Rock Paper Scissors Review

Rock Paper Scissors caught my attention through its premise and kept it through the discomfort around marriage.

A troubled married couple spends a winter anniversary in an isolated Scottish chapel where alternating accounts reveal how little they know each other. What interested me was the gap between the rule of the story and the private price of marriage, visible most clearly in the snowbound setting.

My main reservation is that several reveals depend on withheld information rather than fair clues, and characters can feel designed for the puzzle. This is where I could see the author's plan around marriage more clearly than the character's need.

I became most involved through the people caught in marriage, especially around the snowbound setting. Adam's face blindness and Amelia's resentment create uncertainty, while the hidden writer of anniversary letters controls the deeper game. This is where my sympathy became complicated rather than automatic, because recognition carries a real cost.

The sections I enjoyed most involved the snowbound setting, anniversary letters, unreliable viewpoints, and carefully timed identity reveals. Those sections find a rhythm that suits the book's interest in recognition.

The larger subject is marriage, recognition, resentment, secrecy, revenge, memory, and private versions of a relationship. I appreciated that marriage is tied to money, family, work, and the snowbound setting rather than left as an abstract idea.

One brief exchange about recognition, tied to the snowbound setting, did more for me than the longer explanations around it.

I ended up at 4.2/5. The book's final hold came from the snowbound setting, a specific choice rather than a general message.