It’s always hard to review a thriller without spoiling it, and It’s Not What You Think makes that harder than most. The book depends on some big reveals, so I’ll avoid plot specifics.

Clare Mackintosh is very good at what she does. In this novel—and this is true for every book of hers I’ve read—the prose is compelling, the pacing confident, the plot dense and carefully engineered. I read it quickly and never felt lost.

That said, I struggled with this book. The novel takes up a very modern, very divisive political issue and makes it overwhelmingly clear that there is only one acceptable way to view it. From the first few chapters, it is clear which characters we are meant to trust or distrust because of where they stand on a cultural hot topic.

I won’t say anything about the ending, but I will say that the final turn confirmed what the book had been signaling all along. I saw it coming from a long way off, and when it arrived it reinforced the novel’s certainty rather than challenging it.

Many readers will likely love this book, especially if its stance reflects their own. It is confident, topical, and assured. If you feel aligned with its moral perspective, you may find it satisfying and timely.

I didn’t. I closed the book irritated—not because it engaged a political issue, but because it left no room to see that issue any other way. There is a difference between writing about difficult social divisions and reducing characters to those divisions. I don’t mind politics in fiction. I do mind when politics substitute for complexity. The cumulative effect struck me as bleak in a way that felt unnecessary and ultimately ungenerous.

Mackintosh remains a skilled storyteller. I’m not sorry I read the novel. I simply expected more nuance from it than I found.