Review: What Jennifer Saw by Hal Schweig

Jim Harris, a wealthy businessman and philanthropist, and his wife, Mary Beth, along with their four beautiful children, are beloved as the "Jack and Jackie" of Monroeville, Missouri, a small town which considers itself "The Camelot of the Midwest." The murder of Jim Harris in time reveals the moral decay festering beneath this family's golden surface. Following the murder of her husband, Mary Beth Harris has metamorphosed suspiciously from a mousy hausfrau doting on her family to a newly energized vamp hurrying to a secret rendezvous with a mysterious lover. Her 24-year-old son later discovers a letter from her paramour, written shortly before his father's murder, and begins to agonize over the unthinkable. Self-absorbed, Mary Beth fails to recognize the desperate plight of her 15-year-old daughter, the ethereal Jennifer, who witnessed her father's murder, but is suffering post traumatic stress syndrome and cannot recall it. A brilliant but maverick psychiatrist, Dr. Timothy Adler, wrestling demons of his own, is brought in to treat her and discovers she is also in the grip of Multiple Personality Disorder. He gambles everything on one high-risk roll of the dice to decipher her psyche, which harbors a grotesque melange of angry "personas," one of whom holds the key to the identity of the killer and also possesses shocking knowledge about the murder victim as well. Dr. Adler knows that his battle against the cunning and malevolent alter egos who wish to possess Jennifer's soul must be successful, or else she may rapidly descend into madness and even death.

I received this book via NetGalley to give an honest review. May contain spoilers.

After reading the blurb and seeing the cover it seemed like this book was going to be amazing. But it seemed to fall flat for me.  I literally could not connect to the story line or the main character, at times I had no clue as to what was going on. 

There was times that we would be in the office with Jennifer and her doctor only to then be reading about the reporter Kay or something else. I felt that the author could have done a better job at letting us know when we were flipping the script to something or someone.

It was a book that I could just put down and do other things then come back to it. I wasn't in a rush to read it to find out what was going to happen next and for me that is not good. 

Now the book started off good, you have a small town that becomes shell shocked at a murder that happens. The only person who can help solve the murder is the man's daughter who happen to see it go down. Hence what Jennifer saw. But it is not all that easy, she can not remember. Okay so now she needs the help of a doctor to help her remember the town is insisted on her remembering. But of course if she can't remember then what happens will the murderer go free? 

So you see the plot is there and it seems juicy. And Jennifer oh boy she has some issues going on with her poor thing but we don't really find out anything until towards the end. I would have liked more insight on Jennifer and what she was going through.

Now there were some things I didn't truly understand what was the point of these scenes being part of the story. 

There is a part with Dax and his mother Mary Beth this scene I believed could have been omitted because it seemed to be on the verge of incest. Not saying they did anything but just the thought you know. 

The police officer who took out a suspects eyeball. Which I have to say was pretty bad ass but what was the point? To prove he was crazy? As he seems crazy through out the whole story. 

It seemed the author had a lot of good ideas within the story to build things upon but none of them really involved the main character so it was kind of like what was the point of adding that in there.

I would like to read more by this author and see if he improves or has improved. This story is just not one that I liked it was just to flat and not evolved enough to make it a book to remember.