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Monday, June 20, 2022

Hostage by Clare Mackintosh

You can save hundreds of lives. Or the one that matters most.

A claustrophobic thriller set over twenty hours on one airplane flight, with the heart-stopping tension of The Last Flight and the wrenching emotional intensity of Room, Hostage takes us on board the inaugural nonstop flight from London to Sydney.

Mina is trying to focus on her job as a flight attendant, not the problems of her five-year-old daughter back home, or the fissures in her marriage. But the plane has barely taken off when Mina receives a chilling note from an anonymous passenger, someone intent on ensuring the plane never reaches its destination. Someone who needs Mina's assistance and who knows exactly how to make her comply.

It's twenty hours to landing. A lot can happen in twenty hours.

Paperback, 339 pages
Published June 22, 2021
by Sourcebooks Landmark
3.5/5 stars

Be forwarned, I am so going against the flow in my thoughts for Hostage.

The premise for Hostage is intriguing, it sounds suspenseful and the type of thriller I would enjoy. I think my biggest problem with this book was I couldn’t connect with the characters nor feel any emotional connection to the story. Given other reviews this seems to be a me issue. At one point I even went so far as to grab the audio book from CloudLibrary. One female reader for all the different povs. That would have worked if the book is told from a female pov but it wasn’t and the male parts just didn’t work.

The story is told from a number of different POVS, mainly Mina and Adam, husband and wife with their daughter Sophia. There’s back story here that plays a big part of what transpires and the author wove that seamlessly into the story. There are other points of view scattered throughout which made everything connect at the conclusion. As for the ending, I mean the very ending, the last couple of chapters I really enjoyed those.  The twist that I didn’t see coming.

Hostage is very much a story of 'what would you do if you were in that situation' and honestly I can’t imagine and therefore can’t judge Mina for what transpired. This is my first time reading a Claire Macintosh book, I will continue and give her another try.

This book was part of my 2022 Reading Off My Shelf Challenge -#38

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