Netgalley Review: The Reputation by Sara Shepard

Thank you to Netgalley and Dutton books for giving me a copy of this book for free in exchange for my honest review.

Publication Date: December 3, 2019

Publisher: Dutton

Pages: 384

Genre: Mystery

Rating: 2.5/5

Reputation centers around a college town and the fallout of an email hack of the college, Aldrich University. Rumors, secrets and scandals pervade the environment and are turned up a notch when Kit’s husband, Dr. Greg is killed. Kit’s sister, Willa comes into town and uses her investigative reporter background to try to figure out who killed Greg.

This book had moments that I really enjoyed but unfortunately it had way too much going on. There were way too many characters that we were following and it really frustrated me when we got to the end and so much of it didn’t seem to matter. The suspense of the book really could have been amped up but by following all the storylines it became muddled. The closer we got to the ending the more I found myself not caring about who the killer was.

I was all set to give this book three stars but my biggest pet peeve with books is when authors spend pages explaining the ending to the reader. The ending was very self explanatory and I don’t know why we had to have the ending justified to us. It was good and surprising but also made sense when it was revealed.

If you are a fan of Shari Lapena then I think you might really enjoy this book. Lapena isn’t my favorite thriller writer but her books are always fun and entertaining. While this book didn’t quite hit all those marks for me I can see how other people might like it more.

~Cassie