A Simple Favor by Darcey Bell

I seem to be coming across more and more reviews on Goodreads that I find particularly confusing or...inaccurate, for lack of a better word. I don't usually read the reviews in order to determine if I will read a book or not, mainly because people like to play it fast and loose with the details. But once I am done with a book, I'll peruse the reviews out of curiosity, and those of Darcey Bell's A Simple Favor - yes, the very same as the movie starring Blake Lively and Anna Kendrick - are some I didn't agree with, but not because I feel like A Simple Favor is some kind of literary masterpiece.

One review in particular that shows up first says that Bell is lucky to have her "contrived," "stinker of a novel," purchased for the movie rights, when the very first thing that I thought was, I know exactly why this book was purchased for the movie rights.

Stephanie is an isolated Stay-at-Home Mommy-blogger (not unlike myself) who suddenly finds herself immersed in her best friend, Emily's, life once Emily goes unexpectedly missing. What is artificial on the surface - the juvenile writing, the blatant ineptitude of the would-be protagonist (if one actually exists in this story, and I don't think one does), and the story as old as time - actually speaks to more complex themes and explores different ideas, and *that* is why I think it was snatched up to be made into a movie, and why the multi-faceted talents of Kendrick and Lively were picked to play the main characters.

The foundation of the book, that everyone has secrets, is the stable ship that carries some very unstable people. And where other Domestic Noir novels work extra hard for character empathy and elaborate reasons for unreasonable actions, A Simple Favor simply tells the story of best friends behaving badly. And in direct contrast to my usual complaints that every mystery thriller is compared to Gone Girl, I am going to go ahead and compare it to Gone Girl in that it is exactly like Gone Girl if Gone Girl was about two female best friends instead of a husband and wife; and, just like Gone Girl, everyone deserves each other.

Also on the surface is the cheesy, over-used theme showcasing the underbelly of misrepresenting ourselves online. Stephanie is an insipid character who is subtly narcissistic and manipulates the tragedy of others to gain validation from online strangers. She is that special kind of willful ignorance who avoids the truth in favor of feeding her own ego and self-interests, though she tries (unsuccessfully) to be remorseful for her ideas and behaviors.

Unlike Stephanie, Emily makes no attempt to veil her unfavorable thoughts or actions, which speaks to present day real life in that most of us do things that we know are wrong simply because we want to do them. In reading this book, I found that I have more empathy for these women than I did in any of the other domestic thrillers I have read *because* there is no special, overly-detailed, vengeful reason for why they do what they do. And it certainly isn't as a result of some dumb male acting dumb. This book makes the movie unlike any other - where the men sit back and enjoy the ride. I find that, currently, nothing is more relatable than these two characters.

This certainly isn't the best book I have ever read, which is why I gave it three out of five stars on Goodreads, but I feel the need to defend it to a certain extent. I would enjoy seeing the movie, I'm curious to see these characters acted out on screen, and if - also like Gone Girl - the intentions of the characters remain the same. This book is definitely a page-turner, but not one to read if you need to like any of the characters; you will definitely not like any of these characters.