Revenge Is A Dish ... Best Served by Victoria Helen Stone

I'm going to talk about three books in this post. All are books about women and revenge. One is brilliant. One is okay. And one is utter garbage.

Jane Doe by Victoria Helen Stone.

The Third Mrs. Durst by Ann Aguirre.

And One Last Thing by Molly Harper.

If you know me at all, you know I love a strong heroine. And a heroine who has been done wrong and takes revenge is 100% my cup of tea. The three books above are all that story. But where Jane Doe is the cream of the crop in revenge books, And One Last Thing misses the mark and The Third Mrs. Durst is one of the worst books I've ever read.

In Jane Doe, the heroine is a sociopath. She knows she is and she has the great good luck to understand that's okay. She isn't damaged. She is capable of creating bonds although they take a slightly different path than ordinary relationships.

And because of the break of her deepest bond, Jane is out to destroy Steve. Steve is a bastard. A manipulative, petty man who controls women through their self-esteem and does his best to hurt them. Jane's self esteem is just fine and her ability to play directly into Steve's game and outsmart him at every instance is glorious.

I loved this book more than I love a maple bar donut and I love a maple bar donut.

Hot off the success of Jane Doe came Ann  Aguirre'[s book, The Third Mrs. Durst. Here we have backwater heroine Marlene and her Donald Trumpian husband Michael, another awful man who is psychopathic and evil. The problem here is that this book was just soooooo bad that I kind of was hoping everyone would die at the end.

The heroine is a liar. And not just a liar in the sense of her manipulations in the story but as the narrator of the story she lies to the reader. Writer, a word of advice: do not write first person narration and have the narrator lie to the reader. It makes me believe that you don't know how to write and you don't respect the reader.

It's obvious in the story that Marlene's older sister was married to Michael and he killed her and now Marlene is seeking revenge. But Marlene misrepresents throughout the story and hides the fact that both her male and female lovers are in on the plan while pretending to be concerned about their well being... the truth is that I hated this book more than I hate liver and onions and oh my God, I really hate liver and onions.

I'm still angry with that book and the lying narration. I mean, I'm furious with it months later.

Which brings me to And One Last Thing by Molly Harper. Carolyn suggested the book to me and I just finished it and well, I have thoughts. It's an interesting book because nobody is really evil and the heroine isn't bad, it's just...

Lacey discovers her husband Mike is fucking his secretary. So Lacey announces it in a very amusing way to everybody who knows them both. And then she lawyers up and runs away to her Grandmother's cabin to lick her wounds.

Lacey has a love interest with a hunky neighbor which was uninteresting. And at the end of the book, Lacey and Mike are both adults and make things amicable. And that was all boring. But... along the way Lacey starts to work through her feelings about the end of her marriage by writing a horror book where she kills off the husband and does evil and well, I really wanted that book. It sounded so cool.

Otherwise, And One Last Thing was a perfectly nice, little romance novel that had the ability to be more and never stretched to achieve it. I was disappointed because it promised a hot fudge sundae but then delivered a chocolate ice cream cone.

Revenge is sweet when it's done well. Victoria Helen Stone did it better than any I've read. The others not so much.

Anyone else have anything to add?