Book: A Simple Favor

 

    I am glad that this book has "simple" in the title because the only way I can describe this book is simple! As in written about and possibly for simpletons.

    The book begins with Blogger-mom Stephanie talking about her best friend, Emily, and her recent disappearance. So, Stephanie is asking the "Mom community" to help her find Emily and to keep their eyes open. As the story progresses Stephanie takes care of Emily's son Nicky and helps Emily's husband Sean. The first-person narration is shared between Stephanie, Emily, and Sean.

    Without spoiling it for anyone who wants to read it I'll say this: Stephanie is so gullible to the point that it infuriated me. Emily is presented as highly intelligent but only seems that way because every other character in the book is dense, and Sean is spineless and selfish.

    I found the premise of the book interesting: Blogger mom in the middle of a mystery thriller trying to find her best friend. But Stephanie believes Emily's every word even though she has zero grounds to. Stephanie also feels super guilty for her past misdeeds which is why she tries so hard to overcompensate and be the "perfect mom", at best it's annoying but usually it's overbearing and nauseating. Sean is there to basically add a bit of conflict and be duped to make Emily look smart.

Now for the Spoilers:

    Stephanie is racked with guilt for sleeping with her half-brother way back when and cheating on her husband. (Also she's pretty sure her half-brother is the father of her child, Miles) I'm not sure why this is in the book, I guess to make things interesting or give Stephanie depth or personality but it does neither in my opinion. It just makes her an incestuous adulterer with no personality or intelligence.

    Sean is convinced his wife is dead. Stephanie helps him out with Nicky (his son) and is always there and eager to please. So, he starts a relationship with her because it's easy and she apparently has nothing better to do.

    Emily just wants to have a bunch of money without needing to work as much and comes up with a plan to fake her death to cash in on her life insurance policy. This plan was discussed with Sean, but it works a little too well and he really believes that she's dead. Emily comes back of course and is really upset with Stephanie and Sean and confronts them individually about it. Stephanie being the doormat that she is immediately apologizes and promises to help her friend even though Emily has done nothing but lie to Stephanie since the day they met. Emily comes up with a back-up plan to frame Sean for everything and Stephanie helps her even though it puts everything that Stephanie values at risk.

    The book ends with the police about to question Stephanie about the mysterious disappearance of a man whose body she helped hide while Emily packs a bag.

My thoughts:

    Whatever happens to Stephanie in the unwritten Epilogue she deserves, because anyone in charge of a child who is this irresponsible deserves bad things to happen to them. She spends most of the book worrying about Miles but when a person whose done nothing but lie to her the entire book says help me get rid of a body and don't worry about gloves comes along she happily forgets to think about the consequences. I'm not trying to say that mothers are perfect people however this book sends the message that stay-at-home moms are idiotic and that working moms are selfish at best and monsters at worst. So, if this was supposed to be a feminist book, I genuinely feel it’s the opposite no one looks good here, except maybe the kids.

    Emily has the decency to have a personality, but I still don't like her because there's this whole chapter where she narrates the death of her sister. Does she directly kill her sister, no. But she doesn't help her either and all Emily does is justify her inaction by claiming there was nothing she could have done. Take responsibility for what you didn't do Emily! Trying to get me on your side is only aggravating me. If Emily would have straight out shot, her sister but owned up to it I could at least respect her but this "it's not really my fault" thing is exasperating.

    Also I would like to know if this author has something against using a thesaurus. The amount of times I heard the word said was not only exhausting it made me go crazy! Also if any of the characters were horney they would describe something as hot and that was it. Seriously! None of the characters have a different vernacular? Everything is only "hot"when their horney? I just don't enjoy any part of this book beyond its premise.

 

This book gets 0 out of 5 stars from me; that's how much I hate it! I wish I could get the 8 hours back that it took to listen to the audiobook. 

https://www.amazon.de/-/en/dp/B06WW4CYMZ/ref=tmm_aud_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1600605949&sr=8-6

Kat K out