The Change by: Kirsten Miller
In the Long Island oceanfront community of Mattauk, three different women discover that midlife changes bring a whole new type of empowerment…
After Nessa James’s husband dies and her twin daughters leave for college, she’s left all alone in a trim white house not far from the ocean. In the quiet of her late forties, the former nurse begins to hear voices. It doesn’t take long for Nessa to realize that the voices calling out to her belong to the dead—a gift she’s inherited from her grandmother, which comes with special responsibilities.
On the cusp of 50, suave advertising director Harriett Osborne has just witnessed the implosion of her lucrative career and her marriage. She hasn’t left her house in months, and from the outside, it appears as if she and her garden have both gone to seed. But Harriett’s life is far from over—in fact, she’s undergone a stunning and very welcome metamorphosis.
Ambitious former executive Jo Levison has spent thirty long years at war with her body. The free-floating rage and hot flashes that arrive with the beginning of menopause feel like the very last straw—until she realizes she has the ability to channel them, and finally comes into her power.
Guided by voices only Nessa can hear, the trio of women discover a teenage girl whose body was abandoned beside a remote beach. The police have written the victim off as a drug-addicted sex worker, but the women refuse to buy into the official narrative. Their investigation into the girl’s murder leads to more bodies, and to the town’s most exclusive and isolated enclave, a world of stupendous wealth where the rules don’t apply. With their newfound powers, Jo, Nessa, and Harriett will take matters into their own hands…
Honest Review Time:
I have so many thoughts. First and foremost—I did not enjoy this book overall. I was so excited to read this. I requested it at my local library 23 weeks ago. The only thing I knew about it was that it had a coven in it, and I’m really into the witchy vibe right now.
I should’ve read the book blurb because I wasn’t expecting a murder mystery (my least favorite genre) or a 400+ page rant on how men are disgusting pigs (I do agree) and the police are corrupt (not always true but okay).
There were SEVERAL awesome feminist quotes that I’m 100% putting on my quotes page in my planner—but the overall story was too much.
Issues:
•The story did a lot of telling in flashbacks, and 30% in it tells one of the main characters involved in the murders—but you know this so early that it’s frustrating the other characters don’t figure it out fast enough.
•The three women trying to solve the murders go on a body hunt. As a reader, you experience that. The following chapter is them RETELLING IT IN DETAIL on a “podcast.”
•A bit after the “podcast” the author gives a villain backstory (and finally reveals that the guy from 30% is involved to the other characters) by making them rehash the story AGAIN on a ‘dateline-esque’ tv show.
•There were way too many people involved in the murders that are killed off in convenient ways so that the author doesn’t have to give much of a background on how it all came to be.
•It’s played off as a power trip for the rich or the untouchable—which is obvious and overdone.
•THE ENDING??? You go on this feminist RANT and then end it like THAT? How dare you.
That is all.
2/5 🌟
1.5/5 🌶️ (one character likes to be nude and sleeps around)
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