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(This book was kindly provided to me by NetGalley.com)

UPDATED REVIEW

This book started out well, for a first time author. A bit uneven, and some irritating first-person italic pages. Ultimately very disappointing.

We start with an awful slaughter, and find that Aaron has the terrible murder of a girl he loved in his past. You see how deeply crippled Aaron has been since Ellie's murder.

The first half of the book is slow, and the mystery seems pretty good, but there is precious little detection going on. This is more like a soap opera with the horrific murders set to just prop up the interest. The townspeople are pretty clichéd and one-dimensional.

After halfway, the whole thing comes apart, and slows to a dull, confusing crawl. Each tiny event is discussed again and again, and more soapy dialogue. Lots of red herrings thrown in which seem to be added just for that purpose, and don't really develop any characters.

After about 2/3, I was skimming page after page of italics, and finding very little to hold my attention.

And the italics happen more and more often, for longer and longer periods, and you just Don't Care.

You know that bad things have happened in the past in the book, very repulsive things, heartbreaking things. For the rest of your life, you know when you see it.

Overall, you eventually don't care about most of the characters, except Ellie.

So many characters are so very unpleasant. You only want to know the 3 answers of who-dunnit Ellie, who-dunnit-slaughter, and does the hero get the girl in the end. There's no real hero or detective work to speak of, just stumbling around in fear and pain.

Pain here, that I could not face before:
(view spoiler)[Ellie's end is truly heartbreaking, painful in a way that hits you hard, especially if you once tried and failed to save someone. Tried to save an abused child, and failed. A part of you dies, too (hide spoiler)]

It's quite astounding so many people love this book. I just can't see it. Ugh.

Notes -
1.0% "... first time author, first chapter, not bad!"

26.0% ".... slowly,sadly, you can feel The Dry killing the town and its people. Heard, unyielding and without hope"

31.0% "... Aaron standing in the dry river bed... "Alone, in that monstrous wound, Falk put his face in his hands and, just once, screamed himself.""

33.0% "... not sure why the italics of memories come and go. Some memories are plain text, some italic."

35.0% "... Falk is pretty wimpy and confused for a series hero."

48.0% ".... serious pacing problems here. First-time author, but frustratingly slow"

58.0% ".... this book s a 200 page novella stretched to 352 pages. Going to be skimming soon."

70.0% "Skimming now. Repetitive, dull, so much fluff. So little of any import. I can't believe this got so many 5-star reviews. The characters in the town are caricature clichés, the "hero" is guilt plagued on almost every page, it's clear what was going on when he was young with Ellie et al. And I suspect there is some truly repulsive history that’s going to "surprise us" near the end. Ugh."