59 Minutes, a Review by Susan

☢️☢️

59 Minutes

Holly Seddon

320 Pages

Atria Publishing

Goodreads/Amazon/Bookshop.org

This is a difficult review to write without spoilers. I do not know if I will succeed.

I have never read this particular author. I did not know what to expect. The publisher classified it as a mystery/thriller. I would not have, although I am hard pressed as to how to classify this novel.

The book opens more or less with an announcement to the people of London that a nuclear missile will land and most likely annihilate everyone in 59 minutes. That could be a wonderful backdrop for a novel that will frighten readers. This is not a spoiler and anyone that reads any blurb about this book will know the premise. I suppose that this is what I was looking for: to be scared. It does call itself a thriller (it is certainly not a mystery). There are times that create tension. The story focuses on three woman with different scenarios and stories having to navigate the nightmare that ensues when everyone is panicking and trying to find loved ones. There is one who is trying to reunite with her daughter, a pregnant woman, and an older mother trying to find her teenage daughter. The book alternated between the three women and counted down the time. The countdown is obviously intended to imbue the reader with suspense and doom. However, the constant shuffling between the three women and the three stories undercut this. I found this confusing and every time I was immersed in one character, we switched to the other.
While I was not necessarily expecting a technical treatise on how nuclear missiles work and what would happen if one actually landed on a highly populated area, I felt cheated by the outcome of the novel. There was little, if no explanation for it. I wanted to ask: “WHERE IS THE REST OF IT?” It felt to me like the author wanted to end the novel so she did.
The one stronger spot in my mind was the study of how people behave when there is an impending disaster. There was definitely a Lord of the Flies field to it. But I wanted more. More of this. More of an explanation as to why. More of everything. I think many books are too long these days but I think this one needed to be longer.
I also wanted more character development. There was some, as revealed through dialogue, whether through neighbors and others in this impending disaster, or with their loved ones. It was still hard for me to feel invested, which also could have been a function of the alternating story lines and jumping around.
Toward the end, I really became angry and wondered why I was bothering to finish the book, except that it was a NetGalley book and I promised to. It was a quick read though, so there was that.
Thanks to NetGalley and to Atria for providing me access to this advanced readers copy.