Saint X by Alexis Schaitkin

I’ve been wanting to read Saint X by Alexis Schaitkin ever since I saw an ad for it. It was either on goodreads or instagram. I can’t remember. But the plot sounded very haunting and reminded me a lot of the Natalee Hollaway story and I was curious to see what direction the author would take it in.

About the Book

Claire is only seven years old when her college-age sister, Alison, disappears on the last night of their family vacation at a resort on the Caribbean island of Saint X. Several days later, Alison’s body is found in a remote spot on a nearby cay, and two local men–employees at the resort–are arrested. But the evidence is slim, the timeline against it, and the men are soon released. The story turns into national tabloid news, a lurid mystery that will go unsolved. For Claire and her parents, there is only the return home to broken lives.

Years later, Claire is living and working in New York City when a brief but fateful encounter brings her together with Clive Richardson, one of the men originally suspected of murdering her sister. It is a moment that sets Claire on an obsessive pursuit of the truth–not only to find out what happened the night of Alison’s death but also to answer the elusive question: Who exactly was her sister? At seven, Claire had been barely old enough to know her: a beautiful, changeable, provocative girl of eighteen at a turbulent moment of identity formation.

As Claire doggedly shadows Clive, hoping to gain his trust, waiting for the slip that will reveal the truth, an unlikely attachment develops between them, two people whose lives were forever marked by the same tragedy. (from Amazon.com)

My Thoughts

This book is very interesting and I have some mixed feelings about it. I’m just going to be honest here, because this is MY blog and I took an oath (lol) to always be honest with my book reviews. So here are my completely honest thoughts about what I liked and what I didn’t like.

PSA: I did listen to the audiobook, so I may spell some names wrong here and there since i didn’t get to actually see them spelled out.

What I Liked

• The premise of this story is really interesting. A young girl goes missing in the Caribbean and unfortunately is found dead right before her family is supposed to head home from vacation. It’s an interesting set up for a thriller. We’re left wondering… Who did it? Why did they do it? Who will be the one to find out the truth?
• The main characters have well developed backstories. We learn a lot about Alison through flashbacks and through her audio journals. She’s definitely shallow and privileged, but there is a humanness to her. Clive’s story broke my heart with his difficult childhood and inability to make decisions that aren’t bad. And Claire? Well, she’s a weirdo. She bugged me a lot. But I think part of the reason why she’s so weird is because of the trauma that her family went through with losing Alison.

What I Didn’t Like

• This book didn’t feel very organized. There’s a lot of jumping around in the story telling and we get little snippets from other characters who were at the resort at the same time as Alison’s family and I didn’t feel like those parts moved the story forward.
• Alison and Claire. I can’t say I really cared for either of them! It’s hard to get into a story where you don’t really feel much for the main characters.
• It’s anticlimactic. While the ending did surprise me, I also didn’t feel much from it because Alison passed away 18 years ago and the truth didn’t really change things for anyone.

Just my thoughts! It was interesting to read how different scenes felt different for each of the characters. For instance, the scene where Alison joins the rest of the resort guests for a volleyball game and schools them. You first hear about it from Claire, and then Alison, and then Clive.

It really makes me think about how a different event can mean different things to different people.

Although it wasn’t my favorite book, I can appreciate the originality in the story. I saw this there was a mini series made based of this novel and I hope to check it out when I am able to.

Love thrillers? Check out more of my thriller reviews here!

xo Marian