This Book Might Not Be Worth Reading
This Story Might Save Your Life by Tiffany Crum
Pages: 357 Genre: mystery/thriller, romance
Rating: 1.5 Star
Benny Abbott and Joy Moore host an incredibly successful comedy-survival podcast, "This Story Might Save Your Life." Managed by Joy's husband, Xander, they have managed to build a creative empire together. One morning, when Benny arrives to record, both Joy and Xander are missing. Benny — with his ex-wife, Joy's sister-in-law, and Benny's own sister — is desperate to find information to explain where the two may have gone, especially once it becomes clear that the police are looking at Benny as their key suspect.
I tend to go into books pretty blind these days. I'll usually read the Libby or Goodreads summary once or twice, request it from the library, and then in 2+ weeks once I get it off hold, I jump right in. That's what I did with this book, anyway. I remembered the whole podcast setup and the fact that it was one host looking for the other, but that was it. Had I looked closer, I maybe would've skipped this book. At least Libby highlighted that it does fall into the romance genre — you'd never know from the Goodreads description, and that was the driving force of the book. Besides the hidden genre, I found the book to be a poor mystery with lackluster characters and a predictable plot that tried so hard and managed to say nothing.
This book is basically just four romance tropes in a trench coat pretending to be a thriller. Every chapter tries to end with a cliffhanger, and both POVs (although usually Benny) loved to say things like, "And then I understood what was missing," while never actually explaining anything, and yes, there is a mystery that is not technically solved until the very end. But this book should've been a literary fiction/romance/book club lit book, not a thriller, because none of that was effective storytelling. It was copying the idea of a thriller mystery without actually delivering on expectations of the genre.
You know what genre points this book did try to hit? Romance. The whole book is about how they're "best friends" who are not romantic and have never been and never will be except they're clearly in love with each other and have been the whole time. And don't you dare complain about me spoiling the book for you, it's vaguely listed as a romance, it's obvious from the first few chapters, and everyone knows boys and girls cannot be friends (eugh). I hate this trope, because it feels like fabricated drama. Just get over yourselves. This isn't engaging or sweet to me, it's obnoxious. I'll go so far as to say that this book would've been phenomenal if almost everything was the same but these two were genuinely best friends. Or if there was a real reason why they couldn't be together. Dare I say, this book could've also benefitted from being gay, because it could explain some of the hesitancy from at least one of them outside of "the book ends if we actually start dating like we want to."
Maybe I'm being unfair. Part of the problem is that I found every character to be horrible, boring, or horribly boring. Luna was the only decent character. Quinn and Sara weren't people, just supporters for Benny's arc. Not that he had much of one anyway. Benny himself was insufferable to me, although I think that's a fairly unpopular opinion. He was weirdly aggressive, and while I recognize that was part of his character personality, it wasn't done well. I could never tell if it was a scenario of "violence and aggression is attractive so long as it's directed at The Bad People" or if it was the author failing to understand how obnoxious it is when people act a certain way repeatedly while constantly insisting "it's not ME! I don't want to be this person!!"
I digress. Joy was the more interesting character, but I found her dull and clueless in the way that only poorly-written mystery female protagonists tend to be. I do want to be fair and point out that — for reasons I will not get into due to being spoilers — some of her "annoying" moments were actually fueled by genuine narrative reasons that I did find justified. But overall, she was nothing of a character. An idea packed into the quirky millennial romance-protect that was stolen from her rightful genre and put through the ringer. Everything in her life just happens to her, except for when she needs to get involved for plot reasons. She only ever seems to care about herself. I just didn't really care about her.
The most annoying thing was the podcast. This book wanted me to find these characters hilarious so badly, and I just didn't. It's a common issue with characters that are meant to be super smart or really good writers or amazing lyricists. I believe that they find themselves funny. I do not agree that they are funny, nor do I believe that enough people would find them funny for them to almost instantly have the number one podcast. But more importantly, the whole podcast was irrelevant. In a story where a character is in a survival situation, you'd think their experience on a podcast called "This Story Might Save Your Life" would influence their decisions. Nope! Not at all. Just another quirky millennial backdrop with Joy's entire personality.
I have a theory. This book was written to be adapted as a TV show or a movie. Probably a TV show so that the episodes can be titled, "I Survived [Something]," for branded reasons. There were multiple passages where I felt like I could see the camera moving around the scene, and not because it was particularly cinematic. It felt like it was more important to make a good setup for a script than to make a good book. The pacing was atrocious, the writing was cliche and unimpressive, and any messaging included was entirely hollow.
It was also wildly predictable. I knew how it would end from the very start. Apparently it was just me, though. The characters continued to be surprised by what was effectively the exact same reveal at multiple points throughout the plot. This was not for a lack of trying from the book, though, as it really tries to hold things back with no narrative excuse outside of just not telling me.
This book was neither a good mystery/thriller nor a good romance, which left it feeling identity-less and shallow, especially given the strong moral messaging it tried to have. Maybe I need to vet my books more before I read them. Maybe books should be better written! Who's to say, really.
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