Review: She Didn’t See It Coming, by Shari Lapena

This is the first book by the Canadian author Shari Lapena that I read, thanks to my local Book Club! I’m always down for a twisty mystery and this book seemed promising, based on incredible reviews and ratings. 

Title and Author: She Didn’t See It Coming, Shari Lapena

Publisher: Random House, July 2025

Pages: 448

Find it at: Amazon

My Rating: 3.5/5

Blurb:

When a beloved wife and mother disappears, a luxurious condo building transforms into a potential crime scene, and the investigation begins: can the detectives find her before it's too late?

Bryden and Sam have it all: thriving careers, a smart apartment in a luxury condominium, supportive friends and a cherished daughter. The perfect life for the perfect couple.

Then Sam receives a call at his office. Bryden—working from home that day—has failed to collect their daughter from daycare. Arriving home with their little girl, he finds his wife’s car in the underground garage. Upstairs in their apartment her laptop is open on the table, her cell phone nearby, her keys in their usual place in the hall.

Except Bryden is nowhere to be seen. It’s as if she just walked out.

My thoughts:

Overall, I thought the storyline was a simple, confined murder mystery, with slow revelations and testimony to how one cannot know from appearances what is beneath the surface. What appears to be perfect and normal is gradually revealed to have layers of complexity which adds to the tension and drama in the story. The writing style is fast-paced, multiple-POVs, short no-nonsense sentences, allowing readers to go through it really fast. It worked to keep me hooked and wanting to keep reading way past a reasonable bedtime, but it also somewhat annoyed me. I felt the “writing” lacked finesse. At some point it felt like reading a succession of tweets, short and to-the-point. When I’m reading a book, it is because I do have the attention span longer than that required for instagram reels, and I WANT to read well-written sentences. This made it really hard to actually relate to any of the characters (in addition to all characters at some point being suspicious and unreliable) or feel much emotion. There was very little background, internal dialog was nearly non-existent, and something key was overall lacking. 

I will definitely appreciate the storyline - it was unique, and I can only imagine it would have been hard to create a long-ish book out of a confined mystery. The drama and new revelations keep you engaged, with themes of deception, betrayal, and conflicting actions adding to the tension. The story starts very well and I love the “air” of mystery throughout, but it also starts to feel abrupt very quickly. The characters were made out to be not likeable (everyone has a mad history) or reliable, which added to the suspense but was also a bit frustrating. It also mentions social media addiction which makes the story relevant to today’s time (something I appreciate books having). 

I found the ending surprising (which is definitely a plus), but not as “shocking” as one would imagine. You know what I mean? Like you felt, “ohhh I see, hmm”, and not “ohmygodwhatingodsnamehappened”, which, honestly is an actual high! Nevertheless, if you’re into mysteries I would recommend reading for fun as a fast-paced quick read (it’s a bestseller for a reason), but if you’re looking for a high quality, deeply engrossing mystery that will take your breath away, you could skip it.