Alessandra Torre

From a NYT Bestseller - An emotional and gripping story of a famous author who struggles to write her final novel - a true story that confesses her darkest secret. To aid her, she enlists her biggest rival, who has a surprising effect on her life. Readers of GONE GIRL and MY HUSBAND'S SECRET will love this twisted tale of marriage, deceit and fame

The Ghostwriter

Hanna Rybchynska

4,5 ****
Não costumo ler muito os livros de mistério/thrillers, mas este despertou a minha atenção. Adicionei a minha lista um pouco naquela de "vamos ver onde isso nos vai levar".

Os primeiros capítulos foram um pouco lentos, mas de certo modo a história prende! Não quero contar muito sobre o livro, porque acho que estraga um pouco o impacto inicíal, mas posso dizer que este livro é sobre uma escritora - Helena, em que a sua vida mudou de um dia para o outro com a morte do marido. E ela decide escrever o seu último livro, mas com ajuda de um ghost writer, onde vai contar a história da sua vida e o que levou à morte do marido.

Não dei a classificação total ao livro, porque não gostei muito da troca de pontos de vista em que são escritas em primeira pessoa e depois em terceira. Também não gosto muito da maneira como acabam os capítulos e como estava construida a história em si. E também achei desnecessários algumas cenas que a meu ver não contribuíram muito para história.

Victoria

I wanted to read this because I was seriously getting tired of all the young adult and new adult novels that have consumed me for the past month and a half.

Don’t get me wrong, though. A bunch of them are good reads and I’m happy to have known the characters and to have been given a chance to know their lives. But I just badly needed a change of pace. And so I checked Goodreads 2017 Choice Awards and went straight to the Mystery & Thriller genre.

The first one on the list — and the overall winner — was a novel written by Paula Hawkins and I seriously did not wanna go there again. Her other award-winning novel was such a bore and a snoozefest that I didn’t even bother going through the entire thing and ended up closing it for good after about 6 chapters. Straight to my DNF pile it went.

One of the novels that did call my name was this one by Alessandra Torre: The Ghostwriter. So I went for that.

I admit, I’ve never heard of this author before but with this particular work of hers averaging 4.36 in ratings on Goodreads, I was immediately intrigued.

I really didn’t bother with reading the reviews and even the synopsis as I didn’t want my reading experience to be tainted by anything. So I just went with one knowledge: that this is supposedly a mystery/thriller novel.

I was really looking forward to those chapter cliffhangers. Ones that would make you grip at the edge of your seat and push you to read more just so you’d know what happens next. You know… those?

But I got none of those here.

Sure I wanna know what happened next but not in the typical suspense thriller feels. If you know what I mean.

This was a story within a story. A novel inception of sorts.

Basically, this book is about Helena Ross, a bestselling author who wanted to write one last story before she succumbs to the big C. But she found that she’s gotten too weak to do the work on her own and decided that a ghostwriter is in order.

What’s Helena’s story, you might ask and why was she so adamant on spending the last few months of her life writing it for the world to know?

Well, it’s the story of her life. It’s beautiful. It’s painful. It’s fucking heartbreaking. And it’s a story that’s worth reading.

I don’t know how Alessandra did it, but she did. And I’m glad she did. This is one piece of art that will stay with me for quite a while. And one that I may find myself reading again and again.

In fact, I just finished this a few hours ago [February 12] and I immediately went back and have re-read some parts of it already. That’s definitely saying something.

The book was beautifully written. It was emotional. The plot of the story was great. That twist, while not as shocking as one would expect from a mystery/thriller book, is still worth noting. And the ending… oh that ending was as wonderful as it is heart-shattering.

Lacy W

Publisher: DCA
Publication Date: September 29, 2017
Rating: 2 stars
ARC, Library or Own: Kindle Unlimited

First Thoughts
This was not a good book. I’m sorry but it wasn't. Helena has got to be one of the most horrible and most selfish characters I’ve ever read (after Ronan from the Raven Cycle of course because cruelty is not a great feature either). I’ll get more into her in the character section but let’s just say...no thank you on Helena.

Characters
Ugh, Helena. She was seriously terrible. She was incredibly selfish with her ridiculous rules. She thought she was better than everyone because she is THE HELENA ROSS, legendary writer. She dogs on erotica and acts so high and mighty that she writes good quality content. She treats her agent like dog crap. Honestly, I would have dropped her butt if I had been her publisher/agent. No one should treat anybody the way Helena treated everybody. I could go on and on about her but I won’t. 

There were other third person POVs such as Mark, Kate and Charlotte. Helena’s POV was in first person. But they were okay and kind of boring and only ever talked about Helena and how they felt for her. I couldn’t stand it. 

Writing Style
There only redeeming quality of this book was the parts of Helena’s novel that she was writing/co writing. It was a nice added effect and it didn’t make Helena look so awful. We got a glimpse of her life, the parts she wouldn’t talk about. I wish the whole novel had been like that. 

Trigger Warnings
They include: cancer, suicide planning and follow through, death of loved one, death of a child, child rape and assault, drug addiction mentioned and alcoholism mentioned. 

Final Thoughts
Honestly, I’ve said all I need to say on this book. It wasn’t good. Helena was awful and had no redeeming qualities. The other POVs just talked about Helena and tried to make me feel for her. I would recommend you all avoid this book at all cost.

3.5/5 Totally misjudged this book by its title and thought it was paranormal. It has nothing to do with that at all. Helena is 32, a successful author and has 3 months of life left. 3 months in which she needs to complete a book, one that will tell her side of the story of the day her husband died. I hadn't disliked a charecter so much in a long time but in the end that feeling changes when you learn her story. What a great author for making a reader feel something intensely and change tgat feeli g at the end. Didn't absolutely love this one, but it was a very good read. 

Vanessa Arenas

Natasha S

I am a Torre newbie (this is my first book of hers), but man was this book a wild ride. Sure, sometimes the pacing was a bit slow at parts, but half way through things kick up. The second half of this book is heartwrenching and amazing at the same time. I think I'm not alone in that I don't love the protagonist, but I think that by the end of the story, you truly get to understand Helena. Also, I bawled my fucking eyes out at the end. Overall, a great read and the ending is well-written.

Melea Mullican

3.5

I enjoyed this book, but it was not at all what I was expecting based on the marketing and my experience with other Alessandra Torre books. I was expecting a thrill ride. A story that built suspense from page one. Instead, this book is more of a heartbreaking tale with nothing all that shocking, but sad nonetheless.

Helena is not a character you will necessarily root for, but I did enjoy her development over the course of the book. I liked getting to know her and see a little of why she was who she was. That was the biggest flaw of this book for me. Not every character has to be likable; not every book needs to be fast paced and suspenseful, but they do need to have purpose in the choices made. This book is short at 300 pages, and could have really stood to be longer. I wish I had had more backstory on Helena's life and her childhood. I never really felt like I understood the reasoning behind her relationship with her mother at all. The descriptions were very vague. Same goes for the story she is writing. We do get snippets here or there, and the point of the novel is for people to read and hopefully understand the choices she made. Yet, as readers we get so little of that, I really didn't feel like I understood her backstory at all. I understood her present, but not her past.

As always Torre's writing style is superb and her stories engaging. I do recommend this to readers who are okay with a hard hitting story and don't need a ton of suspense.

Kourtney

Where has this book been my whole life? How did I miss this one when it first came out? Someone I used to work with invited me out to dinner, and we ended up discussing books for most of the night. She told me that I HAD to read this, because I would love it. She let me borrow it through Kindle, and at first I was skeptical. Would I like it, much less love it? How will she react if I don’t love it like she did? As I got closer and closer to the expiration date, I decided to give it a try.

Before I became a mom, you could always find me with a book in my hand. It was not out of the norm for me to read a whole book in one day. I would read well over 100 books during the year. Now that I am knee-deep in mommyhood, it is much harder to read a book at all, much less a book in a day. The only time I can manage that is if it is a middle grade or young adult book that is tiny. So imagine my surprise when I started this book on a break at work, and could. Not. Put. This. Down. I read during conference calls, during my hour lunch, during my “emailing’ time, during dinner (“yes kids, you can watch TV”) and during my sleep time where I stayed up until midnight. I could not get enough, nor could I read fast enough.

I read this book in the beginning of February, and it had such an impact on me, I had to take a day or two to process all the emotions it gave me. Then the great head cold/tummy bug wave of 2020 hit and my emotions had to be put on the backburner. Reading through my notes again 3 weeks later, all of the same feelings came rushing back.

In this tale, we meet Helena Ross, a bestselling author who finds out she only has 3 months to live. She has a confession to make, and has decided to write one last book to share her story. Helena is not the easiest of people to work with, as she is…how do you say it…eccentric? Likes things her own way? Makes demands that to most, seem to be outrageous, but to Helena are for self preservation. If she has an opinion, people will know it, no matter how mean it comes across.

Helena’s latest demand of her agent, Kate, is to find her a ghost writer. But not just any ghost writer, her long standing author rival, Marka Vantly. Marka is everything Helena isn’t. She’s sexy. She churns out romance novels, one after the other, that end up on the bestseller list every time. Is that jealousy I detect?

Here is where I can’t go into too much detail without giving away the farm. What I can say is that as Helena and her ghost writer begin to work together, we start to learn about Helena’s life through the chapters that were written. We learn about her husband, Simon, and his spiral. We learn about her daughter, Bethanny. We see how their parenting styles differ. And then we find out the big WHAT HAPPENED at the end. I didn’t see it as a shocking twist, more of an “OHHHHHHH so that’s how we got here” ending. I didn’t realize it while it was happening, so I cannot tell you when it began, but at some point during the last couple of chapters I had started to cry. For Helena. For Bethanny. For my children. For me.

Side note: Becoming a mom to two little humans can change everything about you. The way you live your life, the way you see events, and how you react to things. While writing, we find out how Helena reacted to becoming a mom. Spoiler alert: not well. One part of the story that stuck out for me was Helena’s frustration when her child was catching lightening bugs, and named it Lighty. Helena wanted more for her daughter – more creativity, more culture, rather than appreciating who Bethanny was. It was a nice reminder to revel in every small decision my children make on their own.

Who do I recommend this book to? Everyone. I can’t think of an audience who wouldn’t enjoy this. Do you love a mystery? Check! Suspense? Check! Seeing a character’s evolution? Check! Pick this one up!

The Ghostwriter

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