VANTAGE POINT

The remaining members of a Kennedy-esque family discover that someone is pulling the strings to destroy their credibility—and maybe even their lives.

Every year when April rolls around, Clara Wieland feels like she’s living on the edge of a knife. After all, an inordinate number of her family members, most recently her own parents, have died in freak accidents during that month, a phenomenon that’s come to be known as the Wieland curse. This year, the month coincides with her older brother Teddy’s run for a Senate seat from their home state of Maine. So, when a compromising video of Clara is released on the internet, the timing couldn’t be worse, for Teddy’s campaign or Clara’s fragile mental health. As she hides away to survive the cruel comments of internet trolls, Clara starts having hallucinations of her dead parents. Teddy has little patience for his sister; he’s been caring for her for years, through devastating bouts with an eating disorder and through her grief. But Teddy’s wife, Jess, was Clara’s best friend before they were in-laws, and she’s more apt to listen—so when she, too, is targeted by an internet video that appears to be a deepfake, she believes Clara’s insistence that something else is going on. Maybe it’s the curse; maybe it’s someone with a grudge against the wealthy, powerful Wielands. Either way, Clara and Jess have to look beyond their complicated family/friend relationship to uncover the truth. Clara is a frustrating protagonist at first, since her trauma has led to self-destructive habits that she seems little inclined to face or change, but Sligar renders her with such complexity and compassion that it’s easy to cheer when she begins to figure things out—and when she rejects the convenient trap of the curse narrative, finding power and agency as she learns to trust in her own intelligence.

A unique twist on the thriller genre with an appealing side of female empowerment.