Four Books with Unique Storylines

Books written in a unique format or that are told in a different way often appeal to me. I am intrigued by seeing how authors play with genres or methods of depicting a story. This week I am highlighting four stories that have stuck with me – both for the quality storytelling but also for the unique manner in which the book was told.

Cover Story by Susan Rigetti – NYU student Lora Ricci’s internship at ELLE Magazine introduces her to the cutthroat world of fashion and the wealthy people who populate the industry. When Cat Wolff, a contributing editor to the magazine and daughter of a wealthy mogul takes Lora on as a mentee, Lora is initially thrilled. She agrees to become Cat’s ghostwriter and drops out of school to focus full time on writing. As the two begin working on the book, Lora soon realizes that all is not as it seems; Cat comes and goes at all hours, and bills seem to go unpaid. The book and its format (emails, FBI reports, diary entries and more) are fabulous, and I recommend going into it with little knowledge of the story to ensure nothing gets spoiled. It is a wild and crazy ride and just so well done.

Kill Show by Daniel Sweren-Becker – Structured in transcript format, Kill Show is set 10 years after a 16-year-old girl goes missing and the circus that ensued after a true crime show comes to town to try to “help” find the girl. The tale is relayed through “interviews” with all of the key participants in the tragedy and demonstrates how Hollywood and others exploit these tragedies for entertainment purposes. It is a compelling story that is also a commentary on the true crime industry, its dark underbelly, the lives that end up ruined by all of these amateur sleuths and online shaming, and why the country’s fascination with it is often problematic. Sweren-Becker says of the inspiration for the book: “I’m fascinated by our national obsession with true crime. How do we detach from the horrific facts to find it entertaining? How do people doing this professionally sleep at night?” Kill Show is a massive page turner and very thought provoking.

Murder in the Family by Cara Hunter – British crime writer Cara Hunter’s U.S. debut is a winner that kept me completely engaged from beginning to end. Twenty years ago, Luke Ryder was murdered in the garden of his swanky London home – and the killer was never found. In the present day, his stepson, TV director Guy Howard, hopes to solve the case by revisiting the crime through a Netflix docu-drama series entitled Infamous. Guy has assembled a panel of experts in various fields to sift through the evidence and hopefully solve the case. Using a unique format divided by episodes and in script format, the investigation and evidence are presented in the form of emails, text messages, and newspaper articles and reviews, as well as discussions among the “experts” as they sift through the documents and debate the relevance of each detail. 

Wrong Place Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister – As the book opens, Jen witnesses her 18-year-old son Todd murdering a complete stranger in the middle of the night right in front of their house. Devastated that her son, with whom she is close, has taken someone’s life, Jen cries herself to sleep on her sofa. The following morning, Jen wakes up anxious to begin understanding why her son committed this horrific crime but instead finds herself not on the morning after the crime, but the morning before it happened. Each night she goes to sleep, she wakes up further back in time. Jen begins to realize that each day she lands on is teaching her something about the events that led up to her son’s actions as she continues to search for why this all occurred and more importantly search for how to stop it from happening. Wrong Place Wrong Time is an intelligent and compulsive read that kept me turning the pages through all sorts of twists and turns and is the best thriller that I have read. 

For more book recommendations and bookish thoughts, see Cindy’s monthly Buzz Reads column, her award-winning Thoughts from a Page Podcast or follow @ThoughtsFromaPage on Instagram.