Every Last Lie – Mary Kubica

Title: Every Last Lie by Mary Kubica
Publishing Info: June 27, 2017 by HarperCollins, HarperTeen
Source: Scribd
Genres: Adult, Mystery/Thriller
Date Completed: March 7, 2019
Find it on the web: Buy from Amazon // Goodreads
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Clara Solberg's world shatters when her husband and their four-year-old daughter are in a car crash, killing Nick while Maisie is remarkably unharmed. The crash is ruled an accident…until the coming days, when Maisie starts having night terrors that make Clara question what really happened on that fateful afternoon.

Tormented by grief and her obsession that Nick's death was far more than just an accident, Clara is plunged into a desperate hunt for the truth. Who would have wanted Nick dead? And, more important, why? Clara will stop at nothing to find out—and the truth is only the beginning of this twisted tale of secrets and deceit.

Told in the alternating perspectives of Clara's investigation and Nick's last months leading up to the crash, master of suspense Mary Kubica weaves her most chilling thriller to date—one that explores the dark recesses of a mind plagued by grief and shows that some secrets might be better left buried.

Okay, so firstly, this book gets an extra bump from me just for being in my neighborhood, essentially. I was trying to pick up on all of the landmarks mentioned because the street where the accident happened (Harvey Rd and its 90 degree turn) sounded reeeeally familiar to me. Turns out that I finally narrowed it down thanks to a park mention and an intersection and this book takes place in the Plainfield/Oswego/Naperville area which happens to be right in my neck of the woods! It was really fun to actually be able to identify with the setting because usually the closest I get is Chicago proper or if a book is in the suburbs, usually it’s a fake suburb or has fake landmarks, so that was really fun!

I was actually more engaged with EVERY LAST LIE than I was with a lot of Mary Kubica’s books. Sometimes the main characters get a little too hard to follow but I really liked that EVERY LAST LIE wasn’t too dramatic (well, until the end) and it was a simple case of following up on some loose ends and curious happenings of the husband’s death. I liked following a character who was sane but grieving instead of someone who was on the breaking point, like some of the other Mary Kubica characters. Clara obviously had her moments of hardship and she sort of started to unravel at the end, but I liked that this was more thriller and solving a mystery than dipping into the psychological thriller and having a more unreliable narrator.

I didn’t really love the ending but I also didn’t hate it. I liked that things didn’t get TOO crazy but there was also something that wasn’t quite satisfying about it. Thriller endings are so hard sometimes because I can never tell how I “want” it to end. When they’re not crazy enough, it doesn’t feel like enough and sometimes they’re too crazy and I wanted more of the normal. I did like where this story went and it didn’t go too far off the rails but there was still just something I was missing.

Kept Me Hooked On: Familiar places! I’ll admit — it’s easy to get hooked on a book when I’m familiar with the setting. This was a real-life place where I’ve been before and it was that much more interesting picturing this book taking place there!
Left Me Wanting More: Book connection. I guess aside from the location connection, I didn’t feel as much as I wanted to with the main characters or the plot. It’s been a while since I read this (took me a while to write a formal review) and I can’t even really remember what happened.

Addiction Rating
Try it

I kept reading Mary Kubica books but really I haven’t quite loved any of them. I do like the local location so that’s definitely fun but if you like thrillers, she’s still a pretty popular author so I’d say they’re worth the try, in any publication order, really.