The Likeness

The Likeness by Tana French
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Even though this started with a crazy and nearly unbelievable premise, I found myself liking the book and trying to get to the bottom of the mystery. I thought I knew who had committed the crime, and at the end of the book, I was pretty much right with my first thought, but it didn't bother me because there were enough questions surrounding alternate suspects... and there really wasn't a clearly-defined resolution because there were still questions remaining.

I like books like this where someone is drawn into an odd friendship, and the process shows more about their character as the relationship(s) unfold. Especially when there is such a high level of dysfunction. LOL.

On a whole different level, there was a wonderful moment in the book when Daniel is talking to Lexie, and it is something that I've been thinking a lot about lately. About fear. And how it controls us on so many levels...

Daniel said, "Part of the debtor mentality is a constant, frantically suppressed undercurrent of terror. We have one of the highest debt-to-income ratios in the world, and apparently most of us are two paychecks from the street. Those in power -- governments, employers -- exploit this, to great effect. Frightened people are obedient -- not just physically, but intellectually and emotionally. If your employer tells you to work overtime, and you know that refusing could jeopardize everything you have, then not only do you work the overtime, but you convince yourself that you're doing it voluntarily, out of loyalty to the company; because the alternative is to acknowledge that you are living in terror. Before you know it, you've persuaded yourself that you have a profound emotional attachment to some vast multinational corporation: you've indentured not just your working hours, but your entire thought process."

And this is what happens here in the US, probably even more so than what happens in Ireland. We're also indentured to "stuff" and commercialism... and fear of others... don't even get me started on that.

I'll be interested in reading her other books, especially now that I'm over the language differences. Hahaha.

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