Publication Date: January 10, 2023
Publisher: Park Row
Pages: 320
Genre: Thriller
Rating: 3/5
Just the Nicest Couple is a slow burn thriller with an intriguing premise and unique storytelling. The book is about Nina’s husband, Jake, who goes missing and Nina’s coworker/friend, Lily, who thinks she may have been the last to see Jake and is desperate to hide the fact. The reason this story is unique is that despite the conflict happening between Jake and Lily, the whole story is told through the lens of Nina and Lily’s husband, Christian.
For most of this book Kubica keeps up a frantic pace of keeping the reader guessing what was going on and where the story is going to go. However, the latter half of the book things began to unravel for me. Mostly because I wanted this book to go in a different direction and I had an idea of what I thought the perfect ending would be. So it’s probably no surprise that I wasn’t really a fan of the actual resolution to the story.
I thought Christian was a great morally grey character and I think Kubica did a great job making his motivations and actions believable. I do have to say that I’m not sure how I feel about Kubica using Lily and Christian’s history of early pregnancy loss into a plot device. The topic of miscarriage is very heavy with this story so please be aware of that going in. It made sense with the story and it is something that people deal with but it felt a little odd to see it being used to explain things away.
Overall, this was an interesting thriller that started off strong but ultimately went in a direction that I didn’t love. I did enjoy my time reading it though and it was engaging enough that I flew through it in a few sittings. I think fans of the thriller genre will enjoy the unusual storytelling and captivating writing.
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