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3.09 AVERAGE
3.09 AVERAGE
There is nothing much to recommend about "If I Disappear," not the writing quality, the characters or the storyline. Sorry, this was not for me.
It took some time to get used to the writing style, but once that happened, I couldn't put it down!
I’m not sure how to write a review for this without sounding like a broken record that I hated the ending, but I hated the ending! Up until that point I thought it was a great book. I really liked how the author sprinkled in podcast stories with the narratives and I really liked Sera. But at the end I felt like the author was going in a different direction and changed her mind and needed to figure out how to wrap it up. With that being said I would definitely read another book by this author though I liked her writing
Fans of true crime podcasts will be intrigued by Eliza Jane Brazier’s If I Disappear. Sera Fleece’s life is a mess. She is lonely, can’t keep a job and her marriage fell apart. What keeps her going is a true crime podcast, “Murder, She Spoke,” presented by Rachel Bard. Sera has committed each episode of the series, about the disappearance of young women, to memory. When the podcast abruptly stops airing, Sera is convinced that Rachel has disappeared and is in danger. Sera is compelled to find out what happened to Rachel.
Sera travels to Rachel’s hometown and it is clear that the Bards are one strange family. Sera is obsessed and convinces Rachel’s parents to hire her to work on their ranch where her domineering mother, father and a good looking ranch hand ooze creepiness. But solving the mystery has given Sera a new sense of purpose and strength and while there are warning signs all over, she does not back down.
I have mixed feelings about If I Disappear. It’s a thriller that is meant to be strange and creepy and it succeeds. Even when the strange factor rises pretty high and it gets a bit claustrophobic to read, the story keeps you wanting to hang in there and find out the truth about Rachel and other possible disappearances. Was the journey worth it? Yes, somewhat. But you might absolutely love it so check this one out.
Many thanks to NetGalley, Berkley Publishing Group and the author for the chance to read If I Disappear in advance of its January 26, 2020 publication. This is YA (young adult) author Brazier’s adult debut and I look forward to seeing what she writes next. A television adaptation is in the works and I'll be anxious to watch it.
Rated 3.5 (out of 5 stars) rounded up because I simply couldn’t put it down.
Sera travels to Rachel’s hometown and it is clear that the Bards are one strange family. Sera is obsessed and convinces Rachel’s parents to hire her to work on their ranch where her domineering mother, father and a good looking ranch hand ooze creepiness. But solving the mystery has given Sera a new sense of purpose and strength and while there are warning signs all over, she does not back down.
I have mixed feelings about If I Disappear. It’s a thriller that is meant to be strange and creepy and it succeeds. Even when the strange factor rises pretty high and it gets a bit claustrophobic to read, the story keeps you wanting to hang in there and find out the truth about Rachel and other possible disappearances. Was the journey worth it? Yes, somewhat. But you might absolutely love it so check this one out.
Many thanks to NetGalley, Berkley Publishing Group and the author for the chance to read If I Disappear in advance of its January 26, 2020 publication. This is YA (young adult) author Brazier’s adult debut and I look forward to seeing what she writes next. A television adaptation is in the works and I'll be anxious to watch it.
Rated 3.5 (out of 5 stars) rounded up because I simply couldn’t put it down.
(1.5/5) The premise is a lot of fun: Sera, a thirty-something with a mediocre life, obsessively uses a true crime podcast as her one escape. To the extent that she's developed an unhinged parasocial relationship with the podcast host, Rachel. When the host goes missing, she decides to embark on this absurd investigation, believing that Rachel has been leaving her clues in her podcast all along. Cue unreliable narrator who is completely batshit insane, and a novel that's full of drama, right?
Wrong! How do you make a book like this boring? And the twist at the end? Totally didn't work for me. We never get to connect with Rachel aside from through Sera's incredibly troubled perspective, so it had no emotional resonance for me. I've heard that the novel Sadie does a similar concept, but perhaps more convincingly, so I'm excited to give that a read.
Wrong! How do you make a book like this boring? And the twist at the end? Totally didn't work for me. We never get to connect with Rachel aside from through Sera's incredibly troubled perspective, so it had no emotional resonance for me. I've heard that the novel Sadie does a similar concept, but perhaps more convincingly, so I'm excited to give that a read.
i'm over where we make everything in the second person just because we can! this might have been good, i just don't even remember because i could not get over that we had to be in second person the whole time and it was annoying.
Great narration on audio and an intriguing story that plays out through the eyes of an unreliable, but oh-so-interesting main character.
Well this was a doozy. 250 pages. 250 pages out of 293 is how long it took me to feel invested. And then it was over
Grateful to get this early copy from Netgalley, I enjoyed the book for the most part. It was very suspenseful at the beginning and kept me reading nightly. The middle chapters seemed to repeat what was already known and I had just about figured out what was going to happen or didn't really care at that point about the protagonist or the issue. The conclusion was a decent surprise but the ending was kinda weird.
3.8 stars because i liked the story but didn’t ever get fully invested in the characters themselves. Lots of twists and turns with a cliffhanger ending. Interesting story i really didn’t know what was going to happen. Good build up of background leading into the big parts of the storyline.