2025 Reading Challenge discussion

This thread is to discuss Confessions on the 7:45 by Lisa Unger.

Pages: 448 pages

Length: 1 month (July)

Participants: SarahKat, LinaVer, Dominique

Everyone reads at their own pace during a Buddy Read. Because participants can be at different parts of the book at different times, it is extremely important to mark spoilers so that the book is not ruined for someone who is not as far along as others!!!

Mark spoilers by placing {spoiler} before the text and {/spoiler} after the text but use the < and > instead of the { and }.

Here are some questions to help get the conversation started! Feel free to look up discussion questions specific to this book or come up with your own. Just make sure any questions that contain spoilers are under spoiler tags.
Discussion questions are not required but may be a fun way to talk about the book and get to know each other!

Prior to starting:
What prompted you to join this buddy read?
Have you read this author before? What do you think of their other books?

Mid-read:
What character or ideas do you relate to the most and why?
Do you have any favorite quotes or scenes?

After reading:
What was enjoyable or not-so-enjoyable about this book?
Did this book change your perception about anything, either within the book (character development) or in real life?

I'm joining in on this buddy read because it will help with toward my yearly challenge as I already own this book.
I don't recalled having ever read anything by this author, but I have heard this books is good.

Welcome Jana!

I have read Ink and Bone by this author years ago and liked it. I'm not sure when I'll start this one yet.

I just checked this out on audio. Starting today!

Through chapter 21, a little over halfway: (view spoiler)[I'm liking this. At the beginning I didn't really care about any of the stories except Serena's. I could tell "Anne" was probably "Martha," but I didn't really pick up on "Pearl's" relation to anything until it spelled it out for me.

It's an interesting premise that Martha (who is also those other women) is basically running a con on multiple people. Apparently to get money out of them to keep quiet. It seems Geneva might be an unwilling participant and she might have something on her to keep her doing it. (hide spoiler)]

Finished!

This was good. Unger's writing is good. The plot was fine, but it didn't really keep me on the edge of my seat. It's predictable and not in a fun way.

(view spoiler)[Selena finds out her layabout jerk of a husband is cheating on her with the nanny, Geneva. She tells a woman, Martha, on the train. Then Geneva goes missing, cops show up, and Martha is texting Selena to meet. Sounds crazy and intense right???

From here it could go about a million different directions, and I feel like some of the directions would have been a bit more interesting. I thought Martha may have killed Geneva to hold over Selena to get what she wanted (what, I don't know). I figured Martha had something on Geneva and she was running a whole family of con artists who were actually just working for her so she doesn't get them arrested or killed. But no. Geneva (originally Gracie) and Martha (originally Pearl, and also Anne) were kidnapped by the same con artist who killed both of their moms and they've been sort of working together since.

Martha puts Selena in her sights because she's actually her half-sister, fathered by the same guy. Selena's dad cheated on her mom a lot it seems before she finally left. It seems like maybe Martha saw a kindred spirit in Selena when she found out her husband was a horrible person and took out all her rage at her kidnapper and their mutual "dad" on Graham. Decent.

I'm glad everyone who deserved to got away free. Martha/Pearl, Geneva, and Selena. I wish there had been a little more at stake. Oh no the woman who is already doing literally all of the work in the house and making all the money might lose her shitty husband who has cheated on her and beat up a stripper... darn. (hide spoiler)]

(view spoiler)[ Ok, so Pop is dead. So, all the main women are just 3 different women... Things in this story are starting to line up, and I feel like it's on the downward slope. So far my favorite character is Hunter, retired cop looking back at his old cold cases. But no lie, I would love for us to get to end end and find out the Geneva and "Anne" (aka, aka, aka) where a team of sorts. At first I was thinking that maybe Geneva was Gracie, but that wouldn't work because of her sister. (hide spoiler)]

finished
(view spoiler)[ This book started out very slow. Honestly figured it was going to be a rehashing of the Strangers on a Train movie by Hitchcock. I'm so glad it started to move along faster toward the early mid-point. Geneva did end up being Gracie, which was a surprise. Honestly not surprised that Graham killed his co-worker! I loved the whole step-sister bit, as well as the sister act. I really wish we could have found out who Charlie really was in the end. (hide spoiler)]

Jana, (view spoiler)[you had a lot of it figured out! And I agree about Charlie. There were a few minor things I wish the ending had covered that didn't. Now I can't remember exactly what other than Charlie. (hide spoiler)]

Hi ladies! I read this in June. I agree with you both that this was ok but not edge-of-my-seat reading. That's something I expect from Unger. This month I read In the Blood, which was also good but not the completely engrossing read that I typically associate with this author.

My very short and unhelpful review of Confessions.

Finished, 3.5 stars.
(view spoiler)[ It was good the different story and how it became a whole. Not suprised about Graham.

Geneva/Pearl was a great character. Wished Geneva/Gracie had more of a story (hide spoiler)]

Hello! I’m just starting now. I don’t often read thrillers or mysteries, only once in a while, but the blurb made me interested in this one.

SarahKat wrote: "Through chapter 21, a little over halfway"

I’m also around half-way now, just in the Part 2. (view spoiler)[I didn’t get the connection between Anne and Pearl right away either, although I had a suspicious feeling about Charlie/Pop right away.
My dark imagination is running this way and that right now, and I do wonder if it is in any way possible that Geneva is Anne also? I guess I have to wait to see. (hide spoiler)]

I kind of hate it but a lot of the broken human things in this book resonate within my life. (view spoiler)[This quote, for example. ”Little Pearl lived in her chaotic mess of a life, burying herself in stories, in books. She escaped into other worlds, other lives. In the pages of her books, she became. Jane Eyre always running from one bad situation to the next. The new Mrs. DeWinter withering under the hateful gaze of Mrs. Danvers. Laura Fairlie in the evil clutches of Sir Percival Glyde. This wasn’t so very different. She’d disappeared into the story of Elizabeth and Jason.” (hide spoiler)] I mean, I guess it is also kind of good to work out some of the kinks of your life through fictional lives. 😅

Just finished the book! I really didn’t have a single clue about who’s really who haha 🙈😆 here’s my review.

Glad you enjoyed it LinaVer! You are right about working out some of the kinks of life through fiction! I liked that quote too, especially because I have a tendency to take on the cadence or speech patterns of books I'm reading.

When I read You a few years ago I was dropping F-bombs WAY more than I usually do. Tana French's books always have me speaking with a slight Irish brogue. Not all the time obviously, but certain phrases.

SarahKat, that's actually kind of cool, you must be good in accents then!