Dear Amy - Helen Callaghan

Rating: ✫✫✫

Well, it's been a little while since I've had the time to sit down and write a review of any books I've read (truth be told, it's been a while since I've had the time to sit down and read any books, much to my horror). But I'm back. 

I started reading Dear, Amy purely by chance. I was out and about and found myself with an hour or so to kill, and found this in the local library. I knew I had it at home, so started reading. Psychological thrillers have saturated the market recently, so it's difficult to find one that stands out. This one was good, but I'm not sure it was the greatest I've read. Admittedly this may largely be my own fault. I've been so busy with work that I haven't really had the time to commit to the story. I found myself reading it in small chunks, with long delays between them. I imagine that I would have enjoyed it slightly more if I had read it all in one go. 

Let me start by saying that I loved the idea behind the book. The way Margot receives letters to her column makes for a really imaginative way of telling a story that is not necessarily original, and I thought immediately that the plot had a lot of mileage. I was excited to see which direction the story went in. However, I found that our main character was a bit of a pain. She's nice enough, but I found her very difficult to really like, and so I wasn't as invested in the book as I normally would be. That being said, the twist in the story is very good, and I didn't see it coming. I just wish I could have experienced that shock that I would have felt if I was a little more into the book as a whole. 

✼

Dear Amy,

I've been kidnapped by a strange man.

I don't know where I am.

Please help me.

Bethan Avery

✼

When Margot Lewis receives this letter delivered to the newspaper where she is a part-time agony aunt called 'Amy', she assumes it must be a hoax. Bethan Avery went missing twenty years ago, so why would she suddenly be receiving these letters now? But Margot also works in a school, where a girl has been missing for only a few weeks. 

As more letters arrive, Margot realises that she can't ignore them. But as the circumstances become increasingly sinister, Margot is also forced to confront her own, troubled past, putting herself in the heart of the case, and right in front of a dangerous criminal.

*spoiler alert*

The Plot

Like I said above, I started this book and was very keen to keep going with it. It had an interesting set-up, and I was intrigued to see where Callaghan took the story. I also found that it was executed reasonably well. The structure was sound, and the plot progression was decent. I never felt like I was hanging around, waiting for an interesting chapter. The intrigue was maintained throughout. There was always something happening, but it didn't feel unnecessarily complicated. 

I also quite liked that Margot worked at the school, as well as working for the Dear, Amy column. I assumed on starting the book that the focus would be on the newspaper. But we actually find out very little about this column. In some ways it doesn't really make sense that Margot is involved with it, because it's never really explained. But I'm glad the school aspect is what was the main focus. This had a much higher capacity for detail and involvement with the story of the missing girls. I don't think this connection was explored as much as it should have been, but I'm glad it was there. It's these extra details that really lift a book - they're not necessarily fundamental to the plot, but it makes the story much more interesting to have the extra padding. 

The scenes involving Katie and her kidnapper were executed really well, and they added a tension to the story that was not otherwise apparent. I really liked the parallel of Margot's younger self to the stories of Katie and Bethan. This made it all the more shocking when the twist arrives, and Margot is revealed to actually be Bethan Avery. The whole plot came together beautifully in that moment, even if it's not entirely believable outside of this fictional reality. I'm not normally surprised by such plots twists, as I tend to have thought at length about what possibilities are open and ruined it for myself. However, I wasn't expecting the story to go in this direction at all, and it made me even more intrigued to find out what happened. 

If there's one problem I had with this story, it's that there wasn't enough detail to keep me 100% invested. That might sound strange, because there was a lot going on at all times in the story. But there was also a lot we didn't know. The problem with having this kind of plot twist is that we can't ever really know our protagonist, as it has to be believable that she is actually a different person entirely. I just felt that there were several occasions where Margot was too detached; a certain level of detachment is absolutely fine, but this ruined the storyline a little bit for me. I wish there had been more detail in all areas of the plot, and then I may have felt slightly less disappointed with the thing as a whole. I'll admit that that might have been partly my fault for taking so long to read the damn thing, but I also think I still would have felt the same. Sometimes miscellaneous details are good, as they help establish the story in a more structured way, helping the reader to immerse themselves completely in the fictional world. I didn't entirely get that with this book, which is a shame. A good attempt, but not quite there.

The Characters

It's funny; when I came to think about the characters of this book, there were remarkably few that jumped to mind. Even fewer were the characters that I thought really added anything to the plot. Essentially, the only character who really matters in this book is Margot. Everybody else is a bit of an enigma. Martin seems lovely, but very little is made of his character. Margot's ex-husband adds some much needed depth to the way we view her life, but we know very little of him. Katie is fundamental to the plot, but I can't say I know much of her at all either. Puzzler. I just can't see why these characters are so vague. It takes away from the story. 

However, I will endeavour to discuss Margot at least.

Margot is nice enough, but she is fairly boring and she grated on me rather a lot. But I find that that tends to be the norm with psychological thrillers. If the protagonist isn't vulnerable then the story doesn't have nearly as much impact. So I was fairly happy to move past this. What's the most interesting part about her, of course, is that she's an unreliable narrator. We start off following Margot, a generally decent person with a troubled past, which explains her erratic nature. We end up with something entirely different. 

I suppose that's the problem with unreliable narrators; you can never really get to know them, as they could easily give themselves away too soon to the reader. So there's the dilemma. I found it difficult to connect with Margot because I felt Callaghan wasn't giving her character enough depth. Then I discovered exactly why this was. It really did give an entirely new dimension to her character. Whether it managed to save the story for me is another question. I think it went a long way to explaining why the story had been set up in such a way, but it didn't really save it. Some stories, such as We Were Liars, pique your interest when the unreliable narrator has been exposed, and you end the story feeling stunned. This didn't manage that, for although the twist was intriguing, it didn't blow me away in the way I think was necessary. 

Margot was the only character that was really present in this story, and I wish she'd been done a little more justice. Just that little extra depth and I think the plot, the story, and the structure would all have held together a lot more tightly.

The Verdict

This was a good book. Not bad. Not great. Just good. I wish I'd managed to finish reading it much more quickly, as I feel I may have been more 'into it' this way. But that can't be helped.

The plot was interesting and well laid out. It had a lot of potential, and I started the book really excited to see which direction the author was going to take things in. And in terms of the story, I don't have any complaints. The direction was fine, and the quality of the plot was sound. What it really needed was just a little extra oomph! A little more depth to the characters (and more than one character at all, if I'm really honest); a little more detail inserted into the plot. There's nothing wrong with the book - it just needs more of everything to take it to the next level. It's such a shame, but I'm not sure I'd ever pick this book up again because of this simple fact.