It's unfortunate Pagebound doesn't have a little genre section because I had no idea this was a thriller?? 😭 It's a thriller thriller y'all!!

That mistake is 100% on me though. Somehow I had saw "Yellowface" and had expected something completely different. Even the blurb didn't feel like it would be a thriller. My expectations for this book did not align at all with what this book ended up being. I thought it was going to be somewhat of an experience similar to watching a train crash in slow-motion and only being able to read on in horror. Especially when the summary described it as a 'situation that soon spirals out of control'. I kept waiting for the 'revenge' plots to go awry and to negatively impact the women in their hubris. I kept waiting for things to go out of control. I think the only similarity the book might have with Yellowface is that there is one bad white woman character, and that's ... all I've got. This is why publishers really need to be careful when marketing a book by using other well-known titles. I think this book stands well enough on it's own.

About the book and story as it is-- I think Lai Sanders is a great writer. I think there are weaknesses to the story, but the writing itself was great. There are some quotes I saved that ended up having a double meaning when I looked back on them after finishing the book. Several quotes about society and the expectations placed on us both by our parents and cultural standards had me nodding along like, yes yes.

I felt some of the side quests didn't add much value to the story, while other storylines didn't get enough attention. Of the three people that the two main characters target for revenge (as written in the book summary), one takes up a lot more 'screen time' than the others- and I wish there was more for them. I also thought that the author did a good job touching on current politics in China and props to her for that section, but I didn't see how it added to the story.

The book follows both Shelley's current journey for revenge and also time jumps to parallel-tell the story of Sophia and her fall from grace. While Shelley's parts are written in first person, Sophia's are written in third person omniscient which I believe was the right choice. The author also forces Shelley to confront the people she is exacting her revenge on- she lives right under their noses, in disguise, and really learns what makes them tick. In this, we, as the reader, alongside Shelley, get to decide for ourselves if the 'day where it all went wrong' really defines all the related characters, or if they were just products of their own history. We also decide whether we think the revenge was 'worth it'. I don't think we ever really get a clear picture of what happened on the day that ruined Shelley's life- even though it was such a focal point in the story. Sure, POVs can color the event with biases, but everyone else in the book saw the videos, so why wasn't it made more clear to the reader exactly what had happened?

Ultimately, the book is a journey of two deeply flawed characters and their own selfish desires and darkness' within as they orbit and clash (kiss) and drift away and repeat.