The victim: Eighteen-year-old Janie leaving home for a new life.
The criminal: World-famous rock star, Robbie, who harbours a shocking secret.
The protector: Witness support officer, Vanessa, desperate to right the wrongs of her past.
They tried to bury that fateful day. Now it’s back to haunt them.
... AND THEN THERE’S THE TRUTH.
Eighteen-year-old Janie was excited that she was heading off to London to start a new job and a new life. A couple days before she is going to leave she gets hit by a van and the occupants leave her for dead. She doesn't die but she is badly injured and ends up in a wheelchair, has memory issues and can't speak. Twenty years later someone is finally arrested for the hit and run. Everyone is shocked when it's Robbie, a beloved famous rock star. To avoid the publicity it will bring to his wife and children (plus a secret reason we find out later), he pleads guilty.
When I started this book, I found it interesting. Then it got ridiculous and farfetched but I stuck with it because I was too far into it and wanted to know how the ending would come together. I wasn't crazy about the writing style. The book is almost 500 pages and the writing have been tighter and less draggy.
There was A LOT going on in addition to the Robbie/Janie story. There were so many side stories and each could have been their own books. Vanessa was 69 and acted like she was 89. She'd been widowed three years earlier and still had conversations with Jack, her dead husband, and in her head he spoke back telling her what to do, which was unbelievable. In addition to being a volunteer support person for witnesses in court, she ended up having a complex side story when she found out Jack had kept a secret from her and she got sucked into that. Janie's mom had mental issues and had disappeared one day when Janie was younger. Everyone thought she took some drugs and drowned but Janie thought she was still alive and is determined to find her (before her accident her going on and on about her mother being still alive was tiring). Vanessa was friends with the judge trying Robbie's case and he had a secret of his own ... and he had conversations with a past love who lovingly talked back which was also unbelievable.
It's written in first person perspective in Janie's voice and third person perspective in Vanessa, Robbie and other's voices. I didn't like any of the characters and didn't care what happened to them. Robbie had a rough childhood but acted pathetic and entitled when he got to the prison awaiting his trial. I wasn't buying that Janie couldn't speak but could suddenly express herself by singing (huh?!) and remembered many details from the accident 20 years ago. As a head's up, there is swearing and violence.
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