Paper Cut by Rachel Taff
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Paper Cut is a Contemporary Fiction novel following Lucy Golden, who is a bit of a True Crime superstar. She’s best known for escaping a cult as a teenager.
You might be wondering, what about that would make her so famous? Well, she had to commit murder to escape, so that fact alone has made her infamous in the public eye.
Twenty-years later, Lucy is still well known, but her life is a battlefield. She’s always one news cycle away from obscurity, which isn’t a great feeling. She has a stalker, online haters, and her family is a mess.
When a hotshot documentarian makes Lucy’s life the subject of his next film, she jumps at the chance. This would be a great opportunity for her.
Perhaps she can finally shut down the doubters and haters, cementing her place in the public consciousness, but what’s she going to do about her family?
As the filming begins, Lucy must return to the California desert and face some of the people she thought she had left behind forever. Soon enough, long-buried secrets are coming to the surface, and present threats escalate.
Can Lucy get control of all these chess pieces and protect the story she’s been telling all along, or will a truth be exposed she never wanted to face?
Paper Cut is a classic it’s not you, it’s me novel.
This is a fine story, the writing is solid and Taff did a great job creating the characters and seeing the plot through coherently, and at a steady pace. The issue for me is just that the content wasn’t to my taste.
It has a much more Literary feel than I tend to enjoy, and I felt like I was constantly waiting on more thrills, chills and suspense. I was bored. It left me feeling unsatisfied.
My experience with Paper Cut reminds me so much of my experience with The Three Lives of Cate Kay. While I can appreciate the merits of the story, particularly the detailed character exploration, it’s just not to my personal tastes.
For more Literary Readers, maybe who enjoy the slightly unsavory side of humanity, I think this could be very successful. However, I rate based on my own personal experience, so it’s just a 3-star for me.
Thank you to the publisher, William Morrow and Harper Audio, for providing me with copies to read and review. I’d definitely be willing to give Rachel Taff another shot, and plan to do so in the future.
I never write off an author after just one book!