It Should Have Been You – Book Review

Quick Review:- This was fast paced and page turning book. Most of Andrea Mara’s books are all fast paced. Though my favorite Andrea Mara’s book will be Hide and Seek, this was a good thriller book which was realistic and will keep you up all night

Rating:- 4.5 stars

Your neighbors have secrets. How far would they go to keep them?

“A simple, ordinary mistake explodes into a suburban nightmare in this hugely compelling, one-sitting read packed full of thrilling moments and genuinely surprising twists. Andrea Mara is at the very top of her game.” —Catherine Ryan Howard

You press send and your message disappears. Full of secrets about your neighbors, it’s meant for your sister. But it doesn’t reach her – it goes to the entire local community WhatsApp group instead.

As rumor spreads like wildfire through the picture-perfect neighborhood, you convince yourself that people will move on, that this will quickly be forgotten. But then you receive the first death threat.

The next day, a woman has been murdered. And what’s even more chilling is that she had the same address as you – 26 Oakpark – but in a different part of town. Did the killer get the wrong house? It won’t be long before you find out…

Be careful to whom you are sending the message when you are sending a message! That’s the whole motto in this book. One simple message which was meant to be for someone was sent to the whole group and the story follows how this simple message led to the catastrophe that involved three murders.

Susan was supposed to send a single WhatsApp message to her sister Greta where she complained about a woman named Celeste, how her husband is cheating on her with a woman named Amy and Celester’s daughter Nika is skipping school. But Susan accidentally sends the message to a WhatsApp group and then Susan’s life changes afterwards. She starts receiving threatening messages, including someone breaking her window. But then a woman, whose address is similar to Susan’s was found murdered in the house. Did the murderer got the address wrong and killed the wrong person?

From start to finish, the book was fast paced and a page turner–which you would expect in Andrea Mara’s books. Each chapter has some sort of a cliff hanger that you are thirsty to find more about what is going to happen in the next chapter. There are multiple POVs in this book–though the main character is Susan, we have Celeste, Greta, Nika, Maeve, Venetia but despite having many multiple POVs, the story was easy to follow and it has connections with all the characters to each other. The whole story was gripping, with twists and turns.

The ending of the story was unexpected although I didn’t really fancy the ending as much as I thought I would.

Andrea Mara has written great thrillers such as Hide and Seek and No One Saw It Coming and this is the third book I have read from this author. Compared to the other two books I have read from her, this wasn’t great as Hide and Seek but better than No One Saw It Coming in my opinion.

Worth 4.5 stars.