Will Lavender's debut novel has a great hook, a great premise, and some breakneck pacing - and all of those things make it all the more frustrating when the book caps itself off with a ridiculous ending and a terrible denouement that undermines a lot of what I liked about the book to begin with. Obedience kicks off great, as students in a university logic course are greeted by a professor who tells them that they have six weeks to find a girl based off of the clues and discussions they have, or else she will be murdered. That's a great idea for a class, but Lavender begins to blur the lines between reality and the classroom, leaving the students unsure as to whether this is just an academic exercise or if it's a countdown to a true murder. As Obedience rockets along, more and more questions arise, leaving the students - and the reader - wondering exactly how much of what they know is true and how much is an act. More importantly, of course: why? That's a big question for any book like this, and as Obediencegets more and more complicated, you start to wonder what sort of answer could justify such a mind-bendingly huge game - if, indeed, it is a game. But the sheer number of developments and mysteries begins to get overwhelming as the book progresses, and you start to feel like the book isn't plotted as well as you like - that Lavender is throwing out all these mysteries without ever really considering how they all tie together, and is using confusion as a substitute for plotting. It's a feeling that's pretty well confirmed by the book's conclusion, which gives the most bizarre, unsatisfying explanation for the book's events, and caps it off with a silly resolution and a final chapter that strives for profundity but falls well short. When I was rocketing through Obedience's first half, I thought it was a great and clever thriller; by the end, I was pretty irritated that I'd wasted my time reading something with such an absurd idea behind it all. If you're a fan of twist endings, I'm sure this one will sound intriguing to you, but trust me, you're going to be pretty dissatisfied by the reveal here, so much so that it's going to bring down your feelings for the rest of the book as a whole. - Josh Mauthe
