Review: A Simple Favor

Title A Simple Favor
By Darcey Bell
Genre Adult Psychological Thriller
Format ebook
Rating ⭐️

Synopsis
Stephanie is delighted to have made a friend like Emily, She's elegant, sophisticated and seems to have it all with the perfect job and husband. So Stephanie is shocked when Emily goes missing. As the search begins for her friend, Stephanie will learn more than she bargained for about her, so called, best friend.

First Sentence
Hi moms!




I know it is no longer polite or politically correct to bash a book as bad as I'm about to but this book deserves it so get ready.

I first learned of this book because I saw a preview for the movie which looked silly but fun and I suspected it was based on a book. Of course it was, so I put the book on hold on Overdrive. Then I started seeing all the negative reviews of the book around and decided I wasn't going to read it. But I'd forgotten I put it on hold and it came in and well, I'm an idiot and glutton for punishment, apparently, because I decided to read it.

And what's worse is when it got stupider and stupider, I KEPT reading. Why?!

Most of these psychological thrillers have unlikable characters. Have you noticed? So the fact that this one was full of them was not a surprise or a deal breaker for me. What made me seethe with rage was the complete pointlessness of this one.

*Spoilers*

Emily claims she loves her son. Yeah. Right. Who would put their child through the trauma of making them believe you were dead? Really? I don't buy it. Plus she claims she wants to spend more time with him but runs away in hiding and becomes far more obsessed with her revenge and plans than with her son.  Then she shows herself to her son because, "She can't stay away" Therefore traumatizing him further because he thought she was dead then sees shes alive then when he tells people she's alive they call him a liar and suggest he needs therapy! Who does this to a six year old?!! Not someone that loves them!

Then, there's the whole insurance policy scam. That's why she pretended to be dead; to collect insurance money. When that starts to look like it won't pan out she goes nuts, kills the insurance agent, for no good reason that I could see, and then changes her story to get rid of her husband, get a divorce and lives happily with her son...but still spend all her time working so she STILL never sees her son. *face palm*

So basically she really doesn't know what she wants and accomplishes nothing but throwing her husband under the bus, allowing the only person she really loved to kill herself and traumatizing her son.

And then there's Stephanie. She was the stupidest character to walk the pages of a book since...Bella. I just didn't buy that she was that naive and malleable. Not when she had the secret she did and kept it all hush hush as well as she did...until she met Emily, that is.

*End of Spoilers*

The book was mess. There was no point and the characters were unbelievable and didn't act like actual people would. Not even psychotic people.

I was blown away that someone would read this monstrosity and think, "This would make a great movie". Just no.

However, I saw the movie (Glutton for punishment) and saw that someone obviously hated the book as much as I did but saw its potential and "fixed" it. I thought the movie was pretty stupid too but at least it had a point and ended much better then the book.

Which makes me wonder...why the hell didn't the author end the book like the movie? Did she actually think she'd written a great story here? Who the hell told her that? I'd be humiliated to have this story tied to my name in any shape or form. Yuck!