Book Review – The Other People | Smitten For Fiction

Hey book lovers! I’m here with a book review for a weird and thrilling story about revenge, The Other People, which I read with the Literally Dead Book Club. Stephen King blurbed it, saying if you like his stuff then you’ll like this, and he was right.

About The Book 📚

Title: The Other People

Author: C. J. Tudor

Publication Date: Jan 23, 2020

Publisher: Penguin

Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Horror

My Review

› In April 2016 Gabe was driving home from work when he saw his daughter in a strange car. He pulled off the road to call home and found out it wasn’t his daughter in the car, because his wife and daughter have been found murdered. There’s just one problem, Gabe never gets to see their bodies, and is convinced he saw his daughter in the strange car on the highway. It’s now 2019, and Gave has spent the last three years driving a long stretch of highway, back and forth, living in his sleeper car, eating at rest stops, searching for his daughter.

“You’re fading, slipping from my memories. Because memories are only as strong as the people who hold onto them. And I’m tired. I don’t know if I can hold on for much longer.”

› At one of his regular rest stops a waitress named Katie wonders what happened to this obviously lonely, depressed, man. She’s a single mom, raising a couple of kids, and trying to stop her sister from dating loser after loser.

› Fran and Alice are on the run. Alice has strange fits of falling asleep after looking into mirrors, waking up with a pebble in her hand.

› We get glimpses of a girl in a coma. Who is she? And who is Miriam?

“People say hate and bitterness will destroy you. They’re wrong. It’s hope. Hope will devour you from the inside like a parasite. It will leave you hanging like bait above a shark. But hope won’t kill you. It’s not that kind.”

› A man who goes by the name “Samaritan” discovers the sticker-covered car in a lake. In the car Gabe finds a dead man, and a notebook that mentions “The Other People”. The Samaritan and Katie help Gabe look for his daughter and figure out more about The Other People.

“But she had done a lot of things over the last three years that she had never thought herself capable of. None of us know, until pushed, what our limits truly are. How far we would go for those we love.”

› Final Thoughts
• The Other People is a thrilling, eye-for-an-eye, edge-of-your-seat story about desperate people doing very bad things. Highly Recommend!