Do you remember how you felt when you finished the last page of Gone Girl? Or, if you went to see the film adaptation and you watched (maybe smirked) everyone file out of the movie theatre in complete silence? The shock of that ending, at how Amy and Nick left everyone reeling in disbelief? Well, I have to say, the ending to Small Hours could leave you feeling much the same.
So do I rate this one 3 stars or 3.5 stars? I was warned early on to be prepared for its ending – that it may let me down, possibly considerably. I’m not sure how considerable that let down was, or how devastated I was at its ending, but perhaps it’s more of that kind of feeling I experienced when finishing Gone Girl – like a disbelieving, are you serious? kind of ending.
Small Hours is the about one day in the life of Helen and Tom. Both of their individual lives are unraveling, and their marriage is hanging by a thread because of their individual issues and their inability to come together to work through them, to bring each other into their separate crises. I really did like the style of this one – it alternates between Helen and Tom and by time of day. So for a few hours, we’re hearing about Helen, and for another couple of hours, we’re hearing from Tom.
Tom and Helen are both very frustrating people to read about, but there was something about them that kept me reading. Perhaps it could have been this weak, or maybe too tidy of and ending that took its full power away, but Kitses has written a compelling read! It would entirely be because of the resolution, or the not-so-resolved ending that could leave you with a wee bit of a let down.
Thanks to Grand Central Publishing for the e-ARC of this one, I did start reading it on my tablet, but switched to the hardcopy from the library. And I think because of that I was able to rip through this one in a few short days! I would say it is worth the read – they are compelling characters and the structure/style of the way the story unfolds is great, but perhaps be warned the ending may take some of the oomph away for you? :-)
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