Publisher: Random House
Pages: 384
Rating: ★★
Synopsis
When Lily Hayes arrives in Buenos Aires for her semester abroad, she is enchanted by everything she encounters: the colorful buildings, the street food, the handsome, elusive man next door. Her studious roommate Katy is a bit of a bore, but Lily didn’t come to Argentina to hang out with other Americans.
Five weeks later, Katy is found brutally murdered in their shared home, and Lily is the prime suspect. But who is Lily Hayes? It depends on who’s asking. As the case takes shape—revealing deceptions, secrets, and suspicious DNA—Lily appears alternately sinister and guileless through the eyes of those around her: the media, her family, the man who loves her and the man who seeks her conviction. With mordant wit and keen emotional insight, Cartwheel offers a prismatic investigation of the ways we decide what to see—and to believe—in one another and ourselves.
My Thoughts
I really wanted to like this, but I just couldn't.
I thought it would be an easy, breezy mysterious read but it wasn't. It jumps around between dates and point of views and backstories that I couldn't have cared less about. I wanted to hear the story from Lily's voice and chronologically, but that never happened. Instead, I learned about the failing marriage of the defense attorney and the Hayes family history. I found myself skipping entire sections of chapters simply because I didn't care about the characters nor did they have anything to do with moving the plot along. Instead of really developing the characters that were at the center of the plot, duBois developed all the characters I didn't really care about.
This book is based on the Amanda Knox trial in Italy and just like in any trial, the only person who knows what really happens at the end of the book is Lily Hayes. This annoyed me because I felt like I devoted a lot of time and effort to this book and at the end I don't even know anything for sure.
My Favorite Line
Everybody should have someone whose belief in them in unwavering, unconditional, always.
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