Review: The Passenger

Title: The Passenger
Author: Lisa Lutz

Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Year published: 2016
How I got this book: I got an arc through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
My rating: 5 stars

Goodreads synopsis:
In case you were wondering, I didn't do it. I didn't have anything to do with Frank's death. I don't have an alibi, so you have to take my word for it...

Forty-eight hours after leaving her husband's body at the base of the stairs, Tanya Dubois cashes in her credit cards, dyes her hair brown, demands a new name from a shadowy voice over the phone, and flees town. It's not the first time.

She meets Blue, a female bartender who recognizes the hunted look in a fugitive's eyes and offers her a place to stay. With dwindling choices, Tanya-now-Amelia accepts. An uneasy - and dangerous - alliance is born.

It's almost impossible to live of the grid today, but Amelia-now-Debra and Blue have the courage, the ingenuity, and the desperation, to try. Hopscotching from city to city, Debra especially is chased by a very dark secret...can she outrun her past?

My thoughts:
As previously mentioned, I got this book through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. The release date is March 1st, Tuesday this week. This review will not contain any spoilers.

I've never read a book like this before. It's a mysterious thriller, and it definitely fit the genre. I never knew what to expect when I read this book, and I kept getting surprised with every chapter. So much stuff happened, and there was never a boring moment.

The main character in this book, who starts out as Tanya Dubois, is one of the most interesting characters I've ever met. I wasn't really able to relate to her, because her life is so completely different from mine, but that didn't really matter. I still felt connected to her, and I understood why she did (almost) everything throughout the book. The fact that this book is written in first-person also helps a lot, as we are able to really get inside her head. 

We meet plenty of characters throughout the book, and I generally liked all of them. Liked may be the wrong word, but I enjoyed reading about them. 

The plot is incredibly fast paced, and as a reader you never know exactly what is happening. Lutz uses a mix of the present, backstory and e-mails (to which we have no context) to tell this story, and you're always off balance. You can't draw the lines between the different characters, because you don't know they're connected.

Overall, I enjoyed this book a lot more than I thought I would. It's not a genre I normally read, but after reading this I want more. I flew through it in a couple of days, and I couldn't stop thinking about the book. To be honest, I still can't stop thinking about it. That's how you know a book is really good. This is definitely a book I will recommend to others, even if this genre isn't your cup of tea. 

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