Review: The Warning

The Warning by Kathryn Croft
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Once again, I appear to be in the (very) small minority of people who just didn’t enjoy this book. I’m not going to spend a great deal of time trying to convince you that it’s a “bad” read—it’s not. It just wasn’t a read for ME.

First, the main plot is relatively cut and dry. Zoe and Jake have two sons, Ethan and Harley. The reader learns that three years prior to the start of the story, 14 year old Ethan and a friend, Josh, both drown after sneaking out late at night and making their way to the nearby river. Police ruled their deaths accidental. When the book opens, Zoe and Jake are still trying to find their way out of the darkness of grief that consumes them. Zoe, however, begins getting text messages from an unknown sender—messages that suggest Ethan’s death may not have been an accident. She sets out to discover the tuth, though the cost may be more than she bargained for.

In spite of the promising plot, there are a number of reasons I only gave this one three stars:

1. The structure is actually three-fold, which makes the entire work feel messy and disconnected—a series of chapters told in first person from an anonymous writer (in italics); another series written by Zoe, also in first person; then the remaining chapters, written in third person.

2. Extraneous subplots are, well....extraneous! For example, Cara, who works with Jake, is trying to seduce him. He rebuffs her, at which time she tries to (unsuccessfully) convince Zoe that he raped her. Entire pages are dedicated to detailing Cara’s attempts, yet those pages add nothing to the story itself. Other subplots were, I suppose, meant to be red herrings, but their resolutions just felt contrived.

3. The big reveal is a huge letdown and introduces characters that the reader has no idea even existed. There is NO way to puzzle this one out because the reader is never given all of the relevant details.

The writing itself is solid in construction, though there were numerous punctuation errors. This may be a Kindle issue, but if that’s the case, the electronic version should have been more closely vetted.

Overall, above average writing with an average plot and a substandard conclusion.

View all my reviews