Death, Grief, Guilt & The Beautiful Welsh Coast

I Let You Go by Clare Mackintosh

A tragic accident.

It all happened so quickly.

She couldn't have prevented it.

Could she?

'I let you go' begins in the aftermath of a hit and run which leaves 5 year old Jacob dead in the road outside of his single mother's house. To begin with the story is told from two different perspectives; a third person perspective of detective inspector Ray Stevens who is in charge of the hit and run investigation and a first person perspective of Jenna Gray who in the aftermath of the accident has moved to a remote cottage on the Welsh coast, eager for a fresh start.

This is going to be one of the most frustrating reviews I have written, and is about one of the most frustrating books that I have ever read. It is going to be extremely difficult to talk about this one without giving away any spoilers due to the story being told in two parts with various big reveals throughout. Even the first few chapters are filled with potential spoilers for those guessing the twists which lay ahead so I will refrain from discussing any specific plot details. I apologise in advance for the vagueness that may lie ahead in this review, I just really don't wish to spoil anything if you decide to give this one a go.

I will be honest, I REALLY didn't like the first half of this book. If it wasn't for the fact that I was planning to write this review I probably would have given up at the predictable reveal which ends part one. Within the first couple of chapters I turned to my better half and described to her exactly where I thought the story was going. I was totally right, in fact I managed to guess the majority of the story from fairly early on and only one detail was missing from my description. Now as I have said previously, I don't really mind guessing the outcome of a story early on if it still manages to entertain me; Unfortunately, part one of this book did anything but entertain me.

I found the characters fairly clichéd. I especially disliked reading the perspective of the police who all seemed very boring two dimensional characters. Every twist could be seen coming from a mile away and I just found it a real slog to get through. I was massively disappointed. This book had been highly recommended and I was really looking forward to it. Perhaps if I hadn't been looking for a potential twist I might not have worked things out so quickly and this may have seemed more exciting and less predictable for me. I guess that is the danger of printing rave reviews over a book cover proclaiming that I was about to read a story with 'an astonishing twist'. When part one came to an end in exactly the way I was expecting I just rolled my eyes, put the book down for the night and contemplated whether or not to even bother reading the second part. I'm glad that I did.

Part two is far closer to the book I was hoping to read. The predictably clichéd characters from part one suddenly got that bit more interesting. The plot started to pick up and began to hold my interest. A new character is introduced and their perspective is a big part of why the second half of this book becomes so compelling. If this review was based off of just part two of this book it would be getting a wonderful write up. I'm aware that stories need to be set up in the beginnings of books, characters need to be introduced and things will usually be less frantic so that the home straight seems that bit more exciting. That said, if I had given up half way through as I was considering then I would never have got to the good stuff. 
In the interest of being fair I will state that my lack of enjoyment from the first half of this book could just be because I saw things coming from so early on. Perhaps my mind works in a similar way to the author and despite their best efforts to shield the truth from the reader I just saw through the red herrings easily and that is why I found it predictable and unenjoyable. There is every chance that you could pick this one up tomorrow and not spot what is coming and be blown away when the reveals happen. My recommendation would be to not think too much, don't try to figure things out, just keep reading and enjoy the reveals when they happen.

I think it would be fairer for me to rate both halves of this book separately. I would give the first part a 2 out of 5, possibly a 3 at a stretch. Having guessed the outcome (and being so sure that I was right) I couldn't buy into the red herrings and the reveals came as no big surprise. With so much being shielded in this first part the characters come across as very simple and fairly clichéd. However as I said there is a real possibility that without guessing the twist, they may seem more interesting to you. The plot may still take you by surprise. Unfortunately, I cannot go back in time and read part one again without trying to work out the twists to see if it makes a difference to the overall enjoyment of this part of the book. I hope if you decide to give this one a go you can put your amateur sleuth skills to bed early and read without trying to guess what is coming.

As for part two, I would rate it as a solid 4 out of 5. The pace picks up considerably, the characters, new and old, are far more interesting and the plot does hold some good twists towards the end. Overall this one was not as good as I had hoped, but even more frustratingly part two showed all the signs of being brilliant, it's a real shame that part one detracted so much from my overall enjoyment. Part two was good enough that I will be keeping a look out for any future novels from Clare Mackintosh as I really think there will be some great books to come. As début novels go this is still a very good starting point and I hope the next book will be as good throughout as the second half of this was. I think we all have those books that are hyped up for a long time and fail to meet our unrealistically lofty expectations, unfortunately this was one of mine.