Rant Review: "You Shouldn't Have Come Here" by Jeneva Rose

Quick Summary

Type: Novel

Genre: Thriller, romance

Back Cover: "Grace Evans, an overworked New Yorker looking for a total escape from her busy life, books an Airbnb on a ranch in the middle of Wyoming. When she arrives, she's pleasantly surprised to find that the owner is a handsome man by the name of Calvin Wells. But there are things Grace discovers that she's not too pleased about: A lack of cell phone service. A missing woman. And a feeling that something isn't right with the town.

Despite her uneasiness and misgivings from Calvin's friends and family, the two grow close and start to fall for one another. However, as her departure date nears, things between them start to change for the worse. Grace grows wary of Calvin as his infatuation for her seems to turn into obsession. Calvin fears that Grace is hiding something from him."

Read Time: 2 days

Rating: 1.25 stars

Review

First of all, I thought this was going to be a thriller. For 95% of the book, it was not a thriller. It was a romance, and it was so cringy. Both characters suffer from insta-love and are hooking up as soon as they can. There's a love rival (Charlotte) and a little bit of a "mystery", although let's be real - it wasn't much of a mystery because it was so obvious. Calvin's dead fiancée - he clearly killed her. The missing person - Calvin clearly killed her. This boy was throwing so many red flags up that I had to stop myself from rolling my eyes multiple times.

At one point, the love rival brings up "what is this girl doing here? Why did she choose here out of anywhere? Why is she traveling alone?" and more questions like that. This is the author's attempt at foreshadowing. As soon as Charlotte said this, despite not really having any reason to (even considering her jealousy) I knew that Calvin was going to end up dead. Lo and behold, I was right.

In the last little bit of the book, we get the "real" twist: Grace is not Grace, she's a serial killer who goes on a yearly trip with the sole purpose of killing her AirBnB host. It is a stupid twist (though slightly less stupid than the romance). The main reason this twist irritates me so much, though, is because we get "Grace's" perspective through most of the book. Her internal thoughts do not at all match those of a serial killer. They read more as "silly little girl falling in love". If you're going to have a twist like the one the author gave us, you cannot have a first-person narrative that doesn't in any way betray what the serial killer is really planning. Seriously, the only foreshadowing for the twist comes from Charlotte in Calvin's perspective.

Thoroughly ridiculous book. I hated it.