For the record, I have always loved James Patterson. He is a great suspense writer, great style, creative plots. And to me, Mistress did not disappoint. Quick plot summary: Ben is a journalist living in Washington, D.C. when he discovers that the girl of his dreams, Diana Hotchkiss, commits suicide by jumping off a balcony. Ben quickly realizes that the dead body is not Diana's and that the woman was murdered. Ben delves into uncovering the crime while also having flashbacks to the childhood death of his own mother (an apparent suicide).
This book kept me on the edge of my seat. Since Ben was figuring out so many different elements of the crime, he had many different groups of people trying to kill him. He was dodging bullets, hiding out, living in disguise...all to find out the truth behind Diana's death/disappearance.
Have you even seen The Bourne Identity? Ben reminded me of Matt Damon's character in so many ways. Genius. Deceptive. Paranoid. Clever. Skilled. Hunted. Quick-thinking. Rich. There are so many comparisons. (The one you may notice in the trailer that they do NOT have in common is the amnesia). You can check out what I'm talking about in this trailer. I'd imagine Mistress would have a similar vibe if made into a motion picture.
Overall, I give Mistress 4 out of 5 stars. It was well-written and suspenseful and would engage even the most reluctant reader. The one thing that kept this book from 5/5 stars was the ending. While it did provide some closure to the main conflict, I thought it was way too sudden and didn't tie up all subplots. I think most YA readers would enjoy this one!
I've been blogging about books for almost two years. Kind of hard to believe! We started this independent reading initiative in 2013 and I love blogging about books; more importantly, I love reading my students' blogs about their reading. Since our district is switching to Google (for everything: classroom, mail, etc.), we received new Google email addresses. Since everything else will be tied to this new Google account, I decided to set up a new blog. If you want to read about what I've read the past couple of years, please visit me here:
