Review: Life Sentences by Laura Lippman

Book Info:

Life Sentences by Laura Lippman

Hardcover: 352 pages
Publisher: William Morrow (March 10, 2009)
ISBN: 0061128899

Genre: Mystery/Thriller, Contemporary Fiction

Source: TLC Tours

Rating: 3/5 stars

Author Cassandra Fallows has achieved remarkable success by baring her life on the page. Her two widely popular memoirs continue to sell briskly, acclaimed for their brutal, unexpurgated candor about friends, family, lovers— -- and herself. But now, after a singularly unsuccessful stab at fiction, Cassandra believes she may have found the story that will enable her triumphant return to nonfiction.

Laura Lippman is an author that I have been meaning to read for quite some time. I've got a few books from her Tess Monaghan series and have heard great things about What the Dead Know. When the opportunity came up to review Life Sentences I jumped at the chance.

I had a hard time keeping the characters straight in the beginning, but I blame this more on being a sleep deprived new mom than on Lippman's writing. My favorite aspect of the book was the the focus on how different people will perceive the same situation.

Callie was a bit of an enigma. She was the character everyone was trying to understand, and yet even by the end of the book she was still a mystery to me. Her actions were explained, but I was expecting something else, something bigger.

I think was expecting a bit more mystery in the book. Lippman seemed to be going for some suspense, without actually turning the book into a 'whodunit' type book. There was a big buildup near the end of the book, but I didn't find that the ending supported all the hype.

I didn't fall in love with Life Sentences, but will still be checking out Lippman's other books, especially What The Dead Know. 3 stars