Tag Archives: Atria Books

Book Review: The Elizas by Sara Shepard

Atria Books
TBP April 17 2018
352

When debut novelist Eliza Fontaine is found at the bottom of a hotel pool, her family at first assumes that it’s just another failed suicide attempt. But Eliza swears she was pushed, and her rescuer is the only witness.

Desperate to find out who attacked her, Eliza takes it upon herself to investigate. But as the publication date for her novel draws closer, Eliza finds more questions than answers. Like why are her editor, agent, and family mixing up events from her novel with events from her life? Her novel is completely fictional, isn’t it?

The deeper Eliza goes into her investigation while struggling with memory loss, the closer her life starts to resemble her novel until the line between reality and fiction starts to blur and she can no longer tell where her protagonist’s life ends and hers begins.- Goodreads

This is the first book I’ve read by Sara Shepard. The Pretty Little Liars series at the time didn’t peak my interest. However, after reading this I may give it a shot. The Elizas is Shepard’s first adult book and you can really tell that while reading this.

I had a hard time reading this because Eliza was uninteresting and a brat. What I was more interested in was the story Eliza had written even though it tied in really well with the main story, I was captivated by Dots (what it is called). However, it was real obvious what the author was doing with that story and that was extremely unfortunate. The thing that made the Dots story more interesting than the main story was because Dot was a more like-able character. Eliza has some issues, not only trust issues but issues with herself that she works out throughout the book. But she is missing the base in her voice, for a lack of better term. Every time she spoke, it came off like ‘wow I have to do this on my own because no one believes me…well that’s great.’

I wanted more personality from Eliza. Something else other than her illness and what happened to her. Some form of connection was missing and when I finished the book, I wanted that.

The overall plot was slower than I expected but I do give Shepard credit for creativity. Despite the predictability earlier in the book, how she ties everything together makes a lot of sense and it shows that Shepard can pull some twists and turns. I was impressed and that is why I want to read Pretty Little Liars now.

Overall, this wasn’t a bad read. But isn’t something that I would read again but I do know a few people that would enjoy this book that is why I would recommend it.

2 Pickles