"This was a 3.5 for me. Unfortunately I've read so many of this type of book that I guessed the twist right away, but it was solid with a great reveal so I enjoyed it playing out nevertheless! It's always hard to know if it's because I follow the usual hints by now, or if a book is simply just too obvious, but the writing was strong in this novel so I'm confident I would have been hoodwinked 😅

The major criticism I have of the book is that the author seems to have some distain/naivety towards the physical changes in women after their 20s; at the start he talks about Chrissy looking in the mirror at her wrinkles, her sagging body, referencing her shockingly wrinkled hands over and over again, so I thought it would be revealed that 50 years had passed & she was now seeing herself in her 70s - no, the woman is 47. Forty seven, and he describes her through wrinkles, age spots and stretchmarks continuously throughout the entire book. It's weird, if the book was written in 1911 I could understand it but it's not entirely accurate to a modern 47 year old woman, I'm genuinely surprised he hadn't given her dentures and a hip replacement 😂 All made odder when halfway through the story he introduces another 47 year old female character as having a toddler... It wouldn't be significant if not that the point is every day she wakes up and has to relearn her aged body & realise she's not in her twenties, meaning readers are endlessly exposed to these descriptions which often come across as bloody insulting tbh. It made me think of 'Hags' by Victoria Smith, once you're past 30 you're off to the nursing home 🙄

ANYWAY other than that I did enjoy the book and the story, I discovered it because I was about to watch the film adaptation then realised it seemed like a film based on a novel, & sure enough so I read it first; now let's see how that craggy old crone Nicole Kidman gets on as Chrissy, despite being so very very old when she played the character, pushing retirement at 44..."