The Promise by Claire Highton-Stevenson

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


I realize that I’m way off from the vast majority of the other reviews I’ve seen but I had so many issues with this book that I couldn’t rate it any higher.

First and foremost were the constant head-hopping (moving from one character’s POV to the next to the next, etc within a scene with no break or warning whatsoever) and essentially using eye and hair color as pronouns. There was also no background info that I remember about any of the characters and they really did feel flat to me. I mean, besides the crushing grief of Susan dying, I didn’t have anything else to connect to the characters with.

The conversations that were revealed in the second half of the book that took place between Blair and Susan regarding Ali felt super creepy and gross to me. I had a tough time imagining Susan and Blair checking Ali out together. I understand what the author was trying to do and I get it but the execution didn’t work for me at all. Really, I’d have to say that very little worked for me from the beginning right up until the unnecessary misunderstanding and refusal to communicate at the very end.

I’m very glad that so many people loved this book but it was definitely not for me. The only reason I finished it was because I got a free copy of the audiobook from Audiobooks Unleashed and felt an obligation to post a review.