Melanie Gideon‘s Did I Say You Could Go is a page-turner/psychological thriller full of twisted characters. I had a pretty good idea how it would end early on, so the “twist” wasn’t much of a twist for me. But I still enjoyed it.
Widowed Gemma and divorced Ruth bond over being single mothers living in a snobby community where everyone else seems to be married. They become fast friends when their daughters are in kindergarten, have a falling out years later, and reconnect when their girl begin ninth grade. But there’s a lot of tension and ulterior motives. Ruth is wealthy and Gemma accepts her financial help even though she knows she shouldn’t. Ruth’s daughter Marley is smart but socially awkward. Gemma’s daughter Bee is wild, popular, and depressed. The drama snowballs and it’s unclear who is telling the truth and who is lying.
This book is told from all four points of view, which gave really good perspective into the minds of each of the characters. They all qualify as unreliable narrators, so it’s unclear who to believe until the very end. At times I wasn’t sure who to root for, or if I wanted to root for any of them. Nevertheless, it was an entertaining read with several surprises along the way.
I did question why Gemma stayed friends with Ruth. The author did a good job of portraying a friendship that relies on manipulation, and I got why Gemma found it hard to cut things off. But at the beginning of the book she had cut things off years ago, and then she went back. I’d have liked more about her motivations, and less about the online mom groups. (That part became tedious.)
Overall, this novel is a worthwhile read. The suspense is well done, the characters are complex, and the plot is mostly unpredictable.
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