60 pages • 2 hours read
Mary KubicaA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
One of the literary devices commonly used in mysteries and thrillers is the red herring, in which the reader is fed false or misleading clues. An example of this is Sadie’s focus on Imogen’s strange and disturbing behavior. Identify and discuss examples of red herrings and how they affect Sadie’s investigation, as well as your own understanding of the secret at the heart of the novel. Are the red herrings successful?
While relatively rare in real life, dissociative identity disorder (DID) has been found by fiction and cinema to be a useful plot device, especially in telling detective stories or thrillers. Unfortunately, literary and cinematic uses of DID (formerly called split or multiple personalities) often use stigmatizing stereotypes about the disorder. Is Kubica’s book a responsible portrayal of DID? How does it succeed, and how does it fall short?
By Mary Kubica