Review: Always Remember - Cathryn Grant





Review: Always Remember - Cathryn Grant - October 2021
Listen, fellow book addicts – I need to talk to you about Cathryn Grant's Always Remember because this psychological thriller just put me through an emotional blender, and I'm still processing the aftermath.

Picture this: Frank drops dead in his own sauna (casual Tuesday, right?), and suddenly his widow Louise decides she's moving in with her son Wyatt and daughter-in-law Kelly. Permanently. No expiration date, no exit strategy – just pure, unadulterated family dysfunction served with a side of murder mystery.

Here's where Cathyrn Grant absolutely wrecked me as a reader. Kelly should be our girl – she's the one dealing with an invasive mother-in-law from hell, she's grieving, she's trying to hold her marriage together. But HOLY PLOT TWIST, Batman – Kelly is so insufferably controlling and paranoid that I found myself actually sympathizing with Louise.

Yes, you read that right. The manipulative mother-in-law who's literally trying to destroy Kelly's marriage by fabricating affairs with the manny (because apparently that's a thing now) somehow became the more tolerable character. Cathryn Grant made me question my own moral compass, and honestly? That takes serious skill.

The Kelly-Louise dynamic is pure toxicity wrapped in suburban pleasantries. Louise plays the long game like a chess grandmaster, systematically poisoning Wyatt against Kelly while wearing the mask of the grieving widow. Meanwhile, Kelly's legitimate concerns get dismissed because she presents them like a caffeinated conspiracy theorist at 2 AM.

The brilliance? Cathryn Grant makes Kelly technically right about almost everything, but her delivery is so grating that even we readers want to tell her to chill. It's like watching a car crash in slow motion – you can see the disaster coming, but you're weirdly invested in the outcome.

Always Remember is that rare breed of thriller that succeeds by making you uncomfortable with your own reactions. Cathryn Grant doesn't give us clean heroes and obvious villains – she gives us messy, flawed humans who make terrible decisions for understandable reasons.

Will this book make you question your judgment? Absolutely. Will you finish it feeling frustrated and slightly unhinged? Probably. Will you recommend it to friends just to see if they have the same unhinged reactions? Definitely.

As someone who devours books like they're going out of style, it takes something special to get under my skin this thoroughly. Grant managed to create characters so authentically irritating that I'm still muttering about Kelly's choices days later.

If you enjoy psychological complexity with your thrillers and don't mind questioning everything you thought you knew about protagonist loyalty, dive in. Just maybe clear your schedule for some post-reading therapy sessions.

Amazon: https://amzn.to/43WSuxf








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