The Breakdown

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Cass clearly presents with paranoia due to driving home one evening and seeing this woman on the side of the road in a storm and she does not stop to help her and the next morning finds out that she has been murdered. Cass starts receiving random phone calls with no one speaking and feels like she is being watched. Cass starts to forget things and believes she may have onset early dementia (a disease her mother had) and it just continues to tumble down from there..... ehhh This book did not grab me. Also let's talk about the character development, there was not one character that I liked, they were all dislikeable characters to me. Cass is stressed, she is worried she is losing her memory, and when she takes a shortcut one night during an awful storm her life changes forever. She passes another woman who appears to have broken down in her car, rather than stop to help Cass drives on. The next day it is discovered that the woman was murdered.

Cass’s continual highs and lows will cause you whiplash, and you will FEEL her frustration as she grasps at straws (tongs, and cans of hairspray) to keep her crumbling life together!Anyone who has read the runaway hit ‘Behind Closed Doors’, has probably been looking forward, with great anticipation, to the second novel by this author. Expectations were high, and the excitement about the book was palpable. As a fierce storm rages, Cass fights to maintain control of her car as she makes her way home on a dark and winding road. Straining to see through the pounding rain, she passes a car pulled over to the side, and catches sight of a woman's face. Desperate to get home and out of the storm, Cass drives on, vowing to call the police to alert them of a possible breakdown of a vehicle by the side of the road. Upon arriving home, Cass fails to make that call. She forgets. Next day, the news is full of the murder of the woman in her car. I felt like it was a little bit predictable based on the small set of characters in this book (Rachel, John, Cass, and Matthew). So, I pretty much was able to guess part of the plot and storyline.

Is she actually losing her mind or is something or someone else to blame. If you can't trust yourself, who can you trust? Cass' days are spent feeling convinced she's being watched, worrying that someone is trying to break into her house, and someone keeps calling her house but not saying anything. She's coming utterly unglued, and to make matters worse, she's starting to forget things—plans she's made, occasions she's planned—even whether she took her pills or activated the burglar alarm. The only way she can seem to cope is by taking pills to calm her anxiety, but they leave her in a drugged stupor, much to the chagrin of her husband. Where’s the tension? I need some! I guess I couldn’t feel any tension because little miss smarty pants here thought she knew exactly what was happening (it’s only fitting that I had half a comeuppance). But whatever the reason, feeling no tension when you’re reading a thriller is a total bummer. Her first novel is called Behind Closed Doors and was released in 2016. The second book is called The Breakdown and was released in 2017. Her third book in the series will be coming out in 2018. Finding text messages between Rachel and Matthew, Cass works out that they are responsible for the nuisance calls, and also for manipulating her to make her think she is losing her memory. She realizes that Rachel and Matthew are having an affair.It was one of those situations where I thought I knew what was going on, but I kept pushing through the tedious chapters and hoping I was wrong and that the ending would surprise me. It didn't. It's way too easy to work out. You might even be starting to suspect the answers before beginning if you read the author's previous book. Cass starts to think someone is watching the house, that someone has been in the house. When she goes shopping and is leaving for home she can't find her car. She KNOWS where she parked, so it must have been stolen. Cass and the parking attendant look everywhere, on all the different floors only to eventually find her car.....