How one audiobook accidentally trained me to hear the same damn sentence in every psychological thriller I read.
Okay. I’ve become an audiobook person.
Not “oh, I listen to one sometimes.” No. I’ve REALLY become one.
I used to get in the car and put on music like a normal person. Now? Music only happens if my husband’s in the passenger seat. Alone, it’s a whole different situation. Somebody’s missing. Somebody’s husband is lying. Some woman is out here making the single worst decision of her entire life, and I’m in my car yelling at her like she can hear me.
This is my life now. I’ve accepted it.
I’ve been on a psychological thriller kick, and apparently I have requirements. Give me secrets. Messy marriages are non-negotiable. I need people lying straight to each other’s faces and at least one person who seems completely normal and is, in fact, absolutely not.
And it needs to move. I don’t need a body by page three. I’m not a monster. I’ll give you a little runway. But the second I’m wondering when this book is going to get good instead of wondering what happens next, we have a problem.
Which brings me to First Lie Wins.
I wanted to like this book. Everyone loved this book. I, however, did NOT love this book.
I was already struggling because it just wasn’t moving fast enough for my impatient ass. Then the main character, Evie, said some version of:
“My momma used to say…”
Fine. Everybody’s momma says things.
Then she said it again. And again. And AGAIN.
By then, I had stopped caring what Evie’s mother used to say. With all due respect to this fictional woman, ma’am, please stop contributing to the narrative.
I don’t even remember exactly when I bailed. Somewhere around Chapter 12, I think. I just know I hit a point where I flat out did not care enough to find out what happened next. So I quit, moved on, and figured that was the end of it.
It was not the end of it.
Evie’s mother followed me home.
New book. “My mother once said…”
I’m sorry, what?
Another one. “My mother always told me…”
Oh, for fuck’s sake.
Another. “My mom used to say…”
THERE SHE IS. Hello again.
And now it doesn’t even have to be the exact phrase. My brain has started flagging variations. My mother used to say. My mother always said. My mom once told me. My grandmother used to say…
Okay, Grandma can sit this one out. She hasn’t personally wronged me yet.
But the mothers? I see you. I see all of you.
And here’s the annoying part. I have definitely read this sentence a thousand times before First Lie Wins and never once blinked at it. It’s not even a weird thing to write. People say it in real life. Authors have probably been doing this forever. I just never noticed.
But my brain flagged it as annoying exactly once, and apparently that became a permanent setting. Now I hear it literally everywhere. It’s the white SUV thing. You buy one and suddenly the whole parking lot is white SUVs. Except instead of SUVs, I’m surrounded by fictional mothers dispensing ominous life advice from beyond the page.
And audiobooks make it so much worse.
When you’re reading, your eyes can just glide past a line you’ve seen a hundred times. You cannot glide with your ears. You’re driving down the road, fully invested in whether this man murdered his wife, and the narrator goes:
“My mother used to say you never really know a person…”
And there I am behind the wheel.
THERE. IT. FUCKING. IS.
Forget the murder. Forget the affair. Forget the very suspicious bloodstain in the bedroom that nobody seems concerned enough about. Momma has entered the chat. Again.
It’s a full game now. Every new thriller, I’m just waiting for it. Chapter three? Chapter eleven? Maybe the author’s going to lull me into a false sense of security and drop it in the last quarter like a twist.
Doesn’t matter. She’s out there. Some fictional mother said something twenty years ago, and apparently it’s about to become VERY relevant to the murder.
And I will hear her coming.
Funny enough, First Lie Wins wasn’t even memorable otherwise. I didn’t finish it. It’s not on my favorites list. There’s no twist that’s still living rent free in my head. But Evie’s momma?
She left a legacy. Unbelievable.
Meanwhile, the ones I actually loved:
Verity is still sitting comfortably at the top of my rankings, undefeated.
Count My Lies was fantastic. No notes. Can’t wait for the series.
None of This Is True dragged a little early on, but the second it hit its stride, I could not have stopped listening if you’d paid me. It bounces between the regular story, podcast segments, and documentary style bits complete with creepy true crime music, and I was gone. Fully consumed by it.
I’ve yelled theories at The Housemaid. I’ve accused innocent fictional people of murder with total confidence. I’ve nailed a few killers and been completely, embarrassingly fooled by others.
At this point, getting in my car doesn’t feel like commuting anymore. It feels like clocking in for my shift as a wildly underqualified homicide detective.
And somewhere in the background, always, I hear her.
“My mother used to say…”
Ma’am. Please. We have a murder to solve.
So yes, I am officially, fully obsessed with audiobooks. I have a listening list. I have rankings. I have opinions about narrators now, which feels like a personality trait I did not see coming. Apparently creepy documentary music is a major selling point for me. Who knew?
I’ve also learned I can forgive a slow start if the mystery gets weird enough that I need answers badly enough to stop caring that it dragged for a while.
And I’ve learned the real lesson here: once your brain clocks a writing tic, there is no going back. Ever. It’s over. You’re cursed now.
I’m starting another thriller soon. New characters, new murder, new batch of deeply suspicious adults with the communication skills of a brick wall. I don’t know who’s lying. I don’t know who’s dying. I don’t know if I’ll crack the twist before the reveal.
But I know one thing for absolute certain.
At some point, somebody’s mother is going to have something to say.
And I’ll be waiting for her.
~Wren
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