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    Dismantled
    Dismantled
    Dismantled
    Audiobook11 hours

    Dismantled

    Written by Jennifer McMahon

    Narrated by Elisabeth Rodgers

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    “An eerie and gripping tale of suspense….A triumph.”
    —Boston Globe

     

    The author of the New York Times bestseller Island of Lost Girls, Jennifer McMahon returns with Dismantled—a stunning and chilling thriller that further burnishes her reputation as, “One of the brightest new stars of literary suspense” (Los Angeles Times online). Stewart O’Nan, author of Songs for the Missing, calls Dismantled, “A fun, twisty thriller. Expect comparisons to The Secret History.” Readers of Laura Lippman, Tana French, and Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones will not be able to shake this breathtaking tale of the dark consequences of a group of college friends’ belief that all things—and people—must be taken apart to be truly understood.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateJun 16, 2009
    ISBN9780061940071
    Dismantled
    Author

    Jennifer McMahon

    Jennifer McMahon is the author of twelve novels, including the New York Times bestsellers The Children on the Hill, Promise Not to Tell, and The Winter People. She lives in Florida with her partner, Drea. Visit her at Jennifer-McMahon.com or connect with her on Instagram @JenniferMcMahonWrites and Facebook @JenniferMcMahonBooks.

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    Reviews for Dismantled

    3.5/5

    192 ratings26 reviews

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    • 3/5
      Tess, Henry and their daughter Emma live a comfortable life in a small community. By all appearances, they are a happy couple. Emma seems to have a touch of OCD, but she is getting by and has a best friend at school. A troubled past lurks beneath the surface, though, and it is about to change all their lives forever.

      Ten years in the past, Tess and Henry were part of a small group of college students calling itself the Compassionate Dismantlers. Led by a charismatic student named Suz, the Dismantlers lived by their credo that true art and understanding is achieved by taking a thing apart, dismantling it, destroying it. The Compassionate Dismantlers were responsible for acts of vandalism and destruction in the community, with only a thin veneer of social activism as justification. Gradually, the group began to go too far, until one day the results were irrevocable and deadly.

      As the original group members are drawn by a mysterious summons back to the scene of their worst tragedy, they struggle to come to grips with what is happening. Has someone come back from the dead to exact revenge? Is someone who knows their secret toying with them? How does young Emma seem to know about things from her parents' hidden past?

      I recommend this book, with some reservations. The first chapter is overwritten, trying too hard, all atmospherics and imagery. I almost gave up on the book before I ever finished the chapter. The narrative improves from there, though, and after a while, I was hooked. As you read, you'll wonder: is this a ghost story? A supernatural thriller? A mystery with very human and explicable answers? You'll want answers; this is a real page-turner.

      By the time I reached the end, my feelings were a little lukewarm.
      All the characters are unlikeable, with the possible exception of young Emma. You will despise them all for their weakness, meanness or dishonesty. Also, the author tends to repeat certain words over and over. For instance, when characters feel threatened, they "stiffen." Over and over again, until the word choice takes you out of the moment. More important, the final chapters of the book have to work a bit too hard to give the reader some answers, and there is an unfortunate reliance upon a left-field revelation that just felt too easy. (I can't better explain this without making this a spoiler!)

      I do recommend this book for its page-turning, creepy tale. Despite my criticisms of Dismantled, I did enjoy it overall, and I would read another book by McMahon.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 2/5
      At first I found this book interesting and intriguing. The adult characters were somewhat annoying but the daughter was fascinating. However I felt by the last 100 pages it was loosing its way. too many 'coincidences' and an ending that left much to be desired.

      Hugely dissapointing as the story had a lot of potential.
    • 4/5
      From My Blog...A suicide leading to an investigation that could destroy so many lives is just the beginning of the suspense thriller, Dismantled by Jennifer McMahon. Dismantled equals freedom, or so believed the group of friends, Spencer, Valerie (Winnie), Tess, Henry and Suz, ten years ago when the five college artists formed a group known as The Compassionate Dismantlers, led by Suz. What occurs after their college graduation at the cabin in Vermont remains a mystery that divided the group, except for Tess and Henry DeForge. Fast forward ten years to find Tess and Henry struggling with their marriage and their nine-year-old daughter Emma and her friend Mel decide to get Emma's parents back together by writing to their old college friends. One day Henry and Tess receive a phone call that alters their lives and Emma's imaginary friend Danner, a friend who knows far too much for a typical imaginary friend, further compounds their worries. McMahon interweaves past and present to create a suspenseful and uncertain tone in the novel. While I personally neither related with the characters nor did I find them likeable, I enjoyed the mystery and suspense aspects of the novel, yet I did get tired of the numerous references to coupling. Dismantled is a fast paced novel that keeps the reader fully engaged and guessing until the very last page. I would recommend Dismantled to any adult who enjoys an excellent suspense novel.
    • 5/5
      Does life imitate art or does art imitate life?For the Compassionate Dismantlers, this is an absurd question as the two are one and the same. Suz, Tess, Henry and Winnie, all passionate art students, connect at a small college in Vermont, bonding over their mutual interests and talents. Dedicated to the messages behind their art more than the actual material itself, they begin a practical application of undoing the oppressions of institution and regulation. They consider themselves young radicals, “freeing” people from the clutches of society by dismantling property, social constraints and even their own artwork.However innocently their actions were at the start (although it is debatable that their fearless leader, Suz, ever intended to be benign), compounded, their pranks begin to take a dark turn, fast. When an intended joke pushes the group too far, Suz goes out with a bang, leaving the remaining members guiltily disbanded.Nine years after the disintegration of the Dismantlers, Tess and Henry have moved on but not far away. They live close to the school with their daughter, Emma, a sensitive introverted nine year old with a rather particularly creepy imaginary friend named Danner. While they are not miserable, they seem to have lost the passion they possessed as young artists, creators and destroyers. They are struggling to find themselves, the selves that went missing the night everything came completely apart.When Winnie’s ex boyfriend and longtime subject of Dismantler pranks, ends his life, things begin unraveling quickly. Strange things being to happen, a majority of them involving Emma and Danner. Someone is determined to dredge up the secret buried within the summer, a decade ago and they are not going to go away quietly.McMahon’s style is a conglomerate of voices, primarily Tess, Henry and Emma with side notes by the other members of the group including journal entries by Suz. The story works from the outside in, gathering speed as the characters’ story lines weave together into the tighter whole. There is a linear progression but the story also jumps back to photographs, journal entries, small asides and all too vivid memories. Each narrative is beautifully, if eerily, constructed to flesh out the desires, passions, fears and shortcomings of the player.Dismantled is so much more than a murder mystery. It is a dark observation and dissection of human thought from the lightest feeling of summer diversion to intense paranoia of a life not truly lived. I fell in love with the idea of each person as an artist as it allowed for great discussion of what constitutes art and how this is not always the same answer for each person, nor for each piece of art.This is an incredibly addictive book both for its creepy suspense element and the well cared for beauty that brings a deeper understanding to the story than the usual two-dimensional thriller. I highly recommend the book but you’ll want to finish it before bedtime and you may also want to find yourself far away from a lake.
    • 4/5
      Reason for Reading: The write-up had me drooling to read this thriller . Comments: Four artist friends from college formed a group called the "Compassionate Dismantlers" whose manifesto was "To understand the nature of a thing, it must be taken apart". They spend their final summer after graduation together in a cabin in the woods to experience the ultimate summer of dismantling until things go too far and one of them, Suz, is killed and they cover up the murder. Ten years later signs from the past show up, the remaining members are contacted, haunted, reminded of the past and that fateful summer. A former victim of their pranks commits suicide and the remaining three "Dismantlers" are frightened. Their lives become fraught with eerie events. Does someone know what they did that summer and is now trying to reveal the secret? Did Suz survive? Has she come back for revenge? Or maybe she's found a way back to get revenge anyway ...An awesome book. Nail-biting suspense all the way through with twist after twist. I thought I had this figured out early on and just when I was about to be proven right, whamo, another reveal and my jaw dropped, of course! what an amazing ending!At first glance this may appear to be horror, based on the write-up but it's not. The book is not gruesome and while it does carry a paranormal element that element is small. I read this book in two days as I just couldn't put it down. This is certainly a plot-driven book and while that leaves the characters a little flat it didn't really matter, as so much is happening to them I really wasn't interested in any greater insight into their psyche. Fascinating plot, very tense and fast-paced but also well-paced with plot moving episodes that allow the reader breathing space before the action picks up once again. I really loved the ending. I found it very satisfying with complete closure and yet with just a hint of eeriness that makes you smile when you close the book.If this is an example of what to expect from Ms. McMahon I'm quite anxious now to read her two previous books Island of Lost Girls and Promise Not to Tell.
    • 4/5
      Ok, so that was extremely different from Jennifer McMahon’s previous books that I’ve read, but I totally loved it! Four young adults make a life changing decision right after college, and 10 years later it comes back to literally bite them in the rear. The numerous twists and turns made my head spin. I finished it in one sitting and was left with my mouth hanging open, thinking “damnnnn”.
    • 4/5
      What a seriously weird and haunting book. I had no idea what to believe most of the time. A page turner for sure.
    • 4/5
      Interesting book. Creepy and enjoyable. Kept me guessing.
    • 3/5
      Binge watching is something we all know and love, but is there a thing called binge reading? Ah the library, how it gives me permission. Free of guilt for spending too much money or not reading my TBR books, I have been doing that a bit with Jennifer McMahon since this is the 3rd book of hers I’ve read in about as many weeks. Once again she hooked me with a touch of the supernatural within a larger story of secrets and sins. Because this one featured kids so prominently, I didn’t like it as much though. Half the shit that went down wouldn’t have if not for those meddling brats. Plus there were descriptions of people going fishing wearing silk and most of the characters had such bad judgement that it was hard to feel any sympathy for what happened to them.The credo/manifesto for the Compassionate Dismantlers was hilarious. McMahon totally pegged that teenaged angst that the artistic and especially the aspiring artistic type can really get wrapped up in. It shows how absolutely young they all are that they fall for it so completely. One part, the thing that Suz kept repeating over and over and over was especially funny. Here’s what she said - “To understand the nature of a thing, it must be taken apart.” to which I can only quote the brilliant Douglas Adams - “If you try and take a cat apart to see how it works, the first thing you have on your hands is a non-working cat.” She burned her art, destroyed her teacher out of spite, vandalized electrical plants and construction sites and tormented a fellow-classmate because she could...all of it a desperate cry for fulfillment she could only get when others fawn over her wild and outrageous behavior. Another character describes her as sociopathic with a touch of narcissistic personality disorder. Bingo. Suz was such a malevolent character that it was hard to swallow the others’ blind devotion to her blatant manipulation. Even when it’s revealed they thank her for it and continue their worship, sacrificing their morals on her altar. Another thing you have to let go of is the fact that neither Henry nor Tess have any sense. Emma is such a little nutbar that I can’t believe neither of them brought her to a shrink. Having one backward, smelly real friend and the imaginary friend are reasonably benign, but that damn effigy. OMG that was very creepy and disturbing and what parent wouldn’t be alarmed into action? These two apparently, who are so self-involved it’s almost comical. Henry with his mugfuls of merlot and his dugout canoe. Tess with her artistic self-loathing and boxing gloves. With a little communication, the mysterious postcards, photographs, riddles and words painted on the trees surrounding their house, could have been explained easily and quickly. Of course then there would have been no story. No diary which read like performance art. No Claire and her offer of a commission. No returned co-conspirator and Dismantler. And the end, well it’s pretty open isn’t it? I can’t say I like the rabbit out of a hat accomplice much though. So far, this is the weakest McMahon book I’ve read, but it won’t stop me reading more. I will break from the binge though.
    • 4/5
      More creepy than the other two books of hers I have read, it also was a little long in spots, and a built too far fetched/nicely wrapped up, but still it was a good read. This author has an amazing gift for telling a story.
    • 4/5
      Very out there from what I am used to reading. It flowed nice and had some nice twists and turns. Not an easy to figure out 'who done it'.
      The cast of characters is small and each are interesting with new levels of depth added as the story goes on.
      I am finding this type of writing exciting at times. Not sure what genre it is considered, I put it under suspense.
    • 2/5

      Extraordinarily reminiscent of Donna Tarrt's The Secret History, this sees a group of people ten years after they were a college clique called The Dismantlers, whose ethos was that "to understand the nature of a thing it must be taken apart". The end point of their destructive pranks was the semi-accidental murder of the instigator of The Dismantlers' exploits, Suz, the promiscuos star around which the others orbited, reflecting her light. At the time, the death was adroitly concealed from the world; now, though, various enigmatic parties seem determined to dig up the truth, and one of them could well be an impossibly reanimated Suz. This is by no means a bad book -- especially when it focuses on Emma, the 9-year-old child of two of the original Dismantlers -- and overall I enjoyed reading it. The writing was good enough that I might well look out for McMahon books in future. It's just that this one seemed to have nothing much new to say.
    • 3/5
      Story line ridiculous and extremely unlikely.
    • 3/5
      Not as good as I'd hoped it would be according to reviews.The story is told by different people and i can understand if people find it confusing. It is my opinion that it was all a bit far fetched not really logical. Read this book in Germany while on vacation with family.
    • 2/5
      The premise was good, the book... not so much. Fighting the urge to skim is never a good sign.
    • 3/5
      Not even sure how to describe this book... a short-story idea gone bad? Loved the premise of the book, but got lost and disinterested in all the characters. Could not find one character to root for, and by the end, very tired of reading, babycakes. Disappointing.
    • 4/5
      Jennifer McMahon can be hard to peg sometimes. There's always a very real sense of horror in her novels, and sometimes the endings wrap up nicely. In this case, it wasn't quite so.I saw a good bit of the ending coming but thought the whole thing was too contrived. Then the real ending came, and it was less contrived but a little too much a "now let's explain what happened" kind of conclusion.A good read, but not McMahon's best.
    • 4/5
      Good story BUT not as good as the book jacket made it out to be.
    • 4/5
      "Dismantled" is a creepy novel about four activist young people who became caught up in their "Compassionate Dismantling" until one of the members, Suz, was killed. Years after they hid the body and "dismantled" the group, the remaining three appear to be living semi-normal lives. Henry and Tess live in a farmhouse/artist compound in Vermont and have a 9-year-old daughter Emma, who has an imaginary playmate, "Danner". When Emma and her friend Mel start snooping through Emma's parents' belongings, looking for clues regarding Emma's parents' marital separation, they set into effect a chain of events that brings the past back to haunt the entire family. And by haunt, I mean a private investigator who is looking for answers about a suicide and the quite literal haunting of the family by Emma's "imaginary" friend, Danner, who bears remarkable resemblance to the group's dead leader, Suz. I did not enjoy this novel quite as much as "Promise Not to Tell", but it still bore creepy elements such as the imaginary friend who may or may not be the spirit of the vengeful Suz. I thought the story was farfetched at times, with art/sculpture playing into it in odd ways. However, like the aforementioned novel, the suspense played out to the end with lots of nailbiting twists and turns. I couldn't put the book down, however, though it was fairly dark and unpleasant with imagery that was, at times, disgusting.
    • 5/5
      Immediately after reading Dismantled, I rated it 5 stars. I really liked it, and I came out with the creeps. The good kind, the reason why you read spooky books...After thinking about it afterward, I lowered the rating to 4.5 stars. There were some details that didn't quite hold together for me on thinking back on the book. Still, my recollections were primarily positive, the book is beautifully written, and the roller coaster ride while reading it was fantastic.I liked and disliked the characters. I thought they were well executed, but not always people I'd want to hangout with.I liked 9 year old Emma, even while feeling sorry for her-- her parents are less than ideal. And of course there's the imaginary friend. Is Emma hallucinating? Is she being haunted? Is she just really creative?Tess and Henry were more complex. I really liked them as characters, even if I didn't always care for them as people. These two had been artists and part of a disruptive group, the Creative Dismantlers, in college. Now they've had a child, settled down, and are much more mainstream in their artistic endeavors. They've drifted apart, and neither is handling life well.Their past is haunting them. The question is how literal that statement is. The story jumps between the historical hi-jinks of the Creative Dismantlers, Tess's current story, Henry's current story and Emma's current story. The tale of what happened in the past and that of what is happening now unroll in parallel, each having twist and turns (some unexpected, others less so). Dismantled is beautifully written, but not enough to get in the way of the story. The reflection on the nature of art and the relationship between art and the artist; the descriptions of the setting; the depth of the characters: All of these contribute to this book being more than just a thriller. I think it works on that level.After all that, I think what will stick with me is the ghost story.
    • 2/5
      I wanted to love Dismantled, I really did. I absolutely loved and adored Promise Not to Tell by the same author. So much that to this day I still think about the Potato Girl. It was just an all around amazing novel. So my expectations for Dismantled were already through the roof when I picked it up. I guess that's what ultimately led me to be more than a little disappointed in it. I guess my biggest gripe with the book were the characters. I just didn't like any single person in Dismantled, to the point where I could really not care less what happened to them. Suz, the leader of the Compassionate Dismantlers was anything but. Seriously, she was a total sociopath. I kept thinking about the psychology class I took last semester and thinking "She exhibits every single one of the characteristics of not only sociopathy but of narcassitic personality disorder". And then we have the rest of the characters: Henry, a bumbling idiot if I ever knew one and Tess was just plain annoying. Winnie, another one plagued with issues. All of these characters were just so unappealing. The thing that bugged me the most was that Henry and Tess were clearly terrible parents. If my daughter was nine years old and still had an imaginary friend, the first thing I would do would be to have her evaluated. None of this "she's just an imaginative child, we should be proud" crap. You get a professional's opinion first. And if said daughter is in a pool, the last thing you want to do is get blitzed because then her imaginary friend is really going to be the least of your worries with the daughter being drowned and all. Now, the daughter, I found her to be all over the place. I just didn't find her "voice" at all credible. Sometimes she exhibited wisdom beyond her years and then other times (more often than not) she did something that a nine-year-old would just know better than to do. I found that she was written a bit clunky. Also, Dismantled wasn't all that creepy. Now Promise Not to Tell scared the hell out of me. Dismantled...not so much. I just didn't buy Henry's "the doll is really Suz" theory. It was way too out there. And I read this one at night and it didn't even get one raised arm hair. The whole "Danner" thing was a bit off-putting, but again that was because I kept thinking "Man, these parents. Poor child..." Not scary in that whole "I'm going to leave my light on for the rest of the night" kind of way. Still, I gave this book two stars instead of the dreaded one. Why? Because, man, was it a page-turner! Sure, the characters made me roll my eyes, but I still wanted to find out what happened. Not to them, but I wanted the whole plot, particularly the one with the "old" Compassionate Dismantlers to unravel. So, I have to say overall, the book was disappointing. Maybe if I hadn't already read Promise Not to Tell, I would've enjoyed it more. But since I did, all I could think was that Jennifer McMahon has definitely done better...
    • 5/5
      Four young friends from Sexton College in Vermont formed a group called the Compassionate Dismantlers. The motto of the Dismantlers was: ” To understand the nature of a thing, it must be taken apart.” The leader of the group is Suz, whose main motivation is revenge.They spent a summer in a remote cabin with Suz plotting crazy pranks and seemingly innocent acts of destruction. Suddenly, Suz’s plans become much more violent and Suz is killed. The group breaks up, vowing not to speak of the incident, and they go live their own lives. A decade later two of the members, Henry DeForge and Tess Kahle, have married and now have a nine year-old daughter, Emma. Their marriage is in a shambles and Henry has moved into the garage apartment. Emma and a friend are determined to get Emma’s parents back together. They come across evidence of the couple’s past. Believing that reuniting the group of friends will bring the couple back together, they decide to send postcards to those individuals who played such a key part in their lives.Soon after Henry and Tess learn that one of their friends has committed suicide. They fear what happened ten years ago has been revealed and is beginning to haunt them. A private investigator has been hired by the family of the suicide victim and begins snooping around, asking a lot of questions.Young Emma plays a very key role in this story. She has an imaginary friend named Danner, who starts making comments and asking questions that remind Henry and Tess of Suz and that tragic summer long ago. They soon feel like they are being watched. Is it possible that Suz has returned from the grave to make them pay for what happened so long ago?McMahon weaves a very intriguing tale in Dismantled, a character-driven thriller told from the point of view of several of the main characters. She weaves the past with the present in a very fluid manner. The several plot twists keep the reader engaged, not knowing what to expect with each turn of the page. I warn you, this one is addictive, forcing me to stay up late at night to finish reading it. I’m quite a fan of psychological thrillers, those seem to be the only type that really spook me. Mcmahon wove bits of suspense in with the supernatural. I found myself turning on all the lights in the house, jumping at every little sound I heard. This book got to me…in a very good way. Highly recommend to fans of literary thrillers.
    • 1/5
      This might be a better book to read than to listen to. It was just too dreary and depressing for me.
    • 4/5
      Dismantled is a book about secrets, and how damaging they can be to people's lives. I was drawn into the world of the Compassionate Dismantler from the beginning, and as the secrets started to unravel, I was hooked. Who doesn't like secrets? What really grabbed me first were the characters, they were really well written, and clear cut. The author was throrough in describing them, and giving them voices, making sure we understood who they were. Suz, by far left the strongest impression on my. In the beginning I was indifferent to her, but as the book progressed, I really started to dislike her. We learn about Suz through flashbacks, because at the start of the book she is already dead. Tess, and Henry's memories, and flashbacks of her make her seem larger than life, and later very manipulative. Another strong character was Emma, who is Tess, and Henry's daughter, she plays a big part in this book, and she helps move the story along. The pacing of the book is great. The suspense just kept on building up as you turned each page. At times I found the book scary, it would give me chills. Danner, Emma's imaginary friend, is very creepy, but I wished she was explained more. Dismantlers will definitely keep you reading until late in the day. The ending is impressive, and creative. Dismantled is a well written thriller with great memorable characters. If you are looking for a wonderful suspense/thriller book, I would suggest picking this one up.
    • 5/5
      This is my favorite book of McMahon's! The story is wonderfully crafted so it stays grounded in reality, but as more strange things happen you can't help but wonder whether something is going on, and if you don't believe that it is paranormal then how do you explain it. A page turner from the beginning, I would recommend it highly!
    • 5/5
      Does life imitate art or does art imitate life?For the Compassionate Dismantlers, this is an absurd question as the two are one and the same. Suz, Tess, Henry and Winnie, all passionate art students, connect at a small college in Vermont, bonding over their mutual interests and talents. Dedicated to the messages behind their art more than the actual material itself, they begin a practical application of undoing the oppressions of institution and regulation. They consider themselves young radicals, “freeing” people from the clutches of society by dismantling property, social constraints and even their own artwork.However innocently their actions were at the start (although it is debatable that their fearless leader, Suz, ever intended to be benign), compounded, their pranks begin to take a dark turn, fast. When an intended joke pushes the group too far, Suz goes out with a bang, leaving the remaining members guiltily disbanded.Nine years after the disintegration of the Dismantlers, Tess and Henry have moved on but not far away. They live close to the school with their daughter, Emma, a sensitive introverted nine year old with a rather particularly creepy imaginary friend named Danner. While they are not miserable, they seem to have lost the passion they possessed as young artists, creators and destroyers. They are struggling to find themselves, the selves that went missing the night everything came completely apart.When Winnie’s ex boyfriend and longtime subject of Dismantler pranks, ends his life, things begin unraveling quickly. Strange things being to happen, a majority of them involving Emma and Danner. Someone is determined to dredge up the secret buried within the summer, a decade ago and they are not going to go away quietly.McMahon’s style is a conglomerate of voices, primarily Tess, Henry and Emma with side notes by the other members of the group including journal entries by Suz. The story works from the outside in, gathering speed as the characters’ story lines weave together into the tighter whole. There is a linear progression but the story also jumps back to photographs, journal entries, small asides and all too vivid memories. Each narrative is beautifully, if eerily, constructed to flesh out the desires, passions, fears and shortcomings of the player.Dismantled is so much more than a murder mystery. It is a dark observation and dissection of human thought from the lightest feeling of summer diversion to intense paranoia of a life not truly lived. I fell in love with the idea of each person as an artist as it allowed for great discussion of what constitutes art and how this is not always the same answer for each person, nor for each piece of art.This is an incredibly addictive book both for its creepy suspense element and the well cared for beauty that brings a deeper understanding to the story than the usual two-dimensional thriller. I highly recommend the book but you’ll want to finish it before bedtime and you may also want to find yourself far away from a lake.