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** spoiler alert ** Honestly I have conflicting impressions on this lol. I put this down after Ch 7 & picked up again after almost a year & put this down again for a few days before finishing it, for the same reason that kept distracting me from a smooth read 'til end : Dialogue tags. And it's the same with Barnes's other books : The Fixer and The Naturals. Never finished either *yet* but sure that when I mean to finish them, I gutta endure the mid-dialogue dialogue tags 😭. The book finally got me hooked since the end of Ch 77. I like it when Avery finally had her attention on what's in front of her, finally lessened tho only a bit, the baseless assumptions she used to make.

POV : Avery's voice (her mind) is also very exhausting to listen to like does she have to have a word / opinion / assumption (esp romantic ughh) on every single thing ?? I'll just skip elaborating this cos the amount of complaints eg. repetitive recalls of lines and phrases etc, is already so much in the other reviews. And yep, this made me doubt if PDB was right in their votes. Because mind like Avery's is obviously a dominant Judger (F/T), not Perceiver (N/S).

[ (This isn't a critic to the book but the votes on PDB) PDB considered her to be INTJ but INTJs aren't the only ones capable of playing chess, or cards, or break rules for reasons that one just wanna be different, whatsoever lol. Just because she's into games doesn't mean she's automatically an INTJ. In fact if we understand it cognitively, I'd type her a very intelligent ISTP. Idk but I see a lot of Ti-Ni in her. I'll put this on Reddit once the adaptation is up, I'm sure there'll be more discussions about this. Yes, there's Ni but I can't say it's Ni-dom. This typing might change though, depending on the progress in Book #2. Cos yeah, as much as possible we avoid making unnecessary problems, and in school we definitely know who holds the Red Pen. But Avery ... her drive is really similar to both Harry Potter and Katniss Everdeen. Or maybe I just find her head too noisy and her romantic fantasies to little gestures annoying lmao ]

Pace : Tbh there's no stagnant scenes, rather there's continuous movement, perfect for film adaptation (and yes series) where things usually escalate even prior Climax.

Clues : Clues aren't that difficult, too. I find them contextual and not your typical analytical / logical clues you see in aptitude tests. The process of figuring out clue connections is probably similar to Holmes but the clues itself aren't of the same type, the latter being what I looked forward to, but I guess Tobias Hawthorne just has different taste. It's also not that difficult to predict the next things to happen, eg. the potential person working with the hitman, among others. So yeah, if you're a real player of board games, or a logic / intuitive math enthusiast, you'll find the clues elementary.

Writing : The writing that never gets old, always the trend, never out of market --- is really EXCELLENT. It somewhat sounds like one being caffeine-overdosed (yes sometimes it's really energy-draining & surely because of the dialogue tags ughh) but otherwise it's not dull. Tho sometimes Avery's babbly mind distracts the thrill eg. the gunshot, the car chase, eventually making the scene rather a recollection of events. I see some people market this as thriller. For the most part it's basically mystery indeed, not much of a thriller.

Cliffhanger : I see some reviews that there's no foreshadows hinting about this, that this might be an afterthought so my take on this is probably the man's having some sort of amnesia or any related memory lapse case or he meant to stay low key whether as agreement with Avery's mom or a way of compensation of some sort, or Avery's world being the man's temporary literal / figurative shelter ? 🤔 (Idk when I can read Book 2 lol) Nonetheless, there's just vast reasons why this book is really good so yeah I can compromise this part.

Rating : 5/5 From Chap 77 to Epilogue [ It's the ending that leaves a lasting impression so I'm rating this book based on that haha ]