T. R. Richmond

When I finished this book and logged into Goodreads to leave my review, I was shocked to see the low rating. I almost wondered if I had somehow built the book up to be more than it was, but after taking a day away from it I can say, without a doubt, this was a phenomenal book. Easily a 4.5 star book for me, but it may just be one of those books that you either love or you hate.

Alice has passed away, she is gone, and her death may not be solved any time soon. Her family and friends, while in mourning, are not the ones who really know her best anymore. Dr. Jeremy Cooke has made Alice's life his newest project. He is piecing her life back together, using her diary, shared information, passing communication, and voice mails to understand the women that people didn't really know. As truths are unfolded, he finds something even more shocking, something unexpected.

What She Left is a mystery, did Alice commit suicide, did she fall, did someone murder her? Who was Alice really anyway? We open the book to a winning writing entry about what's in a name. We glimpse into the young mind of Alice, who she thinks she is and who she may not be at all. In this brief, 1000 word entry, Alice comes to life and she can be anyone you want her to be. She's an enigmatic woman; she's brilliantly smart, haunted by a depression of sorts she calls IT, and what starts as drinking has turned into a sampling of other drugs. She uses words in the fight against criminals, answers questions in an odd sort of way, and has three men in her life that know her in very different ways. She was a beautiful character to read, both from her POV and from the POV of the other people in her life. You see, this isn't a normal prose novel, it is written from several POVs in the form of diary entries, blog posts, letters, forum postings, emails, and news articles. We don't ever really know Alice, except from her words, but we know her family, her friends, her passing acquaintances, and we know the man who's studying her after death. Dr. Cooke is what you expect him to be, an aging academic who never reached his full potential. Who's life crossed Alice's in way it never should have, but left such an impression on him. It was a lot like reading from the perspective of someone who felt they'd lost the one, the one that got away, but with no romance. I enjoyed his letters and how he told stories of his past, his current interactions, and his writing style for the book her is releasing to the world about Alice.

At times, this book was hard to follow, the 380 pages started to feel like they were 500. At times it was uncomfortable, boring, or too much unrelated to the story, but it all comes together at the end. I found myself skimming pages at times, then had to go back and read to understand. The fragments of Alice's life are just that, fragments. As a reader it is impossibly hard to read this book and not really know the character, but to only feel the emotions in the words from those who knew her. There are also some parts of the book that are tough to read, the relationships aren't pretty, Alice's spiral and struggle with IT definitely isn't pretty, but it all was just a shadow of who she really was, a person the reader can never really know.

I took a lot away from this book, but mostly I ended this book with an understanding that it wasn't really a story about Alice at all, but a glimpse into how life is for a twenty-five year old and how easily her life was recreated through words. It is a look into the human condition and how much our use of media puts our life out there for anyone. I loved that the main story teller, Dr. Cooke, who writes in letters to a pen pal, tells his side of the story from the eyes of an elder who doesn't use media the same was as the younger generation does. He sees where they have overshared on blogs, that words are deleted, that communication is easily found when you look. Over the course of the novel, we start to truly see Alice, to understand her life, and even begin to see what happened to her on the fateful night when she died. I loved the modern take on the epistolary style writing and the gradual character formation we get from those who knew Alice. I liked that I didn't really know all the characters that well until the very end, I liked the slow increase of characters sharing information about their relationship with Alice, and I really liked how we finally find out all the truths.

I purchased the audio version today, I am really looking forward to starting this one over from a new perspective. Plus, Emilia Clarke is the voice of Alice and I cannot wait for that.

I would like to thank Netgalley for providing an ARC of What She Left in exchange for my honest review.
For more of my reviews and personal thoughts, visit my blog Carlene Inspired.… (meer)

Alice Salmon war erst 25 Jahre alt, als sie eines Morgens leblos im Fluss gefunden wurde. Eigentlich wollte sie am Abend zuvor nur Freunde treffen, stattdessen durchlebte sie die letzten Stunden ihres Lebens. Aber was ist passiert? Ist sie wirklich gestürzt, weil sie zu viel getrunken hat, wie die Polizei vermutet? War es ein tragischer Unfall? Die Nachricht ihres Todes verbreitet sich wie ein Lauffeuer, auch über Facebook und Twitter. Gleich werden Vermutungen angestellt, über sie, ihr Leben und ihren Tod. Auch ihr ehemaliger Professor Jeremy Cooke ist erschüttert. Er macht sich daran, herauszufinden, was in der Nacht tatsächlich geschah, und sammelt alles über Alice. Er schreibt sogar ein Buch über den Fall. Nur warum ist er so engagiert? Was hat er zu verbergen? Was haben ihr Exfreund Luke und ihr Freund Ben mit der Sache zu tun? Und wer war Alice?… (meer)

Modern history and anthropology show us the stories of "everyday people," not just famous individuals. That is a wonderful thing...but it also means slogging through the mundane records of these everyday people: diary entries, blog posts, text messages, and Twitter posts to mention a few sources. This book replicates that information, using it as a framework for a murder mystery.

The "primary source" information here is way too plentiful and rather boring. The author provides plenty of red herrings before presenting an 11th hour, implausible murderer. The resolution is unsatisfying. It does not help that the main narrator comes off as a self involved, tedious, lecherous academic.… (meer)

What She Left by T.R. Richmond is a recommended thriller told through emails, blog and diary entries, articles, letters, tweets, Facebook messages, text messages, voice mail, interviews, Spotify playlists, and email.

Anthropology Professor Jeremy Cooke is collecting information, digital and written, about the life of his former student and the daughter of a former lover. He plans to collect all these artifacts of the modern age and piece them together for a book about her life. The young woman of his obsession is twenty-five-year-old reporter, Alice Salmon. Her body was found on a Southampton riverbank and the investigation is trying to determine if her death was an accident, suicide, or something more sinister.

Slowly the real Alice Salmon is revealed in Cooke's collection of information, which is damning and casts suspicions toward Cooke and others. At the same time, the line between research and obsession is blurred. A large part of the story is not composed of what Alice left behind but is told through letters Cooke writes to a friend. Everything Cooke discovers is dated so readers can tell when various bits of information are discovered.

What She Left had a lot of potential. It is well written and I initially enjoyed it. The use of digital clues is quite intriguing - this is what originally captivated me. There are several suspects and a surprise ending, which I didn't see coming. I certainly don't regret reading it and look forward to the next book by Richmond.

The problem I had with the novel was the fact that by the time I was over half way through it all the characters were beginning to get on my nerves and I didn't care quite as much what really happened to Alice. Cooke's letters compose a large part of what began to become grating in the story. Combining his rather whining tone in his (endless) letters with the fragments that comprise telling the story of a life largely through digital detritus, left me removed from ultimately caring what happened.

Disclosure: My Kindle edition was courtesy of Simon & Schuster for review purposes.


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