Reviews with content warning for Violence - The Reappearance of Rachel Price

Holly Jackson keeps making me fall in love with golden retriever boys that follow around unhinged teenage girls as they obsess over solving a mystery and I love it!

This book was absolutely amazing and kept me guessing until the very end. It had a really interesting premise that left me not really knowing what to expect. I loved the messy family dynamics and how unhinged everything played out. I had some suspicions that were partly right, but I couldn’t have predicted how everything played out. In true Holly Jackson fashion all the random clues she dropped now tie together perfectly and make so much sense looking back, I was trying to keep track of all the random details and still kept missing them.

The main character, Bel, was an interesting one. She could be hard to read about at times as she purposefully drove people away, but it was interesting to see how the disappearance of her mom when she was young affected her life and psyche. I did love her growth and that she realized she was wrong about things. I obviously loved Ash, the golden retriever camera assistant, who was all too willing to go along with Bel’s crazy antics.

Totally recommend if you want a good mystery to read, once you reach the second half of the book you won’t want to put it down!

Content Warnings

emmajh91's review against another edition

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mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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lilshelly's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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mimi_gonetosleep's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? N/A
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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reghan_32's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25

Content Warnings

_moonsongenthusiast_'s review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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bookcheshirecat's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious slow-paced

3.5

“Shit, yes, now you mention it, I’ve just suddenly remembered everything and solved the entire case, can you believe it? What a plot twist.”

➽ The Reappearance of Rachel Price is an intriguing mystery all about the reappearance of a missing person. Normally, it's all about someone disappearing and the characters chasing clues to find them. It was a nice subversion to have the person - in this case, Bel's mother Rachel Price - reappearing and causing a mystery about their whereabouts. Just when her family was filming a documentary about Rachel Price's unsolved disappearance, Bel is confronted with the reappearance of a mother she barely knows. She was still young when her mother vanished, so she barely remembers her. What's supposed to be a happy incident for the whole family quickly sours as Bel suspects her mother is lying about where she was and who took her.

➽ I loved the ominous atmosphere of having a practical stranger living in your house and uprooting your entire life. Bel doesn't trust Rachel and keeps carefully watching her for any slip-ups. She wants to believe her, but can't shake the insidious feeling that something isn't right. I loved the deep dive into Rachel's relationship with her daughter and her behavior after having been 'supposedly' abducted for years. The focus was on Bel's personal turmoil and complicated feelings toward her mother, whom she barely has any memories of. The atmosphere was good, as I felt Bel's unease and efforts to investigate Rachel without alerting her. She starts digging deeper into Rachel's past with the help of Ash, a part of the documentary's crew. I loved their interactions and investigation! Bel has issues trusting anyone to stay in her life, but Ash can be disarming and is willing to help her when most people believe she's grasping at straws.

➽ Unfortunately, the story was slow-paced and it took me a while to connect to the characters. I debated giving this a higher rating, but this paled in comparison to A Good Girl's Guide to Murder. The book felt like it could have been shorter, especially as it took a while for everything to fall into place. Some plot points like Bel and Ash's investigation were interesting, but I wish we'd seen more of their dynamic. In between their interactions, I felt like the story stagnated at times and the ending was suspenseful, but a bit rushed. It also took me some time to fully understand and connect to Bel. Some secondary characters like her cousin Carter and other family members remained one-dimensional. In the end, the book could have focused more on the documentary and Bel's investigation with Ash, as I felt like this was pushed into the background after some time.

Content Warnings

mamatrauma's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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