Jane is back with a vengeance. In this book she is searching for her missing neice, and is more of a sociopath than ever. The middle of the book was a little slow but what an ending!
Many thanks to Lake Union Publishing and to NetGalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

Jane is a character that isn’t easily forgotten. You can be an avid reader and she won't be one that will easily slip the mind. She sticks out among a sea of protagonists like a sore thumb. Mostly because she is a sociopath with a knack for destroying lives in the most deceiving and psychotic way possible. And that is exactly why readers fall for her. She is a bad bitch and we fucking love it. Yet I can’t help but feel like something went horribly wrong with this sequel.

I never thought that I could claim to be bored while reading any novel involving Jane. In fact, it seems criminal. But all of my notes talk about how nothing has happened. Don’t get me wrong, the first chapter was the venomous women that I fell hard for. But after that, Stone navigates away from the feel of the first novel and takes a new approach. Problem Child focuses a great deal on the mind and thought process of Jane verses her actions. Some reader’s will love this, reader’s like myself will find it incredibly boring. I spent most of the book bored and making comments about how much of the details and happenings seemed like filler. After finishing and internalizing what was read, I understood it was a deeper look into Jane’s psyche. But it sort of fell flat. I have many theories on why that is.

First, I think with this novel we see less of the sociopathic behavior. Instead, we are often told and reminded she is a sociopath but we see less actions indicating this. Based on the previous novels, I think some expectations will not be met in that regard. Actions speak louder than words in this case. Where is the woman who destroyed a pastor’s life? I miss that mean girl.

Another one of the problems is the synopsis. It is incredibly misleading. When I read this synopsis, I thought I would be getting a story about Jane dealing with her sociopathic niece. While that does happen, it literally doesn’t happen until the tail end of the book. Otherwise, the story is just detailing Jane eating, drinking and traveling around pretty much. Again, an in depth look into her mental workings. But honestly, fuck that. I want an in depth look into Jane outwitting her niece. It should have been an epic battle of the sociopaths. But it wasn’t. Instead you meet the “problem child” in the last 20% of the book. Not only was the synopsis misleading, I find the title to be as well.

Okay, I have one other complaint. In this novel, I feel as Jane lost some of that sociopathic edge that we love. She isn’t supposed to “care”, yet she most certainly does especially about her relationship. As a reader, I don’t want to see growth in Jane. That is not why I love this character. I love her for her ruthless ways. I need her to remain scantless otherwise who am I even anymore?

Overall, I wasn’t really impressed with this novel. I think Stone took away some of the core components that made Jane Doe the success it was. I understand the approach taken but it just did not resonate like it should have. I really hope Stone unleashes the fury should there be a third installment. I’m jonesing for it.

Thank you NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing for a copy of Problem Child.

Ooooh yay this was a good one!

I loved Victoria Helen Stone's previous book, Jane Doe, so I was ecstatic when I got approved for an ARC on NetGalley.

This was exactly what you'd expect from good ole' Jane! I love her character and miss seeing females like her in fiction. It's not everyday you get inside the mind of a sociopath! I'm not on her level (I don't think), I have emotions, I can cry over nothing, and I definitely experience love. Yet... and that's a huge yet... I can relate to her SO MUCH! I loved getting to know her and reading about her life after the first book.

The book itself read pretty fast. I enjoyed being alongside Jane as she journeyed back to her family home whilst looking for her niece, Kayla. There's a lot of doubt as to Kayla's behavior. Is she similar to Jane? Could this be a genetic trait? Or is she just like the rest of us, boring, normal, yet missing.

The first third of the book was the best. I loved Jane's methods of manipulation and getting information to further her investigation. There was a storyline that I felt got cleaned up way too easy and way too fast.

The ending was great and I believe it definitely leave a third book waiting in the wings, and you best believe I will pick that up if VHS decides to write it.

An enjoyable and interesting read. Jane the lawyer in this book demonstrates and describes her behaviour as that of a sociopath. It gives a great insight and understanding of someone with sociopathic traits. How she manages her life and the issues involved. These are well intertwined with an exciting and entertaining storyline. I thoroughly recommend this book.

Thanks to NetGalley, publisher and author for kindly letting me have an ARC in exchange for my honest review. I really liked this author's previous book, "Jane Doe". I was so happy to get this new book, which I thought would be a sequel. This book started so much fun like the previous one. I enjoyed this story although not as much as the previous one. Jane seemed to be growing a heart on this one. I liked Luke's character a lot. I also liked Jane's cat a lot. I still like the author's storytelling style. I look forward to her next book.

I haven’t read the first book in the series but I don’t feel like missing anything major as the characters are well depicted and the story it’s not following any major twists apparently.
She seems to be Dexter female clone and the author has done a great job in showing how a psychopath can live their lives with no worries and emotions for anyone but the chosen ones as in this case her boyfriend, who was a bit obvious to everything around him in my opinion ( that’s a very nice way of describing him 😅)
Investigating her niece disappearance, she finds out that Kyla is actually more like herself and hopefully a third book will be written as honestly, I’m interested in what’s going to happen with their relationship.
It’s a good story overall, it stalls a bit in the middle but it’s perfect for the genre lovers.

What a fantastic follow up from the first book Jane Doe. We learned in book one that Jane was a sociopath and had got to see what made her so. This book follows on brilliantly and we get to meet a new character which lies close to Jane's ice cold heart. Jane is such a well developed character and such a sociopathic bitch. It's hard not to find yourself loving her. I finished this in a few hours and immediately want more. Really hope book 3 is on the way.

I have not read any of Jane's other books yet so I was worried I would be confused, but that did not happen. The character of Jane is written SO well. She maintains such an air of a sociopath so consistently throughout the whole novel, which is often hard to pull off. The middle was a bit slow and convoluted for me, but it picked back up towards the end! The end was unexpected and much too short for me, but it seems as if there might be another book in the works.

What a fantastic character Jane is.

I do love Victoria Helen Stone as an author and having read about Jane before I was very excited and grateful to be allowed to read this pre-release.

This book is also excellent.

Jane is a sociopath who feels nothing for anyone and loves nothing more than to stir up trouble when she is bored. Successful in life after a basic trashy upbringing, she is now a lawyer who uses her powers to locate her missing niece. Why does she want to locate her when she cares about no one? Because her niece has been described as a mini Jane, so she wants to see her for herself.

The start of this book is great, the middle is slightly slow, but it appears to be a story and character build for the next book.

The ending is unexpected, gripping and over far too quick!

Jane Doe was such an amazing thriller! I loved reading about Jane's journey and I was so happy it had a sequel in Problem Child.

Jane is working in the city. She has her loving cat and she's still in a relationship with Luke (who's oblivious). At work, she's planning to punish another lawyer who has been using her work without giving her the proper accolades. Then, she gets a phone call. Her niece is missing. At first, Jane couldn't care less. She doesn't want anything to do with her family. None of them are good for anything. This is until she is sent a picture of her teenage niece and she realizes she has that empty stare Jane has herself.

Jane decides she needs to know for sure. Is her niece Kayla the same as she is or is the picture just a picture. With this in mind, Jane goes back home. She meets with her brother, who's in jail and her parents who are living still in the same place. Her mother has no lost love for Jane but Jane couldn't care less, she just wants to find her niece. During her investigation, she realizes that Kayla has gotten involved with the wrong kind of people. People who are powerful and who would not bat an eye about killing a young woman.

For the most part, Problem Child gave me all the right emotions. I love being in Jane's head and I love how deceiving she can be. She's a strong female character (which I adore) and just like Dexter, she can feel something for someone. I felt the storyline dragging in the middle of the book and I was losing interest in the search for Kayla. That brings me to my last point, I didn't like Kayla. I hope if there is a next book, Mrs. Stone changes my mind.

I wasn't shocked by the ending but it leaves the door wide open for a third installment.

Cliffhanger: No

3.5/5 Fangs

A complimentary copy was provided by Lake Union Publishing via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

4.5 stars! Excellent follow-up to Jane Doe. Here's hoping for a third? I absolutely love reading about Jane Doe and her twistedness.

Thank you Netgalley for this eARC in exchange for an honest review.
**
WOW!!! It's official I need to get book one!
Jane is a sociopathic bitch and I LOVE her! This being said this is the second book in the Jane Doe series however this is the first and only book I've read about her; so far... I plan to correct that soon enough.
**
Jane is a self proclaimed sociopath. She is an attorney, which seriously seems to be the perfect job for her. She can lie, bullshit and mess with her co-worker Rob who seems to like to steal credit for her work... until Jane strikes back and starts making him look like the bumbling idiot she knows him to be.
With this going on, Jane receives a couple phone calls from someone talking about her niece. Jane has no family; well none she wishes to associate with any more. To say her parents helped mold her into the sociopath she is would be an understatement. What really catches Jane's attention is the caller saying her niece is JUST LIKE JANE.... that's interesting... Jane would like if her niece was a little socio just like her...
Jane is now on the hunt to find her missing 16 year old niece, Kayla; who has the reputation of a hooker with no family or anyone looking for her... that is until Jane finds out this bald man with a gun trying to track her down. As Jane tracks down Kayla she finds that what started out as something to do in her boredom has turned into her wanting to actually know and potentially help guide Kayla into becoming a chameleon sociopath just like herself.
**
I loved this, such a fun easy read. Hopefully I can read more about Jane in the future :P

3 for neutral. Will update when able to read the first book, as I didn’t realize this was part of a series, and I’m way to anxious to try and read prior to the other books. I started and couldn’t get into it, after finding it was a series knew why and decided it best to do a neutral review and updating later.

3 sociopath stars

I think I have to chalk this one up to a disappointing second in the series. You know when there’s a sequel to a good movie and it just doesn’t live up to the first one? Victoria Helen Stone introduces us to a fascinating character, Jane Doe, in the first book in this series. Jane is a self-diagnosed sociopath and has some crazy ideas about the world and revenge.

This one dives deeper into Jane’s past and her family as Jane is trying to find a missing niece who she suspects might be a lot like her. I found this part of the book to be a little boring and too long. When she finally does find her niece, Kayla, things start to get more interesting. Jane makes a project of Kayla, trying to mold her into a model citizen.

There was a great side story of a work colleague taking credit for Jane’s work and she exacts the perfect revenge on him. Who doesn’t have this sort of fantasy?

The ending of this one had a perfect twist and I’m guessing that book #3 in the series will be much more to my liking with the involvement of Jane and Kayla. Here’s hoping!

I was so happy when I saw this was available on Netgalley and was even more happy when I got a copy.

In this Jane saga we get to know more about Jane and how she became the sociopath we all fell in love with. We meet her family and go to her hometown. I enjoyed getting to know Jane and delve a bit more into how her brain works and what makes her tick – I also appreciated that we got to see a softer side of Jane in her relationship with Luke her partner. I do feel like this book is more a prep for the next in the series, so for me the story was probably not as captivating as the first and focused more on Jane’s back story, which is fine, but I did rate it less than Jane Doe because of it. To be clear I still did enjoy the book I still 100% recommend.

As a sequel to the furious and wonderful Jane Doe, Problem Child feels like a bit of a re-tread. Jane is as incisive and cutting and systematic in her revenge as ever, bless her (the heroine we need in 2019, honestly), but it feels like covering similar ground from the first book. Seeing Jane back in action in her work and also seeing her with her equally sociopathic niece are the highlights of the book for me.

I also find myself confused about Jane's understanding of herself--she insists that she doesn't have any morality, but there are certain points in the novel where it seems like her own particular brand of morality wins out over her usual careful analysis of how something will hurt or benefit her. I'm interested to see how this might develop in the next book.

Stone's writing is smart and observant and chilling, and she knows exactly how much to make readers find Jane relatable and then snap them back to reality like "ohhh, nope, not that far." Jane and Kayla are incredibly compelling characters, and I can't wait to see more of their interactions with each other.

I really enjoyed this book. I thought the main character was something new and different, which is difficult to find. Jane, who describes herself to the reader as a sociopath, is very interesting and a bit of a vigilante, though certainly a selfish one.

So often, when one encounters a sociopath in a book, that character is leaving a trail of bodies in his or her wake. However, sometimes people with this condition are, like Jane, just trying to build a life, thought perhaps differently than one most people what expect.

When Jane finds out that she has a niece who is missing, she does not really care. However, that changes when she is told said niece is " like her " Jane is very curious to find her niece and perhaps have someone who knows what it is like to walk through life a little differently and certainly more selfishly than everyone else.

I enjoy the mystery surrounding her niece's disappearance and seeing how Jane manipulates others into getting what she wants. The surprise ending was also good, and I hope the author will choose to continue the song the story.

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Beyond amazing I enjoyed this book so very much. The characters and storyline were fantastic. The ending I did not see coming Could not put down nor did I want to.

Wow this is an amazingly addicting, yet incredibly disturbing cerebral thrill ride. I absolutely could not put this book down! It is completely astonishing how Victoria Helen Stone has created Jane and her incredibly unique and interesting dialog. The twists and turns are fabulous and unexpected, of course dark as expected, yet the perspective is so intriguing. The end of the book is a stunner and although it wrapped nicely, it left me also hoping for more of these characters in the future. Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book.

Jane Doe makes for an interesting protaganist. Her motivations for searching for her neice are different from the typical missing child novel. Her sense of right and wrong gave me a bit of a Dexter feel (although Jane hasn't murdered anyone.. yet).

The novel feels pretty fast paced, as Jane follows the trail of her missing neice. Jane's sociopathic antics make for good stories. I enjoyed the side plot of Jane vs her colleague at their law firm. There is something very fascinating at watching manipulative behaviour from the outside. I wouldn't want to know Jane in real life, that's for sure!

The plot had enough twists and turns to keep me interested, although it felt perhaps a little more simplistic than some others in the thriller genre. And the ending has me hooked in, hoping for a sequel!

This is the second book in the series, and I haven't actually read the first one. However, I didn't need to have read the first one to understand the characters and the story. When I finished this one, I immediately bought the first one, though, because I really want to read more about Jane.