A simple favour, that’s all it is. Your best friend asks you to pick up her son from school? Would you say no? What if you knew that your friend was going to disappear that same day? Then would you think differently?
A Simple Favour by Darcy Bell is a psychological thriller written in three different perspectives that really show that there’s more than one side to every story. To start with I am going to mention that none of these characters can really be called a reliable narrator but that’s something that I really found that I enjoyed about the book. None of these characters are really what one could consider “normal”.
First we have Stephanie. She’s a “mummy blogger” and definitely a helicopter parent and overly neurotic but I thought that she was written really well. Some of the blog posts can be a little bit slow at times but they are important to show the story going forward and they do end up being a really important plot device. She is an interesting character in the way that she is so over the top she’s a little bit unbelievable, but at the same time you will realise you know someone like that.
Next you have Emily who honestly the more she is described as perfect the more I hated her but I think that was supposed to be the intention. Later you learn that her perfect life really isn’t so perfect and that Emily really wasn’t that great of a person. She’s manipulative and dishonest but she does ultimately care about one thing– her son. I think that’s what made her a little bit more redeeming for me, to see that she wasn’t just a sociopath who cared about nothing, but that there was a little bit more to her.
Finally there is Sean, Emily’s husband and eventually Stephanie’s lover once his wife has gone missing. Honestly he’s just kind of there at times to fill in any blanks but that is a good thing. There are plot holes that otherwise really wouldn’t have been filled and also show a little bit more about how not sane Emily really is.
All in all I did enjoy this book, though there is incest in it and that is something that I would have preferred to be warned about ahead of time. If you want something that will make you think, read A Simple Favour.
Review by Jordanna, QBD Knox City
