Book Review: The Passenger

Title: The Passenger
Author: Lisa Lutz
Rating: 3/5 Stars
Series: N/A

...My head hurts. There was just so much going on in this book that I'm not even sure where to begin. Not to mention that I did not take notes when reading this about stuff I liked/didn't like (BIG mistake) and so now I'm not even sure what time zone I am in. And this, fellow readers, is why you do not decide to read an entire book between information sessions. Because the brain just cannot handle that type of commitment.

We are introduced to Tanya Dubois at the same time we are introduced to her now-dead husband, Frank. Who she definitely didn't kill, as she repeatedly assures us (I just met you, I don't trust you. We aren't there yet), but she's going to go on the run anyway because she doesn't want the police to look too closely into her background. What follows next is a whirlwind of action complete with murder, sneaking around, breaking-and-entering, and a possible bomb plot (?). Holy crud there was a TON crammed into this little book. I know on Goodreads it says 320 pages but I make the writing super tiny on my phone because my vision is awful anyway why not just ruin it completely, so it was only like 250 for me? And there was a ton going on.

If you've read any of my other reviews you probably know that I tend to like slower, longer books. I just need more processing time than the average reader, even though I read super fast IDK it's weird just ignore me. Anyway, this book was a little hard for me just because it was so fast, but that's kind of the point of the thriller-type genre so putting my obvious bias aside this book was really good! I was interested in the characters (and confused as heck because I can barely keep one name straight for one person much less like 20), I was super shocked by the ending (like what the heck that is so messed up) and Blue was obviously my favorite character in all of ever in this book. She was like some kick-ass guardian angel/vengeful angel/manipulator person and man I liked her more than I liked the main character!

As someone who is not super into the whole thriller thing because I like sleep and being able to have a brain process without inadvertently missing a million things in a book, this was a pretty good read! Obviously I read it really fast, and every time I had to put it down for the next session I was really sad because I wanted to know what happened! The only major complaint I had besides the whole confusion-factor was kinda the plot twist at the end, I have a hard time believing that [insert character here] was able to manipulate THAT many people in order to cover something like that up and then one day everyone just decides to be like "actually..." because let's be real that's stretching it jussstt a little bit. I did, however, really like the whole identity-shopping thing, not necessarily the act because stalking funeral homes is creepy but just because the process of doing it was so elaborate and so complex that it really made you realize what great lengths Tanya was going to in order to hide. Like that's dedication.

Side/late note: the emails were a pretty cool break from the action although it took me AGES to figure out who Jo was like man I REALLY should have taken notes.

In short: I would definitely recommend this. There's a ton of action, it's interesting, and the plot never stops twisting! The only reason it got 3 stars instead of 4 was just because of how confused I got but let's be honest here I get confused easily. Ask me what day and month it is randomly and unless it's a major holiday or a special day will I have any idea? Nooope.

Read this review on Goodreads.