Don’t Let Her Stay

I didn’t think the the book in its entirety was absolute dogshit but the ending was. The plot twists were whatever but when it came out that Richard knew the entire time about Chloe yet continued to blame Joanne and make her seem like the crazy one… let’s just say I didn’t feel bad for him.

Completely agree. What do you think was the purpose of Chloe staying with Joanne for so long after Richard’s death? I can’t remember if Joanne got all of his money or what?

And why would Chloe leave Joanne with Helen if she knew that Helen knew everything? To mess with Joanne?

Omg I’m reading this book right now and I hate it. The gaslighting of it is awful and not even clever???? I hate it. 0/10 do not recommend.

i absolutely hated this book

I didn’t think it was unfinishable, but it’s so frustrating when obvious solutions to problems aren’t even considered by Joanne. There wouldn’t really even be a storyline if Joanne had used an ounce of common sense, so much of it was very predictable.

As soon as the first ‘misunderstanding’ happened, Joanne’s complete lack of ability to learn from it and record/make note of anything Chloe said or double check any information she gave with Richard just made it obvious that everything was a trick. The birthday planning was so drawn out I feel like the author really didn’t think we’d see that coming. Even when she does try to catch Chloe out, the cameras were such a convoluted and risky plan that the failure was zero surprise to anyone. Joanne literally talks about the whereabouts of her phone constantly, she could’ve used to it to record oh idk literally any conversation with Chloe ever to prove to Richard that she really was being a dick. It was akin to that bit in Scary Movie where Carmen Electra grabs the banana and runs toward certain death.

Also this is so niche but as someone who grew up in Basildon, it’s so funny to me that Richard is supposedly rich and posh with standards Joanne can’t live up to, and yet lived there with his first family. IRL Basildon is known for being rough as fuck and not a desirable place to live. I have to believe that this was a clever little nod from the author at Richard’s appearance as a successful businessman being a facade bc the kind of person to put on airs and graces and live in a ‘cathedral-like hall’… in Basildon, is some sort of Del Boy/King Gary like character IMO. Otherwise, it’s just a complete lack of research on the author’s part, mostly bc I cannot think of any hall style houses that would be considered part of Basildon and there are so many beautiful, rural parts of Essex with grand houses she could’ve chosen.

I really could go on tearing the minute details to shreds, but it’s just fiction at the end of the day. All in all a very frustrating read with extremely unlikeable characters.

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I kept thinking if I had a husband that didn’t believe me I’d be out of there. Especially when it came to the safety of the baby. And the photoshopped picture of the gardener come onnnn man, so stupid. Richard saying darling and sweetheart all the time got on my last nerve too. By the end I wanted all the main characters to die lol.

I’m a bit late to this post but I’m so relieved that I wasn’t the only one who was shocked at how bad the writing was in this, especially given how high the reviews are.

As per the OP, the constant repetition of the lieing then gaslighting was eyerolling enough but the ending was where the writing went from bad to driving right off a cliff.

The ending made no sense to me, others have covered the main plot holes but one that confused the life out of me was why Joanne pulled a total 180 after Chloe told her Richard was the crazy one and she actually believed her.

Genuinely, am I missing something or was it the case that other than Joanne thinking he’d lied and cancelled Roxanne coming over, was there no evidence he’d been the one to kill his wife and second daughter? It also drove me nuts that Joanne only knew about Roxanne from a single poor line phone call that she didn’t follow up on until the very end of the book for the sake of the “twist” and that was still enough evidence for her to believe that her husband had been a secret psychopath this whole time.

Other than that all Joanne had to go by were the claims from Chloe, someone who she has literally zero reasons to trust, has been actively malicious and threatening towards her, who Joanne has seen (regardless of what Chloe claimed her intentions were) as being a causal liar. She seriously trusts someone like that who she was convinced a moment earlier had murdered her own mother and sister while she was a child over the man she has known for years?! WHAT.

I was reading the entire ending just baffled why Joanne was believing a thing Chloe said she was being so damn stupid. So when the final “twist” (i.e. the obvious) was revealed I couldn’t believe this was supposed to be clever or shocking instead of just laughablly dumb.

Thank you, thank you. This book was just so irritating. Now I don’t have to finish. I use the Libby app which are free audio books from the library. So happy I didn’t spend any money on this one.