Someone Knows – Lisa Scottoline

From the New York Times-bestselling author comes a pulse-pounding domestic thriller about a group of friends who have been bound for twenty years by a single secret—and will now be undone by it. Someone Knows is an emotional exploration of friendship and family, as well as a psychological exploration of guilt and memory.

Twenty years ago, in an upscale suburb of Philadelphia, four teenagers spent a summer as closest friends: drinking, sharing secrets, testing boundaries. When a new boy looked to join them, they decided to pull a prank on him, convincing him to play Russian roulette as an initiation into their group. They secretly planned to leave the gun unloaded—but what happened next would change each of them forever.

Now three of the four reunite for the first time since that horrible summer. The guilt—and the lingering question about who loaded the gun—drove them apart. But after one of the group apparently commits suicide with a gun, their old secrets come roaring back. One of them is going to figure out if the new suicide is what it seems, and if it connects to the events of that long-ago summer. Someone knows exactly what happened—but who? And how far will they go to keep their secrets buried?

This was my first Lisa Scottoline book, receiving it from the publisher as a review option. I decided to give it a try because I’ve been expanding my reading into more adult (vs YA) reads lately and mysteries/thrillers are definitely one of the places I expand to first! I’ve always been a big mystery/thriller reader and this one piqued my interest.

SOMEONE KNOWS had some interesting points but really, it just felt entirely too long. The book is about a secret that a group of friends (or I guess part of the point is that they’re all not really friends) has been keeping since they were fifteen and how it’s still affecting them as adults, or that’s how the synopsis reads. Really the book is split into two parts: a before, detailing the lives of the teens leading up to the secret, the secret itself, and part of it immediately after; and a “20 years later” which catches up with this group in their adult life. The first half was wholly dedicated to the kids as teens, which I don’t mind since I read YA all the time, but it was not at all what I was expecting and I don’t feel like that was the best way to structure this novel, or at least it felt too separate for my particular tastes. I had really expected this to focus much more on the adult lives of everyone, getting some more thriller aspects in there with how the secret haunted each person and who might spill the beans, MAYBE even keeping us in suspense of what this secret was. The beginning of the book does reveal it pretty quickly so that ended up not being a secret to the readers, although we did have to wait to see exactly how it happened and why.

What bothered me is that 60% of the book was dedicated to this “before” and we got the whole chunk of it all at once. The story was told chronically, which was fine, but I just felt like the “before” lasted way too long. There were a lot of different POVs which doesn’t bother me, but I did feel like a lot of them weren’t really necessary. I’m not even sure that all of the POVs of the main characters involved in this secret were even necessary with the way that the book was written. I can take or leave flashbacks but I think this book could have benefitted from either flashing back to the “before” throughout the book or even just having the characters reveal things throughout the book through plot and dialogue and not even having the whole “before”. It was far too much and far too long for my taste. It did add character development buuuuuut these characters really weren’t that deep for the most part anyway (are most 15-year-olds? Nah.) so it just felt like the focus was in the wrong place for me.

The “after” was okay… some things were messed up. Some things provided an interesting thrill. Mostly, it felt a little anticlimactic. I was hoping for some more natural suspense throughout the whole book and the beginning felt like far too much set-up with the ending trying to jam-pack in the excitement and curiosities.

I wasn’t really satisfied with this one and it didn’t really do a lot for me, but it was still a fine read. I still was engaged the whole time and got to know the characters, so it was pretty middle-of-the-road for me! I’m not sure if I’d directly recommend reading it but I also wouldn’t discourage anyone from reading it either…

Kept Me Hooked On: Adult thrillers. I’ve been stepping out of my normal reads to try some new books! I’ve been having a great time expanding into adult mysteries and thrillers for a nice change of pace from YA.
Left Me Wanting More: Or really less… Instead of wanting more, I wanted a little less here. I didn’t think the beginning of the book was really necessary for it to be on its own. I wish the backstory would have been more woven in instead of a block of Before and a block of After.

Addiction Rating
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While I wasn’t head-over-heels for this one, I also wouldn’t discourage someone from reading it either. It has its twists but I didn’t love the format and structure of the book, but that may not be the case for everyone!