YOUth Review: All the Dangerous Things by Stacy Willingham

All the Dangerous Things , a book written by Stacy Willingham, is a murder mystery novel about a woman whose only son, exactly one year prior to the start of the book, was taken from his crib in the middle of the night. The book revolves around this woman, Isabelle Drake, and her life and investigation into the disappearance of her son. It's a very well written book, albeit quite a morbid and grim tale, excellent for anyone who fancies reading about that kind of thing.

Although, me personally? I didn't like it. At least, not for the first half of the story. The thing about murder mystery novels is that they're MYSTERIES, meant to keep the reader guessing, dropping little hints and clues and breadcrumbs along the story. However, as a person, I hate guessing games, and I'm not entirely all that clever, either, so when I read a story that has nothing but descriptions of just how sad and empty Isabelle's life is for the first, like, 80 pages, I get bored quite quickly with it! It kicks up in intrigue towards the end, though, I'll give you that, however for the first half it was just... Boring. Not enough of ANYTHING actually happening, simply setting the scene and hammering in, again and again, just how distraught the protagonist was over the whole situation. For the first 20 or so pages, sure, it was fine, but beyond that it began getting quite tedious to my sensibilities.

Then again, it's still a fairly well written book, and one that I can wholeheartedly recommend if you like slow-burn mysteries. 7/10, probably won't read again.