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Rosie and Nick had a happy family: she, an oncologist, he expert in the mechanics of memory, a daughter and a son.
The novel starts with the happiness already shattered since some years, precisely since the time Nick left his family to go living with Lisa, Rosie’s ex best friend, who left herself her family.
The trigger element of the story is a letter to Rosie, where Lisa shares the fact she is dying of cancer and wants a last meeting with her friend to tell her a last secret.
The novel is built on four points of view (of Rosie, Nick, Daisy e Max), and soon we understand that their family is quite a dysfunctional one, and each of them has some secrets she/he does not want to share. We understand also that Rosie is very attached to her work – maybe too much – and that she is still sentimentally recovering from Nick’s leaving; Max is a brilliant student but very insecure, always wanting the approval of his new girlfriend. The most interesting PoVs are Days’s and Nick’s, both unreliable narrators, the former because of her OCD, the latter for his choice of omitting details. The theme of time that modifies the way we recollect past events is one of the most relevant in the novel, ironically also because of Nick’s professional activity.
The story of the family is nicely built thanks to the four PoVs and a jump to the past, to the summer when the changes begun. In the end I liked The Betrayals, it is an engaging and well-built novel.
Thanks to the publisher for providing me the copy necessary to write this review.
* The Betrayals by Fiona Neill ★★★★☆
*I read this book in english
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