustin is losing touch with his two sons, now in their late teens, with whom he used to be close. One of his patients is a police officer on leave for undisclosed reasons, who is obsessed with a rash of drownings of college-aged young men who have all drowned while drunk. Dustin is drawn into this obsession and so are readers, and there is a sense of urgency to find a killer before there are more victims. The family's extensive back-story does not detract from the suspense. The shift of focus to one of the son's narrative for the end of the book is slightly disconcerting, as the various plot lines are wrapped up.

"Ill Will" was not an enjoyable or captivating read. The plot sounded as though it was going to be intriguing and thought-provoking, but all I really got was a scrambled mess that was all over the place. I tend to enjoy books written with several viewpoints, but the number of characters and the time jumps between book parts was not laid out in a way that readers will want to follow.

The author is experienced at creative writing, and the prose is very good. That upgrades the rating from one star to two stars.

However the artistry completely detracted from the story. The plot is improbable, the ending is ludicrous, there are too many extraneous characters, and the sequence of events has no relation to reality.

Read the book if you enjoy watching an author weave their words into pictures, but if you want a thriller then read something else.

This story did not hold my attention; I did not finish it.

I think the book has a lot of possibilities. Do think it needs another editorial run through (which I expect it will get).
Thank you for the opportunity to read it. See my posted reviews below.

Dan Chaon's new literary thriller, <i>Ill Will</i> starts with the story of a horrific murder scene in Dustin Tillman's childhood. The novel spirals downward from there. Dustin is the most unreliable narrator telling a story that is obviously rigged and I kept reading, hoping to get to the truth. I felt that I was plodding along in the foggy world Dustin and his son, Aaron, were living in...no sparks of life here. I agree with others that even the resolution is a mystery.

ARC courtesy of NetGalley and Ballantine Books (March 7th 2017).

The ill wind was something that swept everyone away. With some use of flash backs we see a pretty happy mostly normal family. One family comes into a bit of money by way of accident on the job to the father. He wants to adopt a child and does take in a foster child with a troubled past. Add an overly imaginative child and female twin cousins and life becomes more fantasy at times than real.
After a horrific fire the fantasy plays a part in the foster child taking the blame for the adult parents demise.
Looking at Dustin, the surviving son, who is still quite gullible and is now a psychologist we find someone still living some fantasy life. He meets up with another individual who brings ideas of how young college males are being systematically attacked and drowned. Before long everyone is caught up in this hypothetical drama with unforeseen and deadly consequences.

Thank You to Random House Publishing Group- Ballantine Books for providing me with an advanced copy of Dan Chaon's Novel, Ill Will, in exchange for an honest review.

PLOT- In the 1980's, Dustin's parents, aunt, and uncle were brutally murdered, and his older adopted brother, a troubled teen named Rusty, was convicted of the crime. Twelve year old Dustin and his teenage cousin, Kate, were key witnesses at Rusty's trial. They fed into the satan worship hysteria that was popular in the 80's, explaining how Rusty murdered rabbits during satanic rituals, and how he had involved Kate and Dustin.

Thirty years later, new evidence has exonerated Rusty and he is finally freed from jail. Aiding the fight for Rusty's innocence, is Kate's twin sister, Wave, who is estranged from her family, due to her disagreements over how their had parents died and Rusty's trial.

Dustin works as a therapist and his wife has just died from cancer. He is unsettled to learn that Rusty is out of prison and refuses contact with his brother. Dustin is struggling to cope with his grief, and can't connect with his two college aged sons, Dennis, who lives on campus, and Aaron, living at home with a barely concealed heroin addiction. Dustin works with a client who is obsessed with a string of murders, college boys who are dumped in rivers, and soon, he joins his client in the obsession. Dustin's paranoia increases, when Aaron's best friend, nicknamed Rabbit, is murdered. Is this a coincidence or is Rabbit a victim of a serial killer? Signs point to a satanic ritual, could that be a factor? Is Rusty somehow involved? If Rusty didn't kill his family, who did?

LIKE- This is my first novel by Chaon and I don't often choose suspense-crime novels, but I thoroughly enjoyed Ill Will. The story is engaging and fast paced, a true page-turner. I never quite knew where the story was headed and I was genuinely surprised by the ending. Ill Will is creepy and disturbing, with rich imagery.

Speaking of imagery, the grimy settings are filled with sensory elements, rooting me in the story. For example, there is a former mortuary that has been turned into a drug house, with many of the elements of the former business still somewhat intact, like the elegant chairs that once held the grieving, are now draped with strung out teenagers. The series of small rooms in a mortuary, lend themselves to this unsettling experience of a horror house: as Aaron walks through to score, he mentions not knowing if a meth-head would jump out to stab him. The scene setting is rich throughout the story, with settings like the "stuck-in-another-era", dusty farm house that the kids are sent to living with their grandmother after their parents die, or Rabbit's house, unkept since he is a heroin addict and his single-mom is dying of cancer. Not a single location in Ill Will is pretty, which fits with this grim story. I felt unsettled throughout.

As with the settings, the characters are strong and unforgettable. Ill Will is told from different point-of-views, which works well, as it would have been difficult to spend an entire novel in Dustin's paranoid mind or Aaron's drug-fueled haze. I was most interested in the dynamic between Kate and Wave, inseparable twins in childhood, who are driven completely apart by their parent's death and the trial. They have a similar reaction to the murders, an intense paranoia that has followed them into adulthood. However, rather than living off the grid like Wave, Kate's sense of safety comes from living in an apartment in the middle of Hollywood Blvd, among people rather than the isolation of her sister. Neither can let this fear go, but the way they manage it, is opposite.

Chaon makes interesting narrative choices. Sometimes he jumps into first person, which upped the intensity in the moments he used it. He also plays with style, for example, dividing a page into two or three columns, and writing a different scenes to be read in parallel. I've never seen this done, but it was creative and served the story.

DISLIKE- The only negative and this is minor, is that I found myself unevenly interested in places, in these spots, I thought the pacing, which was generally rapid, slowed. Usually this happened during the Dustin narrative. Too much Dustin.

RECOMMEND- Yes, Ill Will is exciting and surprising. I'm definitely going to read Chaon's other novels. I love finding these new-to-me-authors, that have already written several novels that I can immediately devour!

What a twisted tale we weave. Normally, I don't like stories that have only evil characters, but this book is the exception.
Basically, it is the story of a psychologist, his upbringing, personal life and patients. Dustin's parents were murdered allegedly by his sinister step brother when he was growing up, but the details are murky. One of his patients thinks he has proof of foul play in the drownings of several college boys. Now Dustin's step brother is being released from prison and Dustin does not know where the truth lies anymore. Very suspenseful.

Chaong's thriller is definitely that. This book leaves you with questions, but has you in suspense the entire time. Ill Will, told from multiple points of view, follows the serial killings of "drowned" college boys and brings back talk of Satanic Ritual fears of the 80's. A little long, as it started to read a little slow, but definitely a worthy addition to the thriller genre. I agree with other reviewers who describe this is something similar to early Gillian Flynn.

So, so, SOOOOOOOOOOOO good! I loved this book. I've been obsessed with the world that Chaon created for three days and I'm so sad it has ended. I found Dustin to be a very interesting character and someone I deeply cared about his story. I felt the different timelines in the story added such drama and mystery to the book, it really worked. Five stars!!

This book is very unsettling but in a good way. From the beginning on the novel, the reader is drawn into the tense, creepy story. It's very descriptive and I was immediately drawn into the story. Although at times the story is told in different time periods and from different points of view, it wasn't distracting or hard to follow. If anything, it makes the story and each character more vivid in your mind. A very good, albeit twisted story that leaves you guessing until the end. It also makes you realize that your own family isn't so bad...;-)

Who to trust? Instinctively, readers accept the first narrative voice in the novel, that of psychologist Dustin. In his present life, he seems reasonable and aware. He's grief-stricken over the recent death of his wife. So maybe it's okay if he neglects his son or if he seems sucked into a weird serial killer conspiracy.

But Dustin isn't the only narrator in this dark and twisting tale. Some of the story is told from his son Aaron's point of view, a college-age boy who is only pretending to be in college, and not very convincingly. Aaron is heavy into drugs, and may not be very tuned into reality either.

Then there is the story from Dustin's past, seeping into his present life like a blood stain. Dustin's parents and his aunt and uncle were shot to death while Dustin and his two cousins slept in a camper in the driveway. The deaths were pinned on Dustin's older foster brother, Rusty, a likely candidate because of his preoccupation with Satanism. Rusty is released from prison as the story begins. He has secretly reached out to Aaron, and who knows if the things Rusty tells him are really real?

This is a story that doesn't let go. After turning the last page, I let out a howl of disappointment. I could go back and re-read the whole thing, if it weren't for the stack of books waiting to be read.

I understand that this is an ARC but the formatting in this e-book made it incredibly difficult to read. The writing was choppy and the character development was terrible.

I requested a digital ARC from Netgalley after hearing about this book. It sounded dark and creepy, and a perfect read for midwinter. When my request was approved by the publisher I was thrilled, and settled in to read this story about a possible serial killer that gets under the skin of Dustin, whose parents and aunt and uncle were brutally killed when he was young, the possible victims of a Satanic cult.

It was all these possibles that made me eager to read this book. Was anyone who they said they were, were the circumstances really what they seemed? At the beginning it was perfect. College boys were disappearing and turning up drowned several days or months later, causing most police to write their deaths off as binge drinking accidents, except for one outlier, Aqil, who confides his theories about the killings being related to some kind of ritual to Dustin, his psychiatrist. Dustin has demons of his own -- his family was brutally killed when he was thirteen, a crime blamed on his foster brother, Rusty, a troubled nineteen year old, who was said to be caught up in a Satanic cult. Dustin is now grown and married with two boys of his own, and his beloved wife is dying of cancer. Aqil's theories provide a distraction from the troubles of his home life. In the meantime, Rusty has been exonerated for the killings, and after thirty years in prison he has been released.

But as the story got more detailed, with more points of view coming into play, I got a little lost. I wish the author had delved a little more into the mystery of memory, and what made the Satanic killing scare of the 1980s and early 1990s so wide-spread. I also wish more focus had been either on Dustin's perceptions of the past, or his perceptions of the present. The novel felt more unfocused the more it went on, and the jumping back and forth in time didn't help. I was still eager to get to the end, but by the time I did, I was more than a little disappointed. For so much promise this book falls flat at the end.

Still, this is not a bad read. If you like atmospheric thrillers, you will probably like this, just be prepared to be a little frustrated by it.

When I read the blurb I really was interested in what this story was going to be about. It seemed to right up my alley. Well that wasn't the case for me I was really totally lost through out the whole book. It seemed too have two different plots trying to come together, not too mention the sentences not being finished. Another thing that bothered me was the jumps between characters and I didn't know who we were dealing with at first, until I read a few pages then it clicked.
What really bothered me is what looked like maybe journal entries??? Not really sure what too call them but they were incomplete sentences that drove me crazy.
I really liked how it seemed that this story deals with memories and how being young you can have your memories altered which seemed to be the case with Dustin. Though we slowly learn this throughout the story.
It seems that Dustin's adopted brother Rusty likes the dark side of things so when their parents along with two others are murdered. Rusty seems to have the murders pinned on him, though is he truly innocent? It seems that Rusty has a few things to deal with when he gets out. Now while Dustin is dealing with his brother, he is dealing with things going on in his personal life and trying to solve murders. It seems that Dustin isn't running on all cylinders.
The twist about the murders doesn't come into play until well towards the end and at the time I kept wondering if the murder was Dustin's alter ego or maybe even a figment of his imagination. I wasn't really sure as I was just not able too keep up.
The book has possible potential maybe a clearer plot line or if the author is going to bring two plots together do it in a way that you are left with no questions.
As far as characters go I felt they were just one dimensional I couldn't connect or relate in any way.

I don’t believe I’ve read a novel this grim in years, possibly not since I read AWAIT YOUR REPLY by this same author. The cadre of characters in ILL WILL, while not the same as those who appeared in AWAIT YOUR REPLY, still possesses many of the same dark, dysfunctional characteristics and unrelentingly harsh life experiences. From murder and drug addiction to sexual abuse and self-deception, it’s all there for the reader to vicariously experience.

The Tillman family, as a whole, is a disaster just waiting to happen. From father Dustin, a gullible Cleveland psychiatrist (who actually should be seeing one himself) to his drug addicted son Aaron to his adopted brother Rusty (recently released from prison after serving 30 years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit) this is a group whose combined pasts are macabre and whose futures look dismal. Throw a crazy cop with a serial murder theory and a couple of odd cousins into the mix and you have narrative that will keep you reading in an effort to discover just what the heck is going on.

Without giving away too much, suffice to say that not all the characters in ILL WILL are who they purport to be and many intentions are murky at best. You may want to prepare yourself for this read with a couple of glasses of your favorite wine or take an occasional break from reading by viewing an episode or two of Everybody Loves Raymond since there are absolutely no laughs in this psychologically taxing novel.

A dark, dark book with an excellent twist. Dustin Tillman doesn't remember who killed his parents, aunt and uncle; or does he? In this book that carries you through a serial killer hunt, an odd therapy patient and a drug-addicted son, who is the real villain? Excellent read.

This is a story for someone who likes both true crime stories as well as psychological horror. Some people like to use “thriller” as a euphemism for literary books with horror elements, but I don’t want to do that. Horror shouldn’t be a bad word. Ill Will incorporates depictions of the Satanic Panic of the 80s both during the time that it was happening and during the fall-out. Dreamlike sequences unfold in three places at once, realistic and non-sensationalized depictions of heroin use and physical injury are at once tasteful and cringe-inducing, alternate realities converge to throw the reader off the scent of what might or might not have happened.

Chaon hammers hard on the theme of unreliable memory. “This was the thesis of my dissertation, in some ways,” Dustin narrates, “that experience is so subjective that multiple things actually do happen. That we can’t experience objective reality.”

Outwardly, Dustin’s career is damaged by his participation in repressed-memory-retrieval and a resulting lawsuit. Inwardly, Rusty’s release from prison causes him to question everything that he remembers about the night his parents were murdered. Did he even see Rusty there that night? And if Rusty is not the killer, who is?

What might on the surface seem like a typical whodunnit turns into an eerie, non-linear nightmare. There were entire chapters where I couldn’t be sure whether a particular character actually existed or not. There are large missing pieces that are presented just completely and incompletely enough that the imagination rushes in to fill the vacuum. Like any good scary piece of fiction, this lingers.

[Excerpted from my blog: entirety of blog is available through the attached link.]