Book 29/30.
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
The saddest two stars I ever did give 🥴🥴
My first Alice Feeney read was Sometimes I Lie and it was a wild, twisty AF 5 star read that had me geeking out to read ALL OF HER BOOKS! Rock Paper Scissors was marketed as the latest exciting domestic thriller from the queen of the killer twist and I was BEYOND excited to read it because if Sometimes I Lie was a fucking fantastic debut, it could only get better from there. Right?
Rock Paper Scissors tells the story of a couple who have been married for a decade but things have been wrong with Mr. and Mrs. Wright for a long time. When Adam and Amelia win a weekend away to Scotland, it might be just what their marriage needs. Self-confessed workaholic and screenwriter Adam Wright has lived with face blindness his whole life. He can’t recognize friends or family, or even his own wife. Every anniversary the couple exchange traditional gifts – paper, cotton, pottery, tin – and each year Adam’s wife writes him a letter that she never lets him read. Until now. They both know this weekend will make or break their marriage, but they didn’t randomly win this trip. One of them is lying, and someone doesn’t want them to live happily ever after.
If you told me I would give two stars to my second Alice Feeney read I would have called you one of 🎶the liars and the dirty, dirty cheats of the world🎶 that Taylor Swift sings about in Shake It Off. But alas, here we are 😭 The biggest reason for my two star rating is that, for a mystery/thriller, there were not enough twists and turns AT ALL!!! The atmospheric setting was relatively creepy, the pacing was quick enough but there was a distinct lack of the crazy twists the author is famous for. Instead there was a shitload of buildup and promise that never went anywhere. I kept waiting to be wowed and with every chapter that lacked a wow factor, I became more and more underwhelmed by the novel. I mean, the first major reveal came 60 pages to the end of the book and by then it was too little too late for me.
Also, Adam and Amelia were absofuckinglutely the worst!! Their unlikability made it hard for me to root for, or even care about, them and/or their marriage.
Rock Paper Scissors is Alice Feeney’s fourth novel and for me it was quite the downgrade from her debut. It was nominated for a Goodreads Choice Award for Best Mystery & Thriller in 2021 and I honestly and truly cannot relate. Is the fucking fantastic Sometimes I Lie the real Alice Feeney, or this the real her? I will read His & Hers, her third novel, and that will be the tiebreaker for me as it will either be a “third time’s the charm type” of book, or a “three strikes and you’re out one.
View all my reviews
** A guide to ratings **
1 star – did not like it
2 stars – it was okay
3 stars – liked it
4 stars – really liked it
5 stars – it was amazing
Lwile the Leo 