The Breakdown (B.A. Paris) @BAParisAuthor

Author: B.A. Paris
Goodreads Rating: ★★★★☆ (4.04)
Pages: 415
Published: July 18, 2017 | Harper Collins UK

Goodreads Synopsis:

If you can’t trust yourself, who can you trust? It all started that night in the woods. Cass Anderson didn’t stop to help the woman in the car, and now she’s dead. Ever since, silent calls have been plaguing Cass and she’s sure someone is watching her. Consumed by guilt, she’s also starting to forget things. Whether she took her pills, what her house alarm code is and if the knife in the kitchen really had blood on it.

My Thoughts (4 Stars)

Entering the book we meet one of few main characters, Cass Anderson, wife to Matthew and best friend to Rachel. She is a school teacher and after a party for the end of the year, to celebrate holiday, she decided to leave early to be home with her husband since having a migraine. On her way home she took a dark, twisty road that Matthew warned her not to take since it being nighttime and it’s severely storming. While on this road she sees a car pulled off to the side and her better instinct tells her to keep going, but somewhere deep down inside she knew the woman she just passed needed her help.

Not being able to tell if the woman needed help seeing she never got out of her car nor flashed her signals to Cass, Cass went home. The next morning when Cass wakes up she finds out that the woman she passed last night is dead. And she was her friend.

Being distraught, feeling like she helped kill her friend, Cass ends up becoming very paranoid. With the killer on the loose, she starts receiving phone calls with somebody on the other line yet they never say a word. Then the worst happens, Cass starts forgetting important things. What the alarm code is, how to work the microwave, not remembering placing orders, get-together’s, birthdays and dinner dates.

But just as she realizes she doesn’t know who she can trust, she gets diagnosed from a doctor with what her mother had before she died, early onset dementia. How can she even trust herself now?

After reading Paris’ first novel Behind Closed Doors I was very excited to hear that she was coming out with a second novel. While reading this book, I had the same likes and dislikes I did when reading her first novel.

There were parts of the story that I felt very bored with. These parts, I felt could have moved a little faster for my pace of reading but the story always knew how to keep me holding on.

I loved that Cass was the narrator of the story. I felt she did a great job at telling the story while having early on set dementia. You could feel the times the Alzheimer’s were really there but then you could tell when there was just a little bit more going on than forgetfulness. Cass, during the first part of the story made it very suspenseful. Being at a murder scene before it happened, keeping the secrets of being down that road to herself, getting creepy phone calls, it all had me on the edge of my seat. Then the middle of the book came and I couldn’t stand Cass. I was getting very fed up with her for how unrealistic she was being in certain situations. I wanted to scream at her myself but once the end of the book came, I could not in all my physical power, put it down.

I’ve been asked a lot when reading this book which was better: The Breakdown or Behind Closed Doors. I REALLY enjoyed both books. Behind Closed Doors started out very slow for me. To the point where I almost put it down but the ending was incredible! The Breakdown, as I said above started strong, got a little weak in the middle and ended with an incredible bang! In my personal opinion, more was happening for me in The Breakdown to stay engaged and I would say that I liked The Breakdown just a little bit more than Behind Closed Doors.

You can click here for my review of Behind Closed Doors by B.A. Paris.