This review should be only one sentence: it's best to start reading Aimee Molloy's clever Goodnight Beautiful knowing as little as possible. Readers should go in blind--heck, even skip this review--but if they need more convincing, here are a few more details.
Newlyweds Sam and Annie move from Manhattan to Chestnut Hill, N.Y., to take care of his ailing mother. Sam, a psychologist, starts a private business and almost right away attracts patients, partly due to a local magazine newspaper profile showing how handsome and charming he is. Then he disappears during a storm, and everything readers think they know is turned on its head.
The unreliable narrator is a familiar trope, but Molloy takes it to the next level. It's almost impossible to see the major revelations coming, and when they do, they might cause whiplash and double takes, as one tries to comprehend what just happened and flips back through pages to reread sections. Red herrings and plot manipulations are often obvious, especially to well-versed thriller readers, but Molloy pulls off sleights of hand like an expert magician. It's not all about the twists, however. With short, brisk chapters in alternating points of view, the author takes her time establishing who Sam and Annie are, delving into topics such as trust, loneliness and parental attachment. The characters in Goodnight Beautiful might be conflicted, but Molloy knows exactly what she's doing, with them and her audience. --Elyse Dinh-McCrillis, blogger at Pop Culture Nerd