The Book:
The Imposter by Marin Montgomery, 2021
The Characters:
Deborah and her daughter Sibley
Deborah’s deceased husband Jonathan
Get it on Amazon.
The Plot (from Goodreads):
From the outside looking in, Sibley Sawyer has a perfect life. As a successful attorney, she’s worked hard to get to the top of her game—but when her personal and professional lives implode, Sibley looks for a way to turn the page.
Unable to shake the tragic circumstances that caused her to flee her rural Midwestern hometown, Sibley wants nothing more than to reunite with her estranged mother, Deborah, and bury their past tensions.
But as she reenters the life she left behind, she realizes her mother isn’t the same person she remembers, and she’s not the same daughter either.
As both women struggle to piece together a tangled web of deceit and lies, and the shocking circumstances that caused Sibley to leave in the first place, it becomes clear there are secrets rooted deeper than either mother or daughter could ever have imagined.
Sibley’s father wasn’t the man who raised her. Her father was Edward, her mother’s high school boyfriend. Edward had tried to leave his family when he found out Sibley was his child, and killed himself shortly before Jonathan died.
Sibley was a twin; her sister Soren supposedly died at the hospital days after she was born. Deborah had Capgras syndrome and Lewy body disease, causing her to dissociate and believe Sibley was Soren, come to do Deborah harm.
The Twist:
Deborah’s therapist Alice wasn’t a real therapist. She was Edward’s ex wife and was trying to get back at Deborah for making Edward want to leave her. The drugs that Alice was giving Deborah made her hallucinate Robert and Soren. Deborah didn’t have any diseases; all of her mental problems were due to the drugs.
The chief of police was dating Alice and was in on her plans.
The Ending:
The state police were investigating the chief of police for money issues. They found out about Alice and told Sibley the truth. Sibley reconciled with her mom and husband and agreed to get help with her alcoholism.
The Review:
I had some trouble getting into this book in the beginning–I wasn’t interested in the first few chapters from Deborah’s point of view, but once the narration switched to Sibley’s POV the story began to gain traction.
It immediately becomes evident that both narrators are unreliable. Sibley is an alcoholic, frequently experiencing blackouts and misremembering prior nights. Deborah is a source of much rumor and speculation in town, and seems to have some kind of memory issues as well. Scenes are often repeated from each character’s POV with the facts greatly differing. I was excited to get to the end to figure out who was telling the truth.
At times the writing was a little bit confusing, with all of the secrets and lies and misremembering. It was difficult to figure out who to believe, which was obviously the intent, but the confusion made it somewhat harder to connect with the storyline and the characters. The plot was compelling, though, and it all became clear in the end.
The Imposter will be available on March 9, 2021. Many thanks to NetGalley for providing me with an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
