Sarah O'Connor

“It’s hard…I’m forty-four and I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up,” (Nugent 149).

Sally Diamond doesn’t understand why everyone is acting like she did something wrong. Her father told her to put him out with the trash when he died, and that’s exactly what she’s did. But now the media is obsessed with her, her family friends worried, and with all the drama a secret from her past emerges. As Sally comes to terms with the horrors of her past, she decides to change the way she’s lived before. She makes friends, she learns to be independent, she experiences the world she never lived before and learns that people don’t mean to be as literal as the things they sometimes say. But then Sally begins receiving letters from a stranger in another country, someone who calls her Mary, a stranger from her past who threatens to unravel all the work Sally has done with herself.

Strange Sally Diamond has been on my list for a while, and when I saw a copy at OLA I was quick to snatch it up. It’s been getting rave reviews and thankfully it didn’t disappoint, I was so involved in this book I finished it in two days and can confidently say that this is easily one of the best books I’ve read of 2023!

I don’t want to give too much away because honestly this is a book you should go into knowing as little as possible. Avoid the book comparisons on Goodreads, avoid most reviews honestly because they tend to get spoilery and just dive right into the world of strange Sally Diamond. Nugent does an excellent job with her characters, it’s easy to get into their heads and see them as people. Flawed, scary, dangerous, loving, surprisingly funny, and complicated people. Despite her flaws and eccentricities, Sally is a character readers can’t help but feel for as her story is revealed. It’s what I’ve been saying for years about flawed and unlikable characters, they’re important to have in fiction but they should be compelling enough that readers enjoy following them despite their flaws and unlikability, and Nugent excels at this. Writers should take note from her when writing unlikable characters

The one weakness I’d say is in the ending. Without giving too much away, I understand why it ended the way it did. Considering the timeline, there really was no other way to go, but it just happened a little too quickly and unresolved, which again I think was the point. But still, I would have liked something a little more concrete. Not everything needed to be resolved, I just would have liked an ending that wasn’t so abrupt. And the epilogue was a bit strange as well, I understand why Nugent included it and I can guess at what she was hoping she wanted to achieve with it, but it wasn’t really needed.

Strange Sally Diamond is a knockout of a book and one I think many readers this year are going to love. Moving, terrifying, sickening, and addicting, Nugent has create a character study of how the past can effect people in different ways that readers will obsess over. I can’t wait to read more of her books!

Publication: July 18 2023
Publisher: Sandycove
Pages: 384 pages (ARC Paperback)
Source: OLA
Genre: Fiction, Mystery, Thriller, Contemporary
My Rating: ⛤⛤⛤⛤.5
Summary:

Sally Diamond cannot understand why what she did was so strange. She was only doing what her father told her to do, to put him out with the rubbish when he died.
Now Sally is the centre of attention, not only from the hungry media and worried police, but also a sinister voice from a past she has no memory of. As she begins to discover the horrors of her childhood, recluse Sally steps into the world for the first time, making new friends, finding independence, and learning that people don’t always mean what they say.
But when messages start arriving from a stranger who knows far more about her past than she knows herself, Sally’s life will be thrown into chaos once again . . .