My Review with Spoilers for Vantage Point discusses this new January 2025 title I’d call psychological suspense with a hearty side of family drama. Fans of Succession (and the YA book We Were Liars) should really enjoy it. Let’s discuss it!
Jen’s Quick Take on Vantage Point by Sara Sligar
- Vantage Point is part Family Secrets Suspense
- And part Evil Rich Family story
- It definitely has parallels with Succession, but also has a macabre/gothic feel that reminded me of Gillian Flynn or a modern gothic
- It’s more a classic psychological suspense story with high tech gaslighting than a mystery or thriller
- To be published on January 14, 2025 by MCD/Macmillan. 400 pages. Thanks to the publisher for the advance copy for review.
- Also by Sara Sligar: Take Me Apart (2020)
Readers’ Advisory: there is a story element that seems like it could veer into a sexual abuse storyline, but that is not really the case. If this could be an issue for you, you might want to skim (or avoid) chapter four.
Review with Spoilers for Vantage Point
For me, the strength of Succession on HBO is not the high-flying financial machinations, but the twisted psychological bonds between members of the Roy family.
Take a typical family with sibling rivalries and a patriarch who has multiple childen/wives/companies and mix in billions of dollars, and you get family drama in PJs (private jets, not pajamas.)
Vantage Point also uses a wealthy family as the backdrop for a classic psychological suspense story.
The Wiemans are one part Roy family (famously dysfunctional) and one part Kennedy family (famously cursed). This might sound weird, but one of my favorite parts of the book involved reading the creative ways that some of the family members over the decades perished due to the curse, which extends for the month of April.
Clara and Teddy Wieland are the surviving children of a couple who fell victim to that curse. Clara was sixteen when her parents died, and has struggled with an eating disorder ever since. Teddy had to be the responsible one.
Sixteen years later, a fragile Clara is trying to reclaim her life. Teddy, who married Jess, Clara’s best friend, is running for a senate seat.
But something (or someone) is ruining all that. Is it the curse?
This is what makes Vantage Point classic psychological suspense. We aren’t sure if Clara is being gaslit, or is an unreliable narrator.
Which is it?
Spoilers for Vantage Point and The Ending Explained
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Will you read this? If you did, what did you think?
Want to see ALL the new mysteries and thrillers coming out in January 2025?
