*Summary and Spoilers*
Main Characters:
Louise (Lou)- victim of a serial killer whose body was cloned and brought back to life, mother, wife
Silas- Lou’s husband
Fern- a victim of a serial killer who is in a support group with Lou
Angela- a victim of a serial killer who is in the support group
Lacey- a victim of a serial killer who is in the support group and a member of The Luminols, a cold case solving group
Edward Early- the man who was arrested for killing 5 women
Why you should read or listen:
This book is a quick listen/ read. It was engaging and I could not wait to figure out the ending! The summary gives you the story of Lou but in the actual book, you learn about some of the other victims and about Lou's dads. The story touches on post-partum and how mental health issues can affect our relationships.
But if you don't have time or need a refresher, continue reading!
Quick & Dirty Summary:
*Contains Spoilers*
Lou believed she is a victim of the serial killer, Edward Early and she was cloned by the government along with the other four victims. Early tells Lou that he never killed her so she and another victim, Fern, look for answers about Lou's murder. In the end, they find that Lou was not murdered and the original Louise is still alive. She ran away from her life and the government asked her to stay away so that they could use her story as a mother and wife to promote their cloning program. Lou and Louise meet and decide that Louise will stay away and live a new life. Lou will stay with their husband and daughter.
Complete Summary:
Louise was a wife and new mother struggling with post-partum depression and planning to leave her family. She packed a bag with clothes, money, her passport, and a few other items. Before she had the opportunity to leave, Lou was murdered by a local serial killer during her daily run. A government Replication Commission cloned her and brought her back to life.
Now, Lou is alive but in a different body. She is the same person and has the same memories; except she can’t remember her murder. In this second chance at life, Lou is glad to be alive and no longer wants to leave her husband, Silas, and her daughter, Nova. She regrets ever thinking about leaving them. Lou is slowly rejoining society and working at The Room, where she is a touch therapist.
To help Lou adjust back to living, she attends a support group that consists of all of the victims of the same serial killer, Edward Early. The first victim was Angela, the second was Fern, the third victim was Jasmine, the fourth was Lacey, and the final was Lou. All five of the women were cloned by the government and brought back to life. The support group is run by Gert, who works for the Replication Commission. The women use the time in the group to talk about their lives and support each other through any issues they are having while re-entering their lives. All the women talk and share except for Fern.
After one meeting, Fern invites Lou to grab lunch. Fern opens up about not enjoying the group or talking to them. She tells Lou that she is trying to be the exact opposite of who she used to be and wants to forget the old Fern. She also admits that she wants to visit their killer in prison. She wants to know why he chose to kill her. Lou also wants to visit him, so that she can see him without being afraid.
Lou is having issues at work. She works at The Room. The Room is a touch therapy center. People who live in a world full of virtual reality can come to The Room to experience physical touch, such as a hug or hand hold. In the sessions, Lou is an avatar so that the clients won’t recognize her. During a session with a man, Mr Pemberton, she holds on to him too tightly and won’t let go. Eventually, she lets go but gets reprimanded and asked to take some time off.
The support group finds out that Angela has been working with a company to create a VR game called Early Evening about their murders. This is a game where you can be Angela and be hunted by Edward Early. Every member of the support group, except Lacey, plays the game. Lacey exposes the fact that in a couple weeks the game will be updated so that you can play as the serial killer and not just the victims like the current version.
Fern and Lou send Edward Early’s mom, Celia, a gift card to The Room for a session with Lou. They send the gift card on fake letter head from Early’s lawyers. Celia attends her session. In the session, Celia asks Lou to change her avatar to look like her son. Lou doesn’t want to change her avatar to look like Edward Early so she becomes herself. Celia recognized her as her son’s last victim but thinks she’s just someone playing a trick on her and leaves the session.
Lou visits Celia at work to apologize. Celia tells her that she spoke to her son, and he has agreed to let Lou and Fern visit. Fern and Lou go to the prison to meet with Early. Early is receiving medications and therapy to help him experience empathy. He continues to cry throughout their conversation. Fern freezes up, but Lou gets angry. He tells Lou that he’s never met her before because he didn’t kill her. Early admits to killing Fern but explains that he only admitted to killing Lou because five victims sounded better than four. After his empathy treatments, he no longer wants to lie.
Lou is determined to find the truth. She and Fern go to see Lacey, who is part of a cold case solving club, The Limnols. Lou and Fern meet Tatum, Lacey’s mother. She warns Lou not to tell anyone about what Early said because if her killer thinks they are in the clear, then she’s not in danger. If the killer knows she suspects it’s not Early, then they might try to kill her again.
At the next support group, Fern does not show up. During the meeting, a woman breaks into Lou’s house while her daughter and babysitter are there. Nova and the babysitter are not hurt, but the bag that Lou packed to run away before her murder is gone. Lou assumes that it was Fern who broke into the house and took it, but she never told Fern about the bag.
The Limonls meet with Lou and show her a bank statement from her and Silas’ joint account. Silas took out $10,000 three days after Lou's murder, the day her body was found. They also inform her that the police suspected Silas was the murderer until Early confessed. Lou’s murder was similar to the other victims but different enough for the police to think it was not the same killer as the other four women.
Although Lou does not think her husband killed her or hired a killer, she searches the house for evidence. On their live call wall, she finds calls from Gert to Silas that start on the day of Lou’s murder and continue once a week until now. Lou’s body was not found on the day of her murder, it was found three days later. Lou is confused as to why Gert, from the Replication Committee, would call Silas if she was just missing and not found dead yet.
Lou decided to leave and go to her dad’s house. On the way, she gets an invitation to join the game Early Evening. She stops at work to use the VR gear. When she gets into her virtual clinic Mr Pemberton, the client she had an issue with, is sitting on her couch. Lou is confused because clients can’t enter her clinic without her. He tells her he just got in to think and he’s not sure how. When he leaves the virtual clinic, he calls her Lou which also confuses Lou because she never uses her real name with clients.
Lou enters the game, in an auto driving car, to find a lot of Angelas with knives. She is trying to find the real Angela and yells out to her. Nova’s babysitter, Perty, finds Lou and tells her that it was Lou in a wig who broke into the house. Perty called Silas and he asked her to lie to Lou about her breaking into the house. Lou thinks it was Fern because Fern and Lou look similar. Lou leaves the game and calls her dad, Odd, to let him know she is on the way. In the background of the call, she hears Fern. Lou gets to Odd’s and sees Fern and herself, the Louise before the murder, sitting at the table.
The ending:
The original Louise explains to the clone Lou what happened before the murder. Louise went on her run and left her shoes by the trail, just like Edward Early’s other victims with shoes near them. A woman saw her shoeless and told her to get in her auto and take it somewhere safe. She took the auto to Odd’s house and stayed there. Gert and the Replication Commission found Louise and asked her to stay away and have a new life, so that the other four victims could be cloned and brought back to life. They pretended to find Louise’s body and cloned her with the other victims. They used Louise’s fake murder to save the Replication Commission that was at risk for being shut down. The original Louise told Silas the truth about what she did. Silas gave her the $10,000 since it was really hers.
After meeting The Luminols, Fern figured out that the original Louise was still alive. Fern realized that the government used the murder of Louise as marketing for the Replication Commission. Fern blackmailed Gert to find the original Louise and she ended up at Odd’s house. The original Louise was the one who broke into Lou’s house to get the bag and see Nova. Louise reassures Lou that she won’t come back to the house again. Lou promises to love and care for Silas and Nova.
Louise and Fern leave Odd’s house and travel together. Lou goes home to Silas and Nova. She tells him that she knows the truth about Louise. Silas was afraid that Lou would leave like Louise did, so he didn’t want her to know the truth. They agree to stop lying and talk about their feelings together.
Lou attends one last support group. They talk about how the game Early Evening was shut down after the hacked invitation that allowed Angela’s to have knives and kill Edward Early. Lacey thinks Angela was behind the hack. Lou has a session with Mr Pemberton and realizes it’s Louise. Louise was checking on Lou to make sure she was ok and that she would stay with Silas and Nova. They say goodbye.
ความคิดเห็น