Misery Loves Company by Rene Gutteridge Review

Title: Misery Loves Company

Author: Rene Gutteridge

My Rating: 3/5

Part of a series? No.

Genre(s): Christian fiction, Mystery, Thriller.

Description/Blurb:

Filled with grief, Jules Belleno rarely leaves the house since her husband’s death while on duty as a police officer. Other than the reviews Jules writes on her blog, she has little contact with the outside world.

But one day when she ventures out to the local grocery store, Jules bumps into a fellow customer . . . and recognizes him as her favorite author, Patrick Reagan. Jules gushes and thoroughly embarrasses herself before Regan graciously talks with her.

And that’s the last thing she remembers—until she wakes up in a strange room with a splitting headache. She’s been kidnapped. And what she discovers will change everything she believed about her husband’s death . . . her career . . . and her faith.

My review: 

This book threw me off for the first few chapters; a blogger who reviews the odd book gets kidnapped not long after posting a negative review… I really don’t want any authors who read my reviews to get inspired from that little idea. So yes, I was a little thrown off but luckily I don’t need to write a negative review for this book. I have tagged this book as a piece of Christian literature, mainly because a few characters in this book question their faith throughout the course of the plot leading to a few mentions of God, Jesus and Heaven. The references aren't too heavy though, I'm not a Christian myself and I didn't feel like the book was trying to preach to me which can sometimes happen when a book has characters who find faith important.

 I don’t want to go too deep in reviewing the plot as it would be so easy to give something away, the author keeps adding little points that may or may not be important to the main plot. For example; was Jules kidnapped because of that bad review or was there something else behind the kidnapper’s actions.

I’d like you to trust my judgement on this one rather than listen to me ramble on and on about the description and strength of the plot whilst trying not to give anything away.  I gave this book a 3/5, meaning that in my opinion this book was above average but was a fair way off being my perfect read. I found some of the switching between scenes a bit unnecessary and almost distracting at times, usually I seeing the story through the eyes of different characters but sometimes the writer changed character in a way that was far from smooth leaving me feeling like maybe I’d missed a paragraph out somewhere. That’s not to say that the book wasn't enjoyable, it was, there were interesting concepts and as a Psychology student I do enjoy looking at how authors take on mental health. Here Gutteridge takes on grief and shows us people reacting to it in different ways, we get to see how the characters’ development is affected by their mental state while still treating the matter delicately.