I will forever be baffled by the fact that I just can’t quit Sandie Jones’s books. I have not ever rated one a 5 star, but they end up being so entertaining in kind of goofy ways IMHO that I kind of want to. But for me, 5 star reviews means that I will re-read that book in the future. And there’s no way I am re-reading this book which should have been titled “The Worst Therapist…Ever”. I could not with the main plot and subplots going on. The character of Naomi was a hot mess and actually needed therapy. Things jump around a lot and I had to wonder how things would be tied up and then I just kind of said well it can only be like 3, possibly 6 characters, but 3 I said would be too obvious. But it was fun trying to figure out what was going on. And then we get to the ending and why and I went seriously? And I feel like I missed like a huge swatch of things and I am still confused. So that is where I am…confused.
“The Blame Game” follows therapist Naomi (a long time ex-pat from the United States) living in England with her husband Leo. Naomi specializes in domestic abuse and has a hard time separating herself from her patients. Two of them, Jacob, and Anna need a lot of help and Naomi keeps offering up things that she really should not (a stay at a house that she and her husband are not living in and for people to stay at their home). I also have to ask, is this allowed? I don’t think therapists would ever do this in real life and would be written up by a therapists board or something. When Jacob goes missing, and it looks like Naomi was the last to see him, she’s quickly suspected by the police in doing something to him and Naomi runs around like a chicken trying to cover her tracks as well as confront her past and present.
Naomi is a bad therapist. I think I have a hard time with this whole story-line because she oversteps drastically into her patient’s lives. We find out at some point she helped a patient escape her husband, and then the husband tracked her down and held a rifle to her head. I am still confused if she even reported this mess to anyone outside of her husband, but I refuse to go back and read this book. Naomi’s husband keeps asking her to quit inviting her patients to stay with them and or offer them things she should discuss with him. A reasonable ask. But she acts like since he knows her past (DUN DUN DUN) he should know that she has to do stuff like this and just accept it. FYI, I would have divorced Naomi’s ass like eons ago.
Speaking on other characters, Naomi has no common sense. She doesn’t realize at times she’s being manipulated. I would think if you specialize in domestic abuse cases you would be good at knowing when people are lying? Am I crazy? I don’t know.
Speaking about Naomi’s husband Leo and her one friend, I can see why they are fed up with her. She doesn’t have room for anything outside of her patients. And then she’s obsessing over her past and you just get tired.
The writing is just okay, but the flow was kind of nuts. I think at one point I went, has it been 3 days? What is happening?
The ending was a mess. You get an epilogue and know why things occurred and I went but wait? Why? It made no sense and I just gave up. I guess in the end that it’s better to murder people than admit you were in the wrong? I don’t know.