Rio Youers is no stranger to crafting bold and emotionally charged thrillers with palpable tension and highly realistic characters with whom you become wholly invested by the time you finish the book. What They Did is a somber tale of how life has its own designs for you that lead you down a path you couldn’t have imagined.
Carly Rivers and Dana Lee share a secret that binds them forever. They were the bestest of friends and even as they drifted apart over the years, the secret sits there like a skeleton in the closet, just waiting to be revealed. When Dana’s son falls in with the wrong crowd, she turns back to Carly who herself has a place within the dark underbelly world of crime and violence. When heads finally butt and tensions burst, it’s a fight to the death for all, and the secret comes back yearning for resolution.
What They Did is a powerhouse suspense-filled thriller that boasts two of the most compelling female main characters I’ve read this year. I love the unflinching and raw portrayal of violence and brutality. It’s impressive how Youers keeps a running momentum in the present day storyline Dana, her kid, and Carly while unveiling just the right context of the past to help readers believe in Dana and Carly’s bond over the traumatic secret that sits between them silent and watchful. The deliberate nature of each chapter in the narrative is nothing less than a stroke of genius where everything falls so neatly into place at the end, all the building blocks so intricately set for a powerful payoff both emotionally and intellectually for readers.
It’s essentially two great stories in one book. You’ve got the relationship between Dana and Carly, and then there’s Dana’s son, Anthony. His devastatingly engaging story arc serves as a testament to Rio Youers’s ability to craft meaningful and real-life-like stories where you can sense the destruction coming in through the traits and actions of his characters yet you can’t look away. It goes a long way to comment on our destructive nature to spiral even when there’s help available.
What They Did is an excellent dramatic representation of life shaping you in its own unique and exciting if sometimes unorthodox ways. From the childhood bond of the two leading characters to the coming of age story of a young man falling head first into a pile of wrong decisions, it’s a story you won’t soon forget.
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