You Shouldn’t Have Come Here by Jeneva Rose is a thriller about a woman called Grace. She’s from New York and totally overworked so she’s taking a break by booking an Airbnb on a ranch in the middle of nowhere. She’s surprised to discover that the owner is a very handsome man called Calvin and they soon grow close over her short stay.
But not everything is as it seems. There’s no cell phone service, Calvin’s friends are kind of odd, and she soon finds out that a woman has recently gone missing in the area… and she was supposed to stay at the same Airbnb she is staying at.
This thriller was… really not for me. I’m gonna go as far to say that I think it’s one of the worst ones I’ve ever read. This was my first Jeneva Rose book so I went in with absolutely no expectations. And, yet it still seemed to disappoint me.
Most of the book reads like a weird romance between Grace and Calvin. It’s immediately clear that Calvin is a very weird guy. He quickly becomes a little too obsessed with her. And, we don’t just see it from her perspective, this book is told from a dual perspective so we literally see him say he is obsessed with her. It was barely a thriller until right at the end.
The plot twist that comes right at the end of the book was laughably bad. I’m talking the worst plot twist I’ve ever read because it doesn’t even make sense. You can’t just put something at the end of a book and expect people to believe that it could happen just because you say so. Make me believe it! It was just so ridiculous. Nothing about how the main characters acted leading up to the final plot twist made it make sense.
There aren’t really any good or interesting characters in the book. Everyone is just there to make the main character uncomfortable. And, fine. Whatever! It’s a thriller in a small isolated town so of course she’s gonna be uncomfortable around people she doesn’t know. But, come on!
The entire book wasn’t written very well either. I can definitely appreciate good writing but if a book is interesting enough I’m sometimes willing to overlook bad writing. Not in this case. It was just so noticeable. Like, it read like I was reading a book written by a child. It was so cringy. Like, I genuinely physically cringed with some of the descriptions and comparisons that were made in this book.
So, my overall thoughts? I shouldn’t have read this, and you shouldn’t either.
