The Audacity of Sara Grayson was a difficult read, primarily due to Sara's personality. The number of times she crumbled over an innocuous comment or even the suggestion of one drove me crazy. Everything had to be all about her all of the time - her mother had to hide the seriousness of her long-term relationship from her because she couldn't get over the comments he made (years ago) to help her edit her book. Everyone else in Sara's life knew all about Cassandra and Phil and their relationship, but Sara had to be kept in the dark because she couldn't handle it. It's only one example of the insanity this family supposedly deals with to keep her happy.

Besides my deep dislike of the main character, there were too many storylines to be fully explored within the confines of the main plot. The mystery and family drama was always secondary to Sara's selfishness. There were so many chapters about her bad eating habits, writing process, and overwhelming emotional reactions, with almost nothing about everything else going on in the background. In the end, it left the resolution feeling shallow because too much focus was placed elsewhere in the story.

My favourite character, by far, was Nik. He was a breath of fresh air when he finally showed up. Complex and interesting, he started to make the story easier to read. Unfortunately, this ended up making all the other characters seem more one-dimensional. For someone with very little going on in her life, I don't know where Sara found the gall to be condescending towards Nik, knowing absolutely nothing about him, but she did a great job of playing the pretentious outsider to his ignorant townie. Once everything was cleared up, she still made assumptions about him and his past and treated him poorly when all he did was bend over backwards to support her.

I pushed my way through this one, but I'm not sure it was worth it.