January 16, 2023
Lorelei Green, the reticent 40-year-old narrator of this enjoyable if initially slow psychological thriller from bestseller Bell (All I Want), is pleased to be associated with the American Feline Protection Society after a video went viral showing her cat sinking its claws into a man who attacked her, reducing him to “a whimpering wreck.” But Lorelei hasn’t always been so fortunate. Flashback 20 years to New England’s Woodward University, where students Lorelei and Holly Snopes become fast friends in an interpersonal relations class involving confessional group therapy. Both Lorelei and Holly fall under the charismatic spell of their charming professor, who it turns out is conducting a mind control experiment. The result is emotional trauma for Lorelei, who drops out of Woodward with reason to blame Holly. In the present, Holly, now a philanthropist, is being honored at a Woman of the Year benefit in New York, and Lorelei plans to ruin Holly’s moment by putting something in her food to cause an allergic reaction. But someone else is plotting a worse revenge on Holly. Assured storytelling keeps the reader turning the pages. This clever tale of friendship, trust, and betrayal should win Bell new fans.
March 1, 2023
A once-gregarious psychology student with a traumatic past and a fondness for cats finds herself at the center of a dangerous revenge story. Holly Serpenta and Lorelei Green were best friends at an elite East Coast college known for its psychology department--until their friendship was torn apart by a charismatic and manipulative professor. Now they've been estranged for 20 years. Holly is rich and powerful and has two grown children, and she's being named Woman of the Year at a gala dinner that will include guests like Sonia Sotomayor, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Zadie Smith; Lorelei, who's the narrator, remains alone and is recently unemployed from a job she didn't much like to begin with, though she does have her cats. She blames Holly for a traumatic incident that caused her to drop out of college just before the final semester, and she's been following Holly's career closely ever since. Lorelei isn't happy about how well her former friend is doing and begins to plot her revenge. But she's not the only one. Someone else from their past has demons, too, and all roads lead back to the bizarre psychology department at Woodward College. Though this book is a page-turner and Lorelei's first-person voice feels authentic, the friendship between Holly and Lorelei is thinly described. We see the whole thing in flashbacks, most of which are scenes that Lorelei just summarizes. Lorelei describes the women as best friends, but that friendship doesn't come across in the book. Though Bell successfully flips the "crazy cat lady" trope on its head and offers a satisfying ending, a number of the characters, including Holly, are flat, and the motivation of the charismatic professor feels far-fetched, like he's a cartoon villain, which might have worked better if his department head wasn't also maniacal. Despite some unconvincing elements, this novel will resonate with anyone interested in psychology (or cats).
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