BOOK REVIEW: The Favorite Daughter by Kaira Rouda @KairaRouda @HarlequinBooks #thefavoritedaughter

A twisty, fun trip deep into the mind of Jane—a delightfully delusional and seriously twisted housewife in Orange County. I seriously LOVED this book! An unreliable narrator, a twisty plot, and a completely terrible character who I sort of wanted to succeed anyway? Perfection! Fantastic work by Kaira Rouda on The Favorite Daughter—on sale now!

About the Book

One of them lied. One of them died.

Jane’s life has become a haze of antidepressants since the tragic death of her daughter, Mary. The accident, which happened over a year ago now, destroyed their perfect family life forever.

The trouble is, the more Jane thinks about that night, the more she realises that something doesn’t seem right. Does her youngest daughter know more than she’s letting on? What secrets is her husband still hiding from her? And why does no one trust her to be on her own?

Even if it’s the last thing she does, she’ll find out the truth…

Reflection

Jane is certainly not a likeable character, nor even a reliable one. But she sure is a blast to follow along with! A year ago Jane’s elder daughter Mary died in a tragic accident. Jane has been grieving ever since. When her therapist encourages her to connect more with her family—sit down to meals together, begin the process of finding their new normal—we learn that things may not be as they seem in this family. There are some secrets yet to be revealed, but I’ll let you find those out for yourself!

Jane’s husband David is wealthy and pays for their affluent Orange County life. But David has a few secrets of his own. His biggest problem isn’t the secrets, though, it is that Jane has discovered them. And that’s where we begin! Jane also has a second daughter, Betsy, set to graduate from high school. Betsy is not the favorite daughter. That was Mary. Mary was so much like Jane, the apple of her eye. Betsy is different, she dresses in black, she wants to be an artist, she has a tattoo, and she doesn’t put up with Jane’s efforts to mother her.

But it turns out Betsy has secrets too… And pretty soon Jane knows those as well. As they say, one of them lied, one of them died. And Jane will get to the bottom of all of it. After all, Jane always gets her way.

I actually ended up listening to the audiobook for this one and I can’t recommend it enough. The audio narrator, Kathleen McInerney, did an outstanding job with her narration of the story. Jane tends to have a lot of inner monologue (her “real” thoughts) and then her carefully crafted responses to others. This was so easy to follow in text, but is a structure that can be much more challenging in audio format. Kathleen nailed it, though! She had a tone for Jane’s monologue, and a different tone for dialogue. She really brought Jane to life!

This is the sort of book that is begging to be a movie. How could it not be? Jane is a character that deserves her own film. And ironically, that would make Jane in the book very happy. She wanted to be an actress, after all. And perhaps this book will allow her to finally be one!

I loved this one!

Thank you to Harlequin for my copy. Opinions are my own.