Whelp, this was bad. I mean not Trump starts a war with Iran bad, but it was not a good book. I think that a lot of authors are trying this destination thriller sub-genre and it’s not a great read. It doesn’t help that Unger has I think 7 different points of view in this one (Adele, her two kids, Maverick, Maverick’s girlfriend, another player, and I know I am forgetting someone else). There’s no character development of anyone due to this and the ending was a snooze that had more plot holes than my local street after winter snow and plowing. I felt annoyed that it took me so long to finish this one (21 days) but in my defense, again, this was not a good book.
“Close Your Eyes and Count to 10” follows Adele, a mother to two kids (Violet and Blake) who is dealing with her husband disappearing and committing fraud and embezzlement which occurred a year plus before the book begins. Adele was a marathon runner and all around sports enthusiast before she married. When the chance comes up for her to participate in a competition thrown by Maverick Dillan she enters hoping to win the big prize and set her kids up. However, things quickly go sideways at a partially deserted island.
So first off, the characters. Bland. There’s all kinds of reasons for people to be here, but Unger jumps around too much for you to care about anyone. I just wish she stayed with Adele and her point of view the whole way through. At times you jump around to the point you are in the past/present/etc. with just one character. It was hard to track what happened to who or why. It didn’t help you get excerpts from people’s social media feeds and a podcast. Too many different mediums were used to tell this book’s story (not very well).
The setting of the island should have mattered more. There’s a lot happening there that doesn’t really work. And the flow was awful due to the numerous points of view.
The ending was a mess. I just didn’t buy anything we were getting and just felt like Unger phoned this one in.