Review: Black Out

Black Out by Lisa Unger
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Month Read In: April 2022

Challenge: 

N/A

Methodology: Borrowed Physical Book from Friend, Audiobook read by Ann Marie Lee, via Audible

Genre- Thriller/Suspense: Psychological

This book was a straight up doozy. A colleague recommended and loaned me her copy September 2021. Due to not being able to sit and read a physical book very well anymore, I gave it back after just two pages read after several months. In February 2022 I started my Audible membership and with it picked up this title with my March credit. Started listening on March 19th, finishing on April 24th. I had a rough and emotional March, finishing no books. It was my first birthday without my father, among other emotional hurdles.

With that background recorded for posterity, to the review.

This. Straight. Triggered. Me.

At about 30%, Annie was recalling some of her time with her mother and soon to be/step brother with whom she was 'in love with', as they awaited his father's release from prison. As the recollections continued throughout the story, it was harder and harder for me to breathe. Neglect. Emotional Abuse. Mental Abuse. Fear as a control tactic. Psychological nightmare. What the heck was I reading? There were parts of it that felt straight out of my own childhood and previous relationships, making me realize that my damage could have been far, far worse.

By this point I was stubborn. Not only was it a recommendation from a trusted source, but I'm on the hunt for female thriller writers. It's still not the type of thriller I prefer, Indiana Jones type, but I was looking for any kind of spark that would bring me a smidge of joy. So here's some scathing thoughts:

Characters: 3 (Not enough to enjoy.)
First Person Omniscient? Really? I hated that Annie knew what happened when she wasn't around as though she's telling a story after the fact, but in present tense. These were also not events that she should have known about, nor did anyone tell her these events after the fact. But that brings us to Atmosphere...

Atmosphere: 4 (Bad outweighs the good.)
I hear that the physical copy of the book makes a much clearer distinction between the timelines than the audiobook. Keeping the three timelines straight with the audiobook on Audible, narrated by Ann Marie Lee, was nearly impossible until later in the book when they started to coalesce into a singular point in time.

Writing: 3 (Not enough to enjoy.)
The writing was so vague and yet at the same time so overdetailed that I lost track of where and what things were. The advantage of this story was that it is set in our reality and in the real world. That allowed the story to be character driven and the modern, real world didn't need much explaining.

Plot: 5 (Mediocre.)
The plot was hard to keep up with due to the aforementioned three timelines. It starts out with Annie on a boat, on the run, talking about how her mother named her Ophelia. There is another timeline with her husband and daughter that covers events leading up to faking her death and going on the run. Finally, there are flashback like scenes/timeline about her teen years before she became Annie with her first faked death.

All of the timelines are told in the present tense, with little to no warning in the audiobook version when the switches happen. In order to determine which timeline you are listening to, you have to take into consideration the locations or the side characters to tell you when Annie is. The unfortunate part of this style is that it is told in first person, so it's always I and doesn't always get around to additional clues until two or three sentences into the scene. Truly disorientating.

Intrigue: 3 (Not enough to enjoy.)
I'm going to be honest. The only reason I was continually intrigued had nothing to do with the story. I literally wanted to see why my coworker liked the book so much and recommended it to me.

Logic: 6 (Good things prevail.)
I 'rewound' sections to hear something again so much that it took much longer to get through it than it should have. So why do I rate this category higher than the rest? As the timelines converged into revealing the important details as to why she was in her predicament, it started to come together. In the beginning though, context for actions and behaviors were glaringly absent, which was what made it a psychological thriller. Again, with those trigger points, this isn't for me.

Enjoyment: 4 (Bad outweighs the good.)
Don't get me wrong, I'm glad I stuck it out. In the end, the psychological thriller aspect was a tool the author used to show just how strong a person Annie really was, even when she herself didn't think so. Getting to the point where everything started to make sense was really rough though. I don't like getting 79% through a book and still having no clue what is going on.

Like I said earlier, I was stubborn and wanted to finish. This year my reading goal is not about completing every challenge or reading a specific number of books. My goal is to read outside my comfort zone and expose myself to what else is out there rather than sticking in the same old fantasy & mystery rut. If I'd picked this one up on my own, I would have DNF'd at 30% when I was so heavily and painfully triggered by my past.

All that to say that I found another of Unger's books during my genre & theme dives and while I didn't necessarily enjoy this one, it doesn't mean I won't like any of her work. The CAWPILE system brought the average rating to a 4.0, equaling a high end 2.5 stars, rounding this rating up to 3 stars.

To be clear: It is not a bad book. It just wasn't my kind of book.

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