 I look like the inverted and incredible, oh, that means that this is this crotch region confirmed. Hello everybody, E here. Welcome back to another book review. Today we're talking about a book that I was extremely excited about. The follow up, well it's not like a sequel or anything, but Nathan Ripley's second book, I read and loved his first novel, his debut, Find You in the Dark. Absolutely loved that one. And I couldn't wait. In fact, I've been hounding him on Twitter, like when's the next one coming, when's the next one coming, I'm sure he was tired of hearing me ask. But I finally got my hands on it, Atria Publishing was nice enough to send me a review copy of Your Life is Mine by Nathan Ripley. The TLDR this is, I loved it, I loved every minute of it. Nathan writes the type of characters that I want to read about, characters that I can either despise, that I can love, or that there's some kind of moral area. One of the things that, I'm laughing because one of the things that I caught on early on, it's funny how if you pick just the right character name, that character doesn't have to say anything for you to know what kind of character they are. Nathan picked the perfect name for Emile Chadwick. As soon as I saw that name, I was like, this guy is a douchebag. And of course, I don't want to give any spoilers, but I mean that name, right off the bat, that name is great. The story is about the main character Blanche, it's also written in a first person, third person, even a little bit of a, I guess, epistolary, I think it's called, I don't know. There's sections not in here, not of interviews, but there's sections in here written, it's kind of like Carrie when you read excerpts from a book, a fictional book in the fictional world and there's sections like that in here. So you have those sections, you have third person sections, and then you have first person from the main character Blanche. I appreciated that I had no idea where this was going at any point in time. I had no clue where he was going to spin the tale next, and no matter what, every single chapter made me want to keep on reading. In fact, this is the first time in forever that I've read a hundred pages in one sitting. I'm not just talking about one day, well it was one day, but I didn't come back to it because that's kind of burned out after just staring at pages after that. I'm not a speed reader, so a hundred pages takes me like two, three hours to read. Now I was just laying there, I was just reading, reading, reading. I think the best part about this book is of course, well not I think, the best part of this book is the characterization. There's a lot of dialogue in here, a lot of back and forth between Blanche and Jaya, Jaya, I'm not sure, and that was some of my favorite dialogue throughout the entire thing, that relationship felt entirely real, the friendship was deep, there was an emotional connection there. I also appreciated the emotional connection with Padma, Jaya, I want to say Jaya, so if I'm getting that wrong I apologize, Jaya's mother Padma. There's a dichotomy, is that right? Probably not, but there's maybe a juxtaposition, because juxtaposition is a comparison I believe, but Blanche's father was a psycho cultist leader, and then Jaya's, Jaya's, I'm going to say J anyway, so J-A-Y-A, there you go, any time I say something that sounds like that, you know what I'm talking about. Her father was murdered in a random crime, shot to death. That whole, that whole thing, the back and forth, that whole subplot was terrific. There's also a bit of, I don't know if Nathan took from reality here, but there was, and I don't want to give too much away, but you guys, anybody remember the Interstate Killer? I can't remember the guy's name, I don't really want to say it here anyways, he had a kid with him. I think Nathan borrowed from reality for that one, if not then, you know, I might be wrong, I don't know, but there were aspects of that in here, and I always appreciate seeing, you know, real world stuff, like I said in my Top 5 Tropes video, in fact this is what gave me that idea to do that video was this book, because it, he might have, I don't know, I didn't talk to him about it, I probably should have, but he took that idea and then he fictionalized it completely and did his own thing with it, and I really like it when that happens. Completely different characters of course, it's not like he said, hey, these guys were cult or whatever, but I also appreciated that the ending wasn't, and I'm going to get into spoilers at the end of this video, the ending did not go exactly where I thought it would, it had some aspects, but overall this book completely caught me off guard, it's not your average everyday thriller, and the thing that makes it stand out, like I said before, the best part about this book is the characters, he's a terrific character writer, he's one of those guys who can write about anyone, anywhere, at any time, and I would have fun reading it, because he's writing about real people, he's writing about people that have real struggles, that have real conflicts going on in their heads, and all too often you have, especially in thrillers, you have either completely broken messes of people, or you have people that are just stupid happy, that have the perfect lives, and then Dean Coons is a perfect example of that, perfect life, all of a sudden it's utter garbage because someone snuck in and destroyed it. Now while there is a little escapism there, I don't like those types of stories, I like stories like this one, also there's a little bit, I don't know if he read, well not sharp objects, but in, well Dark Places, I think it's Dark Places, Gillian Flynn's second novel, I believe, I'm not sure, but anyways Dark Places was a terrific novel, and there are notes of that in here as well, I'm not saying he ripped anybody off, but there are notes of that, so if you like that book you will definitely enjoy your life as mine, but until next time, I have been E, you have been U, this has been another book review, I'll talk to you guys later, bye bye. Okay, so spoilers from here on out, I will do a book birthday for this, and I probably should have said that it's not even out yet in the main video, oh well, June 4th is when this comes out, June 6th, 2019, so if you don't want any spoilers, if you want to read it for yourself, please, please, please click away, but this will be up there for everybody to watch when they finally do actually read the book. The whole shooter in the back of the car thing covered up with tarp, what not, in the back of the truck, I think that was taken from the Interstate Killers a while back, which is insanely weird, because I was working at a hospital that took care in Montgomery, Alabama that took care of, she eventually passed away, I think it was the first victim, I can't remember, but she was shot in front of the ABC store in Montgomery, Alabama and it ended up being the same duo of people that went on the killing spree, I think they called him the Interstate Killer, I can't remember, but he was laying down in the back of a car or a van or something like that and shooting people with a rifle, so there's that aspect, also I really, I kind of saw it coming, that blanch was there, I actually thought it was going to be Blanch who ended up killing Zia's father, I thought that was going to be the twist, it wasn't, thankfully, that would have been a cool twist, don't get me wrong, I wouldn't have been upset, I just would have saw it coming, so the twist, I don't know, but then again, would that have been redeemable, I don't think that would have been redeemable, so going that route would have made it more, I think, would have made it more a horror story, whether you have that horror of you built up this life with this friend of yours and then you get to the end here and you have to come clean, that would have been that would have been an interesting subject to dive into, I think, but by that time, I mean the book's almost over, so he doesn't have much, sorry, I'm still getting over cold, you know how much time to go into it, but I really love the back and forth when they're fighting, I love Zia's, Zia, whatever, responses, I dug that whole thing, I especially liked the boy character, it was very odd, it wasn't something that I thought for sure the whole time it was going to be a meal, I was like no, no let me, let's not, all the signs are pointing that it's not him, whatever, that'd be way too obvious, having him as a character that nobody really knew was exceptional, I appreciated that, there was no twist, that's another thing, you read these thrillers all the time, you're looking for the killer and you know the killer is someone that you know, so you're picking up, it's gotta be this person, it's gotta be that person, so it's actually a nice twist for me to get in there and go, oh, he was actually just another character, the Chuck Varner storyline was great, I appreciated the thoughts, the cynicism, the nihilism and all that stuff, the everything that was pumped into Blanche when she was a kid, everything that Chuck believed, he's one of those cult leaders that you tend to, that you see where he's coming from, not that he's right, I'm just saying you see where he's coming from and he just goes way too far with it, that kind of madness, so I appreciated that, oh no, it's gonna end up one of my books of the year unless something huge comes out to just stomp it into the ground, I don't know if the Institute by Stephen King will overshadow it or not, but this is the most fun I've had reading a thriller, I'm trying to think and I'm having a problem thinking of anything else, so yeah, this was big fun, and probably the last one that I read that could even be considered a thriller would be hashtag fashion victim by Aminaktar, that was a great book, terrific book and that one's gonna be up against this one for my favorite read of the year, so far, that's the running right now, but I did like this one a bit more just because of the character, that fashion victim was more of a satire and this one was more of a set in reality kind of thing, that's why I appreciated this one a little bit more, not to say fashion victim isn't set in reality also, that those people don't act that way, there just wasn't the depth of all the characters that I found in this one, but yeah, that's all I got to say about this one, Nathan, if you're watching this and I hope you do, I loved your book man, I absolutely loved it, talk to you later