Couldn't figure out how to get this book to load on my device, do unfortunately never got a chance to read it....

You know that chill you get when you walk into shadow? That is this book. 

A cold dark truth emerges from beneath this twisted murder tale as the timeline of a man’s life plays out and he must grapple with each new revelation about the people he thinks he knows best. 

This book is a tightly written page-turner due to Chaon’s mature and polished style. He is able to casually fill the story with people who get weirder and weirder, and will stop at nothing to tickle your psyche. I really enjoyed being creeped out by this read! 

A copy was received from the author so I could create this honest review. This review and more at annevolmering.com.

I had a hard time with this book..The story line was very interesting but the format was totally confusing to me. In addition, there were too many unanswered questions.

Ill Will is more about the stories we tell to expose ourselves and Dustin is exposed.  This will not make you want to visit your local psychiatrist but the twists will keep you reading.  Enjoy

DNF. It seemed more like rambling and was very hard to follow.

This is one unique book.  I will first say that I had an ARC from NetGalley but chose to listen to the finished version on audio.   A few of the chapters end, just stop, right in the middle of a thought, of a sentence.  Why?  Being edgy, risky, gimmicky?   Mr. Chaon, I don't usually care for gimmicks or such distractions. (This IS at least explained later.) The narration switches between characters, between first, second, and third person, and between past and present.  Why all the jumping around in books these days?  I don't usually care for that either, and was one of the reasons I gave your book You Remind Me of Me only 2 stars.

But, again, this book is SO different, to put it mildly.  This book, gimmicks and all, hooked me by the neck and yanked me along its journey through no less than two gripping murder investigations, two cancer deaths, two estranged brothers, two sisters also estranged, hard drugs, and multiple versions of the past.  Our remembrances of our own pasts are called into question:  You think no one knows your past better than yourself, but Chaon takes you by the neck, again, looks you square in the eye, and says Hah!  That's what you think!  And when a traumatic event such as finding your parents, aunt, and uncle all dead is involved, and of course when buku drugs are being ingested, memories are even more sporadic or repressed.

The older I become, the more I am uncertain of my own memories.  This is a subject that always fascinates me, in books or in discussions.  So I  was simply captivated by this book and wished I could get back to it every time I put it down.   It was chilling, and the author's choice to be a little out there worked for me this time, but may not for others because....

I did read parts of the ARC aside from listening to it.  I could not get into the printed book at all and can see why some low ratings. My reason is that the formatting in some chapters gives us two or three columns of narration side by side on the pages.  Not so unusual, but then I could not figure out for certain if I was supposed to read all 3 columns on a page before turning the page, or was I supposed to read all pages of the left-hand column first, followed by all pages of the middle column, and then the right-hand.  I really didn't spend too much time on that since in the audio, that decision was made for me.  Thus, I for one would recommend the audio over other versions.  Plus, it was just excellent.

Loved this book
Didn't want it to end
Highly recommended

I did not finish this book. I found it impossible to relate to the characters and the author's writing style was confusing and difficult to follow. I will NOT be putting a review on my website.

Is Dustin Tillman the unluckiest man in the world?  One might think so.  He comes from a horrific childhood.  One morning he and his cousins woke up in their backyard from a camping night and went inside only to find both his and their parents brutally slaughtered.  Dustin's adopted brother, Rusty, who is into Goth and dealing drugs, is the police's first suspect.  When Dustin tells the things Rusty has done to him, Rusty is arrested and sent for trial.  Dustin and his cousin are the main witnesses against him and Rusty is sent to prison for life.

Fast forward to adulthood.  Dustin has reinvented himself and is now a psychologist living a normal family life in the suburbs.  His wife is a lawyer and his two sons are healthy and happy.  Then tragedy strikes again.  His wife gets ill and passes away.  The family can't move beyond their grief and fall apart.  The older son goes off to college and Dustin and his younger son rattle around their house, rarely speaking and never communicating when they do. 

Then Dustin hears the news.  Rusty is being released after an Innocence Project has taken his case.  It turns out that there was never any forensic evidence.  Rusty was convicted in an atmosphere of societal worry about teenage kids and satanic cults, like the Memphis Three.  Now thirty years later, he is coming out of prison and its unsure what he plans to do next.

In Dustin's own city, there is another troubling issue.  One of his patients is a former policeman who has been sent for psychological help.  Yet he is less interested in his own problems than in a case he believes he has found.  Teenage college boys are being found in bodies of water.  The cases seem similar; they go out drinking with their friends, disappear and are found drowned later.  Most of the cases are classified as accidents or suicides.  Yet the patient believes there is a serial killer out there and draws Dustin into his belief system.  Soon Dustin is helping in the 'investigation' and neglecting everything else.

This is a haunting book.  It starts slowly, portraying a normal family.  Tendrils of menace float up occasionally, leaving the reader uneasy.  Then the hits start to come faster and faster as one is drawn into the realization that Dustin has been removed from reality his entire life and that he is the ultimate unreliable narrator.  The book is like a ride down a snowy hill on a sled.  At first nothing much happens and then the reader is riding pell-mell to an inevitable end.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.

Amazing psychological thriller! I could not put this book down. It's the story of a man whose parents were murdered by his adopted brother long ago. He has built a life for himself; he suddenly learns his brother is being released. I am a huge fan of true crime books as well as thrillers, so this was an extra good read! I loved the way the narrator switched between several characters throughout the novel. Highly recommended.

I chose this book to read based on the description.  It met the description, but the style of the book was a bit confusing and difficult to follow.  This novel is very"free form" flowing between character's points of view with no warning. The story itself is sound...How much of our memory is real and how much is influenced by others...other circumstances, other people, subliminal messages and blatant lies.  

Dr. Dustin Tillman is a psychologist, a career chosen specifically because of his troubled past .  As a child, his family is massacred. Mother, father, aunt and uncle. His adopted brother Rusty is accused, and convicted, of the heinous crime.  But thirty years later, Rusty is released with no warning.  This causes Tillman's mind to start remembering...and what he remembers raises doubts.  Did Rusty actually commit the crime he was accused of? 

At the same time, a new series of unexplained deaths comes to his attention. Young, college age men, are drowning in local waterways, each with an extremely high blood alcohol content.  Are these murders? Or are they simply unfortunate accidents that bear a striking similarity?  Tillman is pulled into the case reluctantly at first, but he becomes increasingly suspicious.  

Add the death of his wife and a son spiraling into a web of drug addiction, Tillman's world is imploding.  Will he navigate his way free? Or will he be the next victim of ill will?

This book was very unsatisfying. The plot, with its dual murder cases in two timelines, was contrived and the author just seemed to be trying too hard. I found the writing style very annoying as it shifted among time periods and points of view from chapter to chapter, sometimes ending chapters in the middle of sentences. After making me slog through this confusing mess the author could at least have answered my questions at the end, but no such luck. This book was too much work for the meager payoff. 

I received a free copy of the ebook from the publisher, however I wound up listening to the audio version borrowed from the library.

Did not finish. Meh It started out intriguing. It did not deliver. Structure was frustrating. Transitions from past to present from one character to another was confusing and frustrating. Thematic issues were all over the place: Satanic rituals, murders, serial killers, wrongly accused and imprisoned relative, drug abuse and addiction, grief issues, all of which muddled the proverbial waters for me.

DNF @ 25%

Dan Chaon is one of those literary writers everyone raves about. Ill Will has received many spectacular reviews but I’ve realized that he has a style that is very eclectic and definitely isn’t for everyone and that unique writing style is what ultimately did me in. I understand the reason for writing it this way (bouncing between narrators and time) because it caused a sense of disorientation regarding the mystery already surrounding the crime (when Dustin was a teen, his mother, father, aunt, and uncle were murdered and he accused his adopted older brother). Not only did the story bounce rapidly between narrators and between time but often there were sentences left incomplete and particular chapters where text was written in columns and you had to flip back and forth between pages to finish the one column before starting the next which was very difficult on Kindle. I’m not sure if Chaon was going for some House of Leaves-esque formatting or what but it left me so confused in trying to figure out how to read it that I failed to get lost in the story itself.

I didn't really enjoy this one. Kind of slow and a bit on the odd side. (Amazon reviewed).

I was not a fan of this book. I felt it was very jumpy - moving to different character's points of view, but not in a seamless way. I also didn't think that all of the storylines came together - and not in a purposely unresolved way. I have a lot of questions about the book, and the characters, and the mystery, that I just don't think were addressed fully. And though I thought the ending would go in a different direction for a while, I found that while I was slightly surprised by the end result, it wasn't shocking enough to have me care more about these characters or this story, unfortunately.

Very disappointed.  Premise was intriguing but what was delivered failed miserably!

Dustin Tillman is a therapist, a widower, a father, and the childhood survivor of a mysterious mass murder that was attributed to his foster brother.  When his client Aqil – a cop on leave with a strong tendency toward conspiracy theories – gets Tillman questioning his past as well as recent events, things start to fall apart.  Told from the perspectives of the various men (Tillman, his son, his foster brother), this book had an appealing premise but the overly introspective characters were ultimately unlikeable.

Dustin is a psychologist who struggles with his own past. His mother, father, aunt and uncle were all killed one summer when he was a young boy.  His adopted brother, Rusty, was arrested for the crime and has spent 30 years in prison but is now being released based on new DNA results.  Dustin had testified against Rusty at his trial telling of a satanic cult ritual.  To complicate things further for Dustin, his wife, Jill, has cancer, his youngest son, Aaron, is becoming a drug addict and his oldest son, Dennis, is drifting away from them all.  Plus Dustin is becoming pulled in more and more by one of his patient’s obsession that there is a link to the drownings of college boys.

This is one of the most unnerving books I’ve read in a long time. The author is very skilled at giving his reader chills.  His use of the different plot lines kept me unsettled and never knowing what to expect.  He gave the main character, Dustin, a quirk of often not finishing his thoughts.  At first I found it distracting but once I got used to it, it made the book seem very realistic and amplified Dustin’s confusion.  He also sometimes would tell his story from different perspectives which he would place into short columns on the page, which I found to be very effective in keeping me glued to these pages.

This is not only an excellent psychological thriller but is also a complex exploration of the unreliability of memory, self-delusion and self-destructive behavior. The sections dealing with Jill’s cancer and Aaron’s drug addiction are very insightful and moving. But don’t expect a neat ending.  The reader is left to figure out some things on their own but I thought it was pretty clear as to what had happened in the past and the present.  This is an above-average thriller that kept me completely engrossed throughout.  This author is now on a list of “must read past books” for me.

Recommended for those who enjoy a complex psychological thriller that will send chills up your spine.

I thought I was reading a character study with a murder mystery thriller bent. Instead I found myself reading a concept book. I was surprised I didn't have to stand on my head and read in front of a mirror at some point. It's not quite that extreme.

The book flashes to 2 different set of murders. One from the 1980's and the other from 2012-2014. Like any good murder mystery, the crimes themselves are definitely attention grabbers. Unfortunately, unreliable narrators, unfinished thoughts, bizarre plot twists, an anticlimatic conclusion, and other parts of the story just don't help bring the story up to its full potential. I probably would have gotten as much out of the book reading the last chapter as I did reading the entire book itself.

While the book deserves praise for making me want to read on, the direction the author went and how underwhelming it became brings the rating of the book down.