Book Review: ALWAYS THE QUIET ONES

Title: Always the Quiet Ones

Author: Jamie Lee Sogn

Publisher: Lake Union Publishing

Pages: 238

My GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐

Bea Ku, a hardworking and accomplished Filipina lawyer who has been passed over for promotion for five years, finds herself shortchanged once again when her colleague, lazy and incompetent Greg Farrell, whose work she checks and improves, is promoted over her. Her boss, Landor Laurie, is insufferable, misogynistic and chauvinistic, and overworks her, repeatedly gaslighting, shortchanging and demeaning her.

The loss hits Bea hard, reeling as she is from the picture-perfect lives that her teenage best friend Allegra and her husband Caleb Crown live. Her parents are constantly comparing her to Allegra, now an expectant mother. It is as if they haven’t forgiven her for messing up her life as a teenager by getting addicted to performance enhancement drugs.

At a party held to celebrate their firm's acquisition of new client Granite from rival, Saul group, Bea meets Kelli Stewart, a harried lawyer working at Saul group. One drink leads to another, and then Kelli suggests, “I’ll kill yours if you kill mine.” And Bea responds, “There’s an offer I can’t refuse.” Then Landor is found dead, and Bea's memory of what happened is fuzzy. She begins to fear that the new life she’s built for herself is about to come crashing down.

The book is written from the 1st person PoV of Bea. 

 

WHAT I LIKED:

The book raises important questions about sexism, about the toxicity rampant in certain workplaces, especially in legal firms which often operate as old boys’ clubs. We also get a sense of the male ego that cannot bear rejection, and the sense of entitlement that some men carry about with them, which they feel is justified due to their position and gender.

The book also touches on the attitude and beliefs about single women, particularly if they aspire to senior positions, as well as the issues faced by immigrants in a country in which English supersedes all languages. 

 

Landor Laurie steps inside Bea’s office, sits on her chair, and leans back with his feet propped up on the desktop. This one image was so colourful, giving us a clear idea of what the man was really like.

 

At first I didn’t like Bea much, but I warmed to her a little once the author started giving away bits of her history. We also get to see how annoying Bea’s mother can be, especially with reference to her fondness for Allegra.

 

WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE:

The story opens on the Monday morning on which Bea expects to get her promotion. Yet instead of getting to the point, it leads with unnecessary information about Bea's morning routine, the pills she takes etc. The pill addiction could have been worked in later.

In the first chapter, Bea tells her mother that she and her parents are the only ones to live in the house. It is annoying when the Main Character tells another character things they should know for our benefit. The descriptions of Bea and her mother were equally unnecessary.

I liked the first part of this book more than anything that followed. The author really showed us how badly Bea was being shortchanged at work, and I waited for her to take action. But that never happened. After Landor’s death, the pace completely goes off.

 

None of the characters were really likeable. Bea is good at her job, but she lacks common sense and makes a number of stupid decisions. Given her training as a lawyer, and she was supposedly a good one, her actions didn’t sit right. The detective, Judith Branson, was uninteresting, and Allegra was rather annoying.

 

The book was a slow burn. After Landor’s death, which we come to know of at the 29 pc mark, the investigation falls asleep, it seems. Nothing much happens. There's a slump. The next increase in pace takes place at the 66 pc mark, but not much happens even then. The action perks up only towards the end, but the so-called plot twist that Bea resorts to in order to save herself is something that she had suggested early on. So even that turned out to be a letdown.

 

WHAT DIDN’T WORK:

The whole Strangers on a Train premise wasn’t pulled off quite well.

 

The dynamic between Bea and Caleb wasn’t fully explored. They were thick as thieves as teenagers and there’s a hint of a romance that isn’t fully explored. So when they meet for the first time after nearly 20-odd years, I expected some kind of fireworks, some excitement, the barest hint of emotion. But it was so tame and flat.

 

The relationship between Bea and Simon seems to progress far too soon. I couldn’t see why Simon would choose to take the actions he did. His actions weren’t credible.

A minor quibble, but two partners at Bea's firm had alliterative names: Landor Laurie and Olivia Oxford, which seems made-up and takes us out of the story. 

 

ALL SAID AND DONE: The premise of the overworked, competent working girl taking action to right things in her life carried promise, but that promise wasn’t quite fulfilled. 

(I read this book on NetGalley. Thank you to the author, the publisher and NetGalley.)