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.

Jane, our favorite sociopath from Jane Doe, has company!

Baby shark, doo doo ...
Mama shark, doo doo ...

When Jane finds out that her sixteen-year-old niece Kayla has disappeared, at first Jane's all, why should I care?

But then Jane hears that Kayla is a coldhearted, distant person - just like Jane herself - and sees a picture of Kayla with the empty look of a sociopath in her eyes. And suddenly Jane is interested.

So Jane takes off from her boyfriend Luke (who's stressing Jane out with his talk of moving in together) and from her law firm (where she's been busily bringing about the downfall of a particularly obnoxious young partner) and travels to her childhood town to see if she can find a missing young girl who might just need what Jane has to offer.

3.66 stars, mostly because the middle part got too slow-paced, when Jane's visiting her completely dysfunctional family and wandering around town looking for clues and possibly a little action. She gets this rather odd fascination with wind turbines that eventually leads her to some insights into her relationship with Luke and her own psyche. That subplot took too long for too little payoff.

But the story picked up nicely in the final third, with a memorable ending. And Jane comes up with gems like this:
What he doesn’t know is that his testicles don’t imbue him with immortality, and I could easily get out a gun while he’s fumbling with the button of his pants. I could kill him and leave his body in the dirt where no one would spot it from the highway. Like he’s a woman. Like he’s one of a million dead women.

Why did he have a drink with her if he didn’t want it? Why did he let her into his truck? Why did he go off with her if he wanted to say no? What did he expect to happen? You really have to be smarter if you don’t want to get murdered by strange women.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC!

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3013612553

I love Jane. This was a good book where the ending leaves open the possibility of a whole slew of books of Jane. I know this is book 2 in the series so what I'm saying is I see this turning into a series like Stephanie Plum or Kate Burkholder. Jane can do. I have 100% faith in her.

In this book Jane is still trying to sabotage her co-worker, Rob, when she gets a call that will change her path in life. Ultimately the phone call makes her come to terms with a lot of things as she investigates what happened to her niece.

Our favorite self-proclaimed sociopath, Jane, is back. But this time, she's not out for revenge. Jane is currently as settled down as she'll ever be in Minneapolis, working as a lawyer and nearly living with her boyfriend, Luke. Out of the blue she gets a call from an estranged family member, notifying her that her niece, Kayla, is missing. And usually Jane would stay out of those types of family matters, but she gets the hunch that Kayla is a sociopath like herself.

So Jane goes back to her hometown where she had a rather rough childhood. She takes it upon herself to discover what happened to Kayla. And this is how Jane the sociopath turns into Jane the amateur detective. But once she finds Kayla, she may not like what she discovers about her long lost niece.

Problem Child by Victoria Helen Stone is the second book in the Jane Doe series. Jane Doe was one of my favorite thrillers of 2018 and I couldn't get enough of our main character, Jane. I thought Jane Doe worked so well as a standalone novel, so this sequel had rather big shoes to fill. Unfortunately, I think this book suffered from "middle book" syndrome. It was super drawn out, slow and boring. I wasn't engaged in the story and I think a lot of the fluff could've been omitted. The first 25% and the last 5% were interesting and kept me engaged, but the remaining 70% was a snooze fest. The end of the book sets us up pretty well for a third installment in this series, and I am intrigued enough to want to read it. 3/5 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley, Lake Union Publishing and Victoria Helen Stone for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Oh Jane Doe, where did you go?! I was expecting a bit more from Problem Child after it's predecessor in the series, Jane Doe, knocked my socks off last year. Jane Doe is the best friend you'd love and be terribly frightened to have - shes one fantastic sociopath you root for. Problem Child just didn't have that spark that Jane Doe had in the first novel. That spark had unfortunately be burnt out with me flipping the pages wandering when something was going to happen. I think the third in the series will be the second novel I was hoping for.