Greenwich by Kate Broad

Greenwich by Kate Broad
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for providing me with and advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review!
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Summer, 1999. Rachel Fiske is almost eighteen when she arrives at her aunt and uncle’s mansion in Greenwich, Connecticut. Her glamorous aunt is struggling to heal from an injury, and Rachel wants to help—and escape her own troubles back home. But her aunt is oddly spacey and her uncle is consumed with business, and Rachel feels lonely and adrift, excluded from the world of adults and their secrets. The only bright spot is Claudia, a recent college graduate, aspiring artist, and the live-in babysitter for Rachel’s cousin. As summer deepens, Rachel eagerly hopes their friendship might grow into more.

But when a tragic accident occurs, Rachel must make a pivotal choice. Caught between her desire to do the right thing and to protect her future, she’s the only one who knows what really happened—and her decision has consequences far beyond what she could have predicted.

A riveting debut novel for readers of Celeste Ng and Liane Moriarty, Greenwich explores the nature of desire and complicity against the backdrop of immense wealth and privilege, the ways that whiteness and power protect their own, and the uneasy moral ambiguity of redemption.
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Although this book started off slow for me and took a while to grab my attention, once I got into the meat of it, it was hard to put down. Parts of it were almost painful to read, as it tackled some very heavy issues, but the story was fast-paced and compelling. The characters were, for the most part, unlikeable, yet I found myself unable to look away from the way their lives were unfolding. It was apparent from the style in which the author wrote the book (and this is not a spoiler because it's in the blurb above) that we are headed toward some sort of tragedy, and waiting for it felt almost excruciating. And that is why I spent several hours of my day today racing through this book. I was not able to put it down until I found out where exactly it was that the author was taking us. I haven't decided yet how I feel about the ending...I am still sitting with it. However, as a whole, this was a compelling debut from a very promising author, and it is definitely a book that will stick with me for a while.

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