I read books for various reasons. Key among them, my love for the author. My first Dorothy Koomson was The Ice Cream Girls. That book ripped me apart in places I didn’t think it would touch and at the same time I thought…fuuuck! How is she not celebrated wildly? The twists and turns and angles and her drawing you in…all that sealed the author obsession that followed. That one book, that I bought from a street vendor, is all it took to have her shoot to the top 5 tier of my favourite authors. She also started a fetish for books written in first person. A fetish it is…because that’s the first thing I consider when I think of trying new authors…it’s been 6 years since.
So of course as one does with authors they like, I collected her books, went online and made a list of all her published books and put them all in my TBR. Needless to say that I jumped at the sight of her latest, Tell Me Your Secret. Promising title, right? I mean, I have secrets that I’ll take to my grave even if their revelation was the ultimate cure for Covid-19. Fuck Humanity, but somethings should never be relived! And other secrets are too sacred for me to share. So a book that would inveigle me to spill some beans, just cause……promising right?
Right?
Right?
Of course right…this is Koomson’s work after all.
I must confess though, at first, it was slow, or was I slow? I know that I was reading through a book hangover and so it was taking me a while to get in touch with her characters. It took me 3 chapters (almost half of the book) to start feeling it. And there was that one time I was confused as to whom the main chick was…but like I said, I was slow at first.
There was character reader engagement, very Black Mirror-esque. Yes, that was a first for me. I loved that. The plot centres around a serial killer with a fetish to keep his captors blindfolded for 48 hours. I don’t know about you, but someone telling me not to open my eyes for 48hrs is just asking me to never shut them. Similar to don’t think of the white bear but that’s the only thing you can think of. Or worse, don’t touch your face to avoid the Corona virus but suddenly your face and fingers become lovers.
However, I would not have written that ending, I didn’t even see it coming. I could have sworn that the main antagonist was someone else. I was so drawn in (after the hangover had subsided) that I shut the book in anger when I realised that the story wasn’t going according to MY plan. Jeez, you reckon my nerve in me planning to know what was going on.
I know during the ‘eyes wide shut’ moments, the captors weren’t in a spa as it happened, horrible things were happening, so we are told, perhaps it was me, but I didn’t feel the weight of the horrible things, I didn’t cringe or feel a twinge that would make me love hate the story. No? Just me? Ok, but that was one of the things I would have wanted more off.
The other one was having the monologue of The Blind-folder introduced early on, so that we dive into that sick mind.
I’ll be honest, I liked the book, I did, really, it has all the aspects of an interesting read, some suspense, some intrigue, some wonder, some engagement. And I love Dorothy Koomson, no doubt. This book though, felt….light. The plot at the start, thought slow, felt promising, made me ask, uh huh…what’s gonna happen next? But towards the end, like she said…
D.K
“I want to reach for words that will mean something. I want them to have a lasting effect, after all. I want them to do so much. I want them to inform and comfort and bolster and reassure. Have you ever noticed that we ask so much from words?”
If this is your first Dorothy Koomson, you’ll definitely enjoy it. If it isn’t, you may notice what I mean. A worthy read regardless, so go get yourself a copy.
Samburu Girl 