Review: Precious Thing

Title: Precious Thing
Author: Colette McBeth
Genre: Psychological thriller, mystery, adult fiction

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Goodreads Summary:
 I know her inside out.  I know what she’s thinking, I know what she wants. So I can’t give up on her, she knows I never will.
Some friendships fizzle out. Rachel and Clara promised theirs would last forever.
They met in high school when Rachel was the shy, awkward new girl and Clara was the friend everyone wanted. Instantly, they fell under one another’s spell and nothing would be the same again. Now in their late twenties Rachel has the television career, the apartment and the boyfriend, while Clara’s life is spiraling further out of control. Yet despite everything, they remain inextricably bound. Then Rachel’s news editor assigns her to cover a police press conference, and she is shocked when she arrives to learn that the subject is Clara, reported missing. Is it abduction, suicide or something else altogether?
Imagine discovering something about your oldest friend that forces you to question everything you’ve shared together. The truth is always there.  But only if you choose to see it. In Colette McBeth's Precious Thing.

I think comparing this book to Gone Girl is what made me disappointed with it. I thought Gone Girl was phenomenal, so I was expecting something full of unreliable narrators and plot twists and twisted characters. Precious Thing is not nearly so tightly plotted, and the characters are definitely twisted but lack the charisma of Gillian Flynn's. It's not that this is a bad book, it just tries too hard and doesn't deliver.

Rachel is a news anchor, and by a cruel stroke of chance she ends up reporting on the disappearance of someone very close to her - her best friend, Clara. Rachel and Clara have had a very close friendship; the two have grown up together and been so close that they know each other better than anyone else. Or so Rachel believes. As she investigates what happened to her friend, she discovers that there is a lot more to the story than she bargained for.

I usually like stories with unreliable narrators, but with this one I was unclear as to whether Rachel was even supposed to be unreliable. She kept saying things like "No one knows you like I do, Clara" and manipulate her friend, then freak out about how Clara was manipulating her. She insisted "I'm not crazy. You know the truth, Clara" and then did some pretty insane things. I honestly don't know if I'm supposed to question Rachel's judgement so much, because I am seriously questioning her sanity. And her common sense.

The "big twist" and consequent actions (especially the epiloge. don't get me started on that) were so convoluted. It seemed like the author wanted to make some big twisted shocking twist, something that would make me say "WHOA!" but instead made me think "What the hell?" The big twist was just so far-fetched as to be ridiculous instead of shocking, and as I said before, everything was just one big mess.

If you haven't read Gone Girl yet, maybe you'll like this one. But if you've read a bunch of psychological thrillers, skip this one.

*A free copy of this book was provided by the publisher via NetGalley*

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