A Simple Favor

When I first saw the trailer for A Simple Favor I got so excited. I love Blake Lively and Anna Kendrick, and the trailer reminded me of Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train, both of which I loved! I immediately Googled it, saw it was a book and put it on hold at the library. 

Darcey Bell’s novel A Simple Favor, on which the movie is based, tells the story of Stephanie, a lonely blogger and single mom who struggles to make friends in suburban Connecticut. When glamorous, enigmatic Emily befriends Stephanie, she is overjoyed to have another mom to confide in. But when Emily disappears, Stephanie begins to doubt their friendship as the mystery of her so-called best friend’s disappearance unravels.

Given my excitement for the movie, I was underwhelmed by the book. Granted, I began it with high expectations, so maybe that was part of my disappointment. Reading it after Number One Chinese Restaurant and comparing it to Gone Girl, which essentially launched an entire sub-genre, it just fell flat.

The characters seemed stale, and I found them predictable and boring. I wasn’t invested in any of their lives, and I considered quitting mid-book. But, I did want to know how the mystery was resolved, and I was reading it in Texas while visiting family, so if I stopped I would not have had anything else to read. Thus, I carried on.

Even though I did not enjoy the characters, the plot twists and turns did surprise me at times. And after finishing A Simple Favor I honestly couldn’t tell if my dissatisfaction with it was particular to the book itself, or if it was just fatigue from  the familiar tropes and archetypes of suspenseful mysteries, coupled with unreasonably high expectations.

I do think the story will make an excellent movie, so I am still excited to see it when it comes out Friday. I love reading books before they are made into movies; it makes me feel like I have insider knowledge on the film, and I enjoy seeing the creative decisions that are made when the medium of a story is transformed from page to screen.

 

What do you think? Am I wrong; was this book amazing and I just missed something?