25 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Well Written, but Too Convoluted for its own Good, June 2, 2008
Lisa Unger is a writer of enormous talent, and I really enjoyed her earlier novel BEAUTIFUL LIES. Unfortunately, I can't say the same for her most recent book BLACK OUT.
The major flaw with BLACK OUT is how Unger structures the story. Unfortunately, she decides not to unfold the plot in a linear fashion. Instead she constantly jumps back and forth through time in an episodic manner, which prevents the storyline from gaining any true momentum. I also felt the plot was at times confusing, making it difficult for me to understand what was going on. The ending is similarly ambigious and perplexing, which led me to put down the book with a certain amount of frustration.
I give Unger credit for trying something different, and there's no denying that the prose in BLACK OUT is first rate. I will definitely buy more of her books in the future. Still, this novel was ultimately a listlessly-paced disappointment, and I would recommend first-time Unger readers to try BEAUTFIUL LIES instead.
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17 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Too many blackouts, July 28, 2008
This book sounded so good. I don't mind flashbacks but this overdid it to the nth degree. When I finished it I wasn't sure what really happened and what was the main character's hallucinations and delusions. None of the characters were people you could warm up to and feel for, not even the supposed victim. In the end you just wanted the bad guy to catch up with her and put her and me out of our misery.
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18 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
(4.5) "No passion so effectively robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.", May 27, 2008
Unger hits a home run with this nail-biter, a story that ratchets up the sense of imminent danger with each chapter. An ordinary wife and mother, Annie Powers, is not so ordinary as she first appears. But then, neither is her husband who works in a company that does business in a post-9/11 world, Gray Powers perhaps offering his wife the unique assistance that allows a troubled young woman to create a different life after years of trauma. But this chance to start over, with Gray and daughter, Victory, on Florida's Gulf Coast isn't purchased without considerable cost. Gray's private enterprises facilitate his shielding of Annie and this is a bargain she is willing to make. Finally secure, even a little careless of late, Annie is suddenly overtaken by an eerie sense that she is being watched, that the impossible has happened and "he" has returned to claim her. She knows she is safe, that Gray has effectively erased the past, but it is all shattered in a moment in the soft repetition of a name, "Ophelia".
Tired of running, too terrified to stay, Annie is thrust into an impossible conundrum, an unbearable reality. As fragments of memories return to her consciousness, Annie relives those dark days of abandonment and humiliation, a young girl with no one to care for her, a ready victim for a crafty predator. But it must end. She must find the strength to confront her demons or die trying. In the world Unger has created for her protagonist, nothing can be taken for granted, nor is Annie the only damaged soul: the walking wounded don't always reveal their scars. Annie's story is riveting, her gradual revelations tinged with years of emotional abuse, adrift in a violent world. Beginning with a first love with serial murderer Marlowe Geary, the details of the past remain obscure, hidden in her subconscious; events conspire to reawaken the terror she has not experienced for five years, when Annie believed her long nightmare was finally over. But now someone is asking questions, she is being followed and all the precautions of wealth and family cannot protect this woman from this menace.
The cast of characters is bizarre: a sociopathic killer, seductive and deadly; a damaged girl, ready fodder for such a predator; a driven man who has seen and done too much, horrified by his own actions; a calculating, controlling father-in-law, arrogant in the exercise of power; a father who repeatedly fails his daughter; a loving child who embraces her parents with the sweet generosity of innocence; and the cold, beating heart of geography known for its curiosities, in reality thrumming with atavistic hunger. Unger explores Florida's underbelly, a terrain blessed with nature's beauty, where evil lurks in the moldy crevasses sunshine never touches. Murder, greed, power- all coexist beneath the placid exterior of the sunshine state, Annie running from the horrors of the past only to meet them again, one last time. Skillfully weaving the theme of a mother's commitment to her child with the incredible chaos of a past that seeks to reclaim her, Annie searches for redemption, uncovering a web of deceit that is shocking. In her final challenge, Annie is fearless. Luan Gaines/ 2008.
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