Review: Unraveling Oliver by Liz Nugent

Title: Unraveling Oliver

Author: Liz Nugent

Genre: Psychological Thriller

Pages: 272 (Paperback)

Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Publication date: August 22nd, 2017

Synopsis from Unraveling Oliver's Goodreads page

“I expected more of a reaction the first time I hit her.”

So begins Liz Nugent’s astonishing debut novel—a chilling, elegantly crafted, and psychologically astute exploration of the nature of evil.

Oliver Ryan, handsome, charismatic, and successful, has long been married to his devoted wife, Alice. Together they write and illustrate award-winning children’s books; their life together one of enviable privilege and ease—until, one evening after a delightful dinner, Oliver delivers a blow to Alice that renders her unconscious, and subsequently beats her into a coma.

In the aftermath of such an unthinkable event, as Alice hovers between life and death, the couple’s friends, neighbors, and acquaintances try to understand what could have driven Oliver to commit such a horrific act. As his story unfolds, layers are peeled away to reveal a life of shame, envy, deception, and masterful manipulation.

THOUGHTS

I'm going to start off by saying that going into this, I thought it was more of a psychological thriller. After the first few chapters, however, I realized it was more of a psychological analysis of sorts, instead of a thriller, but it did have a lot of the aspects of a thriller. Saying that, I really did enjoy this book.
Unraveling Oliver is a story about a man who has harmed his wife to the point where she is in a coma, with little to no hope of her waking up. The entire novel is a character summary of Oliver, with each chapter being told from a different characters' point of view of him. Each character is recounting how they either met Oliver, or the different things that have happened to him in his life that could possibly have made him the person he is, and explain why he harmed his wife.
The story overall I really enjoyed. Each character added a few pieces of the puzzle of Oliver together, while creating more mysteries. Each recounting of each part of his life fit together perfectly, and I had no problems with how anything fit together or how it was told.
In regards to the characters in the story, each and every single one of them was needed in some way, for something, either as someone who is currently in his life, or as someone from his past who is required to tell his story. In a lot of thrillers I find that there are unnecessary characters that are used in order to distract the reader for some reason, but that was definitely not the case for this book. Every single character was well thought out, and well executed. I also loved how each and every single character had their own distinct voice. With telling a story from different characters' points of view every chapter, a lot of the time the characters start to become mashed together and start to sound very similar. That was not the case at all here, with each character having a very distinct voice, and I loved how that was not only shown through what was spoken about, but also in how they spoke to the reader.
The story itself was also something that I really enjoyed. It left just enough of a mystery throughout the entire novel, while also giving just enough to the reader that they can almost figure out what will happen next, before continuing to read and realizing you are completely wrong.
I feel like this book could have been an easy 4/5 stars for me, if I had gone into it knowing that it was less of a psychological thriller and more of a psychological character study. It definitely had all the aspects of thriller and I did read it in less than twenty-four hours, but it was more of a character study than anything else.
Overall, I really enjoyed the book that I'm glad that I took the time to read it and I know that I will definitely read it again in the future when I'm more in the mood for a character study, and then I have a feeling that it will be a higher rating for me.
Overall - ★★★★☆