The Elizas by Sara Shepard

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


If I were a woman of few words, I would simply answer “yes” when asked if I enjoyed this book. However, I am not and never have been a woman of few words, so buckle up for my longer than necessary review and critique of this novel.

While I still can begin by saying I liked it, I cannot really pin point why. Overall, it was quite predictable, full of ridiculous – and I mean utterly absurd – plot points and dead end scenarios, but it was just unnerving enough to keep me excited all the way through.

I am not sure if anyone reading this novel, even for a second, didn’t immediately assume that “The Dots” was the true story of Eliza’s highly toxic relationship with her sociopathic, yet extremely fun and fashion forward, aunt. This idea was aggressively airplaned into our mouths (don’t act like you don’t understand that reference) whether we were hungry or not. And even while I knew in my heart that this was the case, I was constantly creating alternative storylines and endings that were way more interesting, if I don’t say so myself. I think the main issue I had with the way the author crafted this narrative was that I truly wanted Eliza to be hardcore, lock-her-in-a-padded-room-from-now-until-eternity batshit crazy. And while she was very clearly an unstable young lady, her level of unwell would only warrant her a temporary stay at the loony bin. I wanted more, dammit!

That said, I DID appreciate that the ending was left somewhat ambiguous, even if the actual plausibility of the twist ending is extremely low. But ya know what, I don’t care. I am choosing to believe that crazy Aunt Dorothy was able to mastermind and pull off the good ol’ switcheroo of the century and you can’t tell me otherwise!



View all my reviews