With her debut in "One of Us is Lying", Karen continues her book fame with "Two Can Keep a Secret". Here is an review of the novel.
Title of Podcast: Sunday Book Reviews
Book: Two can keep a secret (By Karen M. McManus)
Host: Ruth W.
SCRIPT:
Welcome to your favorite daily book review podcast! I’m Ruth and today we will be discussing the book you probably have heard everywhere; Two can keep a secret by Karen M. McManus. What are its ups and downs? Why is it so popular?
Starting with the beginning. The book starts off with the main characters, Ezra and Ellory, in an airport. This interested me because as a reader, we wonder, like, what is going on? Are they moving? Did something happen and that’s why they're flying somewhere else? We get hints fast, such as the book revealing that something DID happen to their family, so that’s why their nana picked them up from the airport talking about their mother in rehab, that Ellory is a true crime addict, which makes sense because you know, this book is based off a murder.
The setting is also in a small town, which makes the storyline more interesting since the people there tend to pass rumors around very quickly, it helps to give the twins, Ezra and Ellory, more clues later on. Small towns also give us readers less unnecessary characters and settings.
Though that gave me some troubles reading the novel, because I noticed some unnecessary things the author put, such as dumping bloody meat on a car as a prank, and hosting an important school assembly in a horror park.
I just feel like everything’s too horror related, even though I did like that it connected to hints or clues made by accomplices. The notes were also very confusing, such as writing “Murderland, part 2, told you so.” as graffiti on a wall when it timed perfectly with shocking things that happened, even though the person who did write the graffiti had no connection whatsoever to the actual murderer. Seems a bit off, right?
I also felt like the author wrote too many character POV’s, which was their point of view. It confused me as a reader since there were way too many independent things that happened in each of the characters' lives. Also, Mia, who was one of the twins closest friends, had big impacts. But she was kind of cut off near the end of the book, even when she could be inserted to make everything more well - planned.
Although with everything that could’ve been better, the climax had me nervous, slightly tense, and quite shocked. Compared to my other book review, which was “People Like Us”, this book was slightly disappointing. But the author did write nicely and the ending was really dramatic. Overall I give it 2 and a half stars.
Karen M. McManus continues in her book series with One of Us is Next, which also seems like a big hit, so make sure to check that out.
And with that, we will wrap up our book review. Thank you for listening, don’t forget to check every Sunday for a new episode!
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