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dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
This one was so much darker than I expected. If you like flawed characters and emotionally vivid stories exploring fear, sadness, anger, and heartbreak, you might really like this.
Energy: Tension. Dread. Poignancy.
🐕 Howls: I had to skim some scenes because it was so anxiety-inducing (they’re so genuinely horrific my brain doesn’t need any help being paranoid about them!) kidnapping/confinement + forced pregnancy + evil hiding in plain sight .
🐩 Tail Wags: The writing style. The foreshadowing. Exploring how seemingly innocuous, harmless decisions can lead to tragedy. Characters that are deeply flawed and human. Slow but absorbing pace.
Scene: 🏴 London, England
Perspectives (4): We mainly follow the parent of a teen who went missing a decade ago, and the teenager leading up to their disappearance. We also get additional perspectives of a math tutor and the parent’s love interest, who is raising a kid with a striking resemblance to their missing daughter.
Timeline: Then & Now (2005 & 2015)
Narrative: Invisible in the room, overhearing thoughts, being told a story. Reader mostly in-the-know compared to characters (first person or third person objective depending on the character).
Fuel: Finding love after giving up, coping with grief, the circumstances leading to the mystery of the missing daughter. What happened to Ellie? How did the family handle it? W Is her mother seeing what she wants to see in her new relationship? Can she trust her new boyfriend?
Cred: Realistic to plausible
Mood Reading Match-Up:
Old cooking and unwashed hair. Navy blue rucksack. Maths. John Lewis childswear.
- Punchy, reflective, vivid writing style
- Eccentric, flawed, sympathetic, complicated, and unhinged characters
- Slow burn missing person suspense
- Emotionally vivid psychological drama
- Surreal ripped-from-the-headlines feel
- Can-she-trust-him later in life meetcute
- Simmering resentments and unhinged ‘pick me’
- Obsession, stalking, jealousy, loneliness
- High emotional stakes interpersonal drama
- Monsters hiding in plain sight
- Wrong place, wrong time
- Themes of cruelty, depravity, grief, desperation, forgiveness, healing, adversity, parenthood, and choice
Content Heads-Up: Animal death (mention; hamsters). Burglary (home). Child neglect. Custodial dispute. Drugging. Emotional and cognitive issues (childhood). Kidnapping, confinement (room). Loss of child (illness; disappearance). Loss of sibling (as child). Miscarriage (memory). Murder. Parental abandonment. Pregnancy (forced; complications). Psychopathic behaviour. Stalking. Stroke (elderly parent). Suicidal planning, suicide. Torture. Toxic relationship.
Rep: British. Irish British. American British. Cis. Hetero. Freckled, pale, tawny skin tones.
📚 Format: Kindle
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Content Warnings
Graphic: Confinement, Mental illness, Torture, Toxic relationship, Kidnapping, Stalking
Moderate: Murder, Pregnancy, Abandonment
Minor: Animal death, Child abuse, Miscarriage, Suicidal thoughts
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
I figured out the main plot point fairly early and as more and more pieces fell into place I had to decide if I wanted to keep going due to some sever discomfort with how the story plays out. I talked with a friend who read it and was able to determine I would finish it.
If you are searching for Tigger warnings like I was:non-consensual pregnancy happens with a minor. Does not go into detail but is obvious on what has occurred. Chapter 40 is where it takes place
If you are searching for Tigger warnings like I was:
Content Warnings
Minor: Animal death, Child death, Confinement, Infertility, Miscarriage, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Kidnapping, Grief, Stalking, Murder, Pregnancy
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Kidnapping, Murder, Pregnancy
Moderate: Animal death, Confinement, Suicide, Stalking
dark
emotional
sad
medium-paced
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Kidnapping, Stalking
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Kidnapping
Moderate: Self harm, Suicide, Torture, Schizophrenia/Psychosis
Minor: Emotional abuse, Infertility
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Started slow and I was easily distracted, but the last 150pages sold it for me.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Infertility, Sexual assault, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Kidnapping, Grief, Stalking, Murder, Pregnancy
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
N/A
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This was a fine book. There wasn't much to really grip me, to make me feel super strongly even months after putting it down, beyond a few moments I thought were good "whammys" - but I wasn't disappointed either. I will say that it gets heavy at times; and while the ending is an oddly calm resolution, it is not completely happy either.
I see a lot of reviews saying that this book was predictable, even quickly predictable. I have to disagree, although I acknowledge that it might just be because A. my brain is weird when trying to guess things and B. I don't read this kind of book often. By a third into the book, I was spread between multiple different theories;fellow readers, can you believe I was leaning towards Poppy being an "abused-to-age-regression" Ellie, and Floyd was a DDLG freak? I was also, until the Noelle POVs started, leaning heavily that Floyd was more involved in the case than he was: that maybe he was the one to do the killing of Ellie, or that he either ordered or manipulated Noelle into getting him a young girl to abuse, and even awhile into the Noelle POVs I was wondering if he was going to be more involved in the plot to turn Ellie into a forced surrogate. By the halfway mark, the theories were getting trimmed down, but I still wasn't 100% sure what the final answers were going to be until they were on the page before me.
I think part of it was that so many little things were building up the image of Floyd being more sinister than he turned out to be. I did question if Blue's "vibe check" was a red herring. But then I was thinking that Floyd was perhaps an abuser of Poppy, that he had a darker ulterior motive for Laurel. It came across that it was odd for Floyd to be keeping Poppy from the Donnelly family (altho in hindsight it makes more sense). He was lying about things. It seemed like not all about Poppy was healthy. Laurel felt the need to text Hanna and Paul about her whereabouts, and I thought that was going to come into play in the climax. Yet, despite him being a liar and a stalker and a fraud... Everything still ended up fine? He was just trying to reunite Poppy and Laurel? And then he just exited the picture, without even facing Laurel and telling her everything in person? I was expecting a more dramatic confrontation, and not getting it after what felt like a whole lot of build up, was more anti-climactic than "ooh, what a twist!" If there is one thing I do agree with the lukewarm and negative reviews, everything wrapped up too nicely and neatly. However, for me, it's not to the point that it's lowered my opinion of the book. Even as I write this, I even find myself going: "Yeah, I guess with this ending, a lot about the build-up still makes sense, and I see what the author was going for with the final twist."
There is one thing I did notice and liked about the story:there felt like a theme of "obsession" that tied all the core characters together. Of course, Noelle was obsessed with Floyd and Ellie, and that became the catalyst for everything. Laurel was obsessed with Ellie, and it contributed to the ruining of the Mack family and her own life, with her finally learning how to let go... although I feel like some lines about Poppy in the final chapter feels a bit like history repeating itself, whether the author intended it or not. Ellie has some bits of it - as pointed out at the start, her obsession with math grades put her on the path of becoming Noelle's victim, although it's still more minor than other obsessions. Even Floyd is not immune: he became obsessed with Laurel, becoming a bit of the stalker Noelle was towards him, albeit differing from her in that he still let go in the end.
Overall, the book wasn't the best, but I still recognize it as being solid and not a waste of time either. Maybe not everything worked out as I'd hoped, but it didn't fall apart into a mess.
I see a lot of reviews saying that this book was predictable, even quickly predictable. I have to disagree, although I acknowledge that it might just be because A. my brain is weird when trying to guess things and B. I don't read this kind of book often. By a third into the book, I was spread between multiple different theories;
There is one thing I did notice and liked about the story:
Overall, the book wasn't the best, but I still recognize it as being solid and not a waste of time either. Maybe not everything worked out as I'd hoped, but it didn't fall apart into a mess.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Miscarriage, Grief, Stalking, Murder, Pregnancy, Gaslighting
Moderate: Abandonment
Minor: Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Death of parent
There are sections of the book narrated in first-person by the main antagonist and it veers a lot into unreliable narrator-territory, but I think sometimes it's genuinely hard to tell what is the truth and what's their delusions as they go on.
Also while I'm not going so far as to tag pedophilia, the main antagonist has an unhealthy obsession with a child that gets uncomfortably close. But as the antagonist said, it's not *really* sexual, and at times it veers into "I don't want *her*, I want to *be* her".
dark
mysterious
sad
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Confinement, Death, Kidnapping, Murder, Pregnancy, Abandonment
Moderate: Miscarriage
Minor: Sexual assault, Suicide, Stalking
dark
emotional
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Rape, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Kidnapping, Pregnancy
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Medical content, Kidnapping