Why I read it: 2024 Reading Challenge

The Collective follows a mother who lost her teenage daughter at the hands of a privileged young man, and her subsequent struggle between coming to terms with her death, and making sure justice is served. 

I struggled to relate to this book because 1) I am not a mother, and 2) some of this woman’s actions were inconsistent and improbable. After the first 50 or so pages, things picked up and I was able to finish the book quickly, but some of the details didn’t seem realistic to me. A woman who doesn’t (or refused to) know how to interact with her daughter’s social media is suddenly accessing the dark web on the regular and joining a pseudo-cult? That being said, I did enjoy the story line and it’s very different from anything that I have read before. 

There is a pretty substantial twist, one I saw coming, but to the author’s credit, not until a mere 2-3 pages before the reveal. Since the twist was concealed (very well concealed, in my opinion) for so long, that’s what warrants the book three, nearly four, stars. 

Two big issues prevented this from receiving a higher rating:

1. The ending was incredibly rushed and unrealistic. It was poetic though, I’ll give you that.
2. WHY WAS THE FONT SO LARGE. And no, I didn’t get a large-print copy (I checked multiple times to be sure). I honestly think my negative feelings towards the main character stemmed from my annoyance with the large print. I guess the silver lining is that this made this book even faster to read? 

Overall, it was an easy and quick read, with a pretty solid twist, and a few minor annoyances. If you read this one and have any additional thoughts, let me know in the comments!

TL;DR: Would I recommend it to a friend? Maybe. For someone looking for a quick read with a unique concept, this would be a good fit.