“She Was the Quiet One”

“She Was the Quiet One”

Written by Michele Campbell

Review written by Diana Iozzia

 

          “She Was the Quiet One” is a thriller that follows four perspectives, Bel and Rose Enright and Sarah and Heath Donovan. Heath and Sarah have just become the dormitory heads for an elite private boarding school. Bel and Rose are quietly troubled orphans who will be staying in the dorm that Heath and Sarah preside over. Heath and Sarah are recovering from some writing scandals in Heath’s career, in which he plagiarized an unpublished manuscript by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Rose tries to protect her sister, Bel, who always ran on the wrong side of the tracks. Heath and Bel begin an elicit, teacher-student relationship, but this continues to spiral downwards even more. Without giving the final spoiler away, we discover in the first chapter, that one of the twins will not make it out alive. Which one? How does the title relate to the characters? What can we infer from the title?”

          The twist is predictable, but I enjoyed the journey. The characters are intriguing, sympathetic yet unsympathetic. I had never read a book by Michele Campbell before, so I was not sure what to expect. In different ways, I like her writing style. The dialogue is very natural, and you can tell there is thought into which characters speak in certain ways. There is a large amount of descriptive language, making you very able to imagine this book in your head. I imagine the audiobook would be intriguing.

          Although I predicted the plot twist, I still enjoyed the book. I think this is a pretty good book for the second book by Michele Campbell. I’ll be sure to catch the first.