Hi Everyone,

Hope you’re all enjoying your weekend so far. I’ve had a busy morning but not actually achieved much of anything. I’m planning on writing up this review and then getting myself into Cardiff for a little but of shopping. Fingers crossed I can find some goodies and who knows if I’ll end up coming back with any books.

Book 📖

Thank you to @faberbooks for an advanced copy of The Other Half by @vassellcharlotte in return for an honest review. The Other Half was published on 19th January 2023 and you can get a copy here.

Description 🔖

The night before
Rupert’s 30th is a black tie dinner at the Kentish Town McDonald’s – catered with cocaine and Veuve Clicquot.
The morning after
His girlfriend Clemmie is found murdered on Hampstead Heath. All the party-goers have alibis. Naturally.

This investigation is going to be about Classics degrees and aristocrats, Instagram influencers and who knows who. Or is it whom? Detective Caius Beauchamp isn’t sure. He’s sharply dressed, smart, and as into self-improvement as Clemmie – but as he searches for the dark truth beneath the luxury, a wall of staggering wealth threatens to shut down his investigation before it’s begun.

Can he see through the tangled set of relationships in which the other half live, and die, before the case is taken out of his hands?

General Thoughts 🤔

I was missing some thriller in my life and so I was drawn to pick this book up next. I enjoyed it a lot; the story was gripping and interesting, there were some awesome twists and turns the characters were brilliantly aggravating. I was expecting a little more “thriller” in the story than what I got, but I was ok with that as once I had started, I was hooked on the plot, and the characters even more so.

Characters 👫👭👬

The title of this book is absolutely perfect because the characters truly were the other half. Rupert is the perfect example of the kind of British person that I despise. Filthy rich, arrogant, entitled and narcissistic. He really did get under my skin straight from the beginning of the book but I enjoyed hating him. I’m pretty certain he was written that way purposely.

I still haven’t been able to nail down how I felt about Nell. At first I liked her as she felt like a normal girl who had got wrapped up in the insane world of London’s elite but completely recognised how crazy it was. I started to lose a bit of respect for her because of her affiliation with Rupert. I thought that she had cut all ties with him, but it turned it out that it was far more complicated than that and I didn’t agree with all of her decisions.

Writing Style ✍️

I enjoyed the tone of this author’s writing and if I hadn’t known beforehand, I would never have thought that this was her debut. The concept of the book was extremely clever and I liked the mix of satire and crime thriller. I was especially impressed with the way that subject matters like racism, classism and misogyny were all tangled within the story.

Conclusion & Scoring 🎖

This was a really enjoyable crime thriller and a great debut from this author. Think of everything that is disgusting, irritating and sickening about how the other half live in the UK and it’s thrown into this story and its characters. The other half really do think that they can get away with anything and why wouldn’t they when the establishment supports it. The satire, mixed with the twists and turns of a thriller made for great reading and I look forward to reading whatever comes next from Charlotte Vassell.

😍😍😍😐😐