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challenging
dark
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
So the beginning was really slow for me and I didn’t really start liking it until part 2. I don’t really know if I liked the changing pov’s mostly because I felt they gave too much of the mystery away and the changes were really sudden, and didn’t add a lot to the story for me. I also think I understand what the author was trying to do by giving a false sense of closure with the first mystery being solved but throughout the book it just felt extremely easy to figure everything out and I felt like the ending was kinda mid. One thing that I did enjoy was the depth of the MC and the emotions that she conveys through the book especially with her children and her husband. Overall I would give this a 4/10
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Death, Sexual assault, Kidnapping, Grief, Stalking, Murder
Moderate: Child abuse, Abandonment
dark
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This was a 2.5 star read for me personally. I had so many qualms with this book:
• It was easy to figure out the mystery behind Ellie’s disappearance. I even have a sticky note that I put in the book just to go back to it and prove myself right. Though I must say, the finer details did have me feeling very uncomfortable and kinda sick to my stomach. That’s superb writing right there, because some people in this world are actually that sick and twisted.
• Why was American English being used in a book set in the United Kingdom?? That was such a pet peeve for me as someone who uses British English. If they’re in England, it should be ‘humour’ not ‘humor’.
• Most of the characters were extremely annoying to me. Laurel constantly shat on Hanna and kept comparing her to what Ellie was, Poppy didn’t feel like an accurate description of a 9 year old to me. Her language and behaviour felt quite mature. Painting Floyd as this story of ‘doing it to protect my daughter’ guy then with the suicide thing was so not cool. He doesn’t get to be felt sorry for. What he did was creepy and wrong. Then Hanna getting with and marrying her dead sister’s ex was really just kinda gross to me
• I hate ending. I really do
it doesn’t make sense that the letter was written by Ellie if she wasn’t allowed to leave the cellar at any point. How would she have been able to do that? That’s a huge hole in the plot line
I just overall was not a fan of this. Disappointed
• It was easy to figure out the mystery behind Ellie’s disappearance. I even have a sticky note that I put in the book just to go back to it and prove myself right. Though I must say, the finer details did have me feeling very uncomfortable and kinda sick to my stomach. That’s superb writing right there, because some people in this world are actually that sick and twisted.
• Why was American English being used in a book set in the United Kingdom?? That was such a pet peeve for me as someone who uses British English. If they’re in England, it should be ‘humour’ not ‘humor’.
•
• I hate ending. I really do
I just overall was not a fan of this. Disappointed
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Death, Emotional abuse, Infertility, Miscarriage, Sexual assault, Torture, Kidnapping, Grief, Stalking, Abortion, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Confinement, Kidnapping, Pregnancy
Moderate: Animal death, Death, Miscarriage, Suicide, Grief, Death of parent
Minor: Sexual assault
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
fast-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
I think I’m obsessed with Lisa Jewells books. This is the third book written by her that I’ve read.
I give this book 4.75 Stars. It was an amazing story. Somewhat bizarre but brilliant. The characters are beautifully described and the book is so well written, I couldn’t stop reading. The only reason I didn’t give this book 5 stars is that some parts of the plot where predictable, but I didn’t mind because there where still a lot of unpredictable twists and I didn’t expect the ending at all.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Kidnapping, Stalking
Moderate: Animal death, Death, Emotional abuse, Infertility, Suicide, Terminal illness, Murder, Pregnancy
challenging
dark
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Is there such a thing as a true coincidence or is life a series of carefully planned events?
Ellie Mack seemed to have the perfect life. She was the apple of her mom Laurie’s eye. Smart and beautiful, Ellie had the entire world ahead of her. Then one day, shortly before her school exams, she disappeared. The police chalked Ellie’s disappearance up as a runaway teenager, but Laurie knew her daughter and she knew that Ellie wouldn’t have just ran away without a word to anyone.
Years later, a chance encounter at a coffee shop causes Laurie to meet Floyd, a single father of two daughters. After years of heartache, Laurie is finally open to the idea of love and embraces the idea of being a mother figure to Floyd’s younger daughter, Poppy, a precocious preteen girl whose own mother abandoned her years before. Laurie’s vision of a perfect blended family is shattered when she meets Poppy, who looks just like Ellie. This meeting causes Laurie to wonder if meeting Floyd and Poppy was a coincidence or is there a sinister connection to Ellie’s disappearance
Ellie Mack seemed to have the perfect life. She was the apple of her mom Laurie’s eye. Smart and beautiful, Ellie had the entire world ahead of her. Then one day, shortly before her school exams, she disappeared. The police chalked Ellie’s disappearance up as a runaway teenager, but Laurie knew her daughter and she knew that Ellie wouldn’t have just ran away without a word to anyone.
Years later, a chance encounter at a coffee shop causes Laurie to meet Floyd, a single father of two daughters. After years of heartache, Laurie is finally open to the idea of love and embraces the idea of being a mother figure to Floyd’s younger daughter, Poppy, a precocious preteen girl whose own mother abandoned her years before. Laurie’s vision of a perfect blended family is shattered when she meets Poppy, who looks just like Ellie. This meeting causes Laurie to wonder if meeting Floyd and Poppy was a coincidence or is there a sinister connection to Ellie’s disappearance
Content Warnings
Graphic: Confinement, Death, Kidnapping, Grief
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death
Minor: Miscarriage, Suicide, Murder, Pregnancy
dark
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Laurel Mack has had a hard time moving forward after her fifteen-year old daughter, Ellie, vanished one day on the way to the library ten years ago. It's not until she meets Floyd that she starts to repair the relationships (including with her surviving children) that were damaged when she withdrew into her own trauma after Ellie's disappearance. However, she's thrown off her new equilibrium when she meets his nine-year old daughter, Poppy, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Ellie.
This is another book club book that didn't look like what I normally read (contemporary mystery vs fantasy, sci fi, and historic fiction) but decided to read anyways. My specific thoughts when reading the synopsis was "this looks so messed up, I want to read it." It did not disappoint on that front.
The story is told in short chapters in a mix of third person limited and first person PoV, following Laurel in the story's present, Ellie around the time of her disappearance,Ellie's kidnapper, and a lone chapter by Floyd that is the only one told in present tense. Plus an epilogue that I have no idea why it's present that reveals that if a random woman read her used book in a more timely manner could have revealed what happened to Ellie sooner. I don't know what it adds. The mystery was plenty bizarre and tragic without this revelation. Like a lot of books with similar structures, I found the PoV switches frustrating at times. At the start, there's a chapter that ends with Laurel getting a call from the police about a new break in the case, but then we get a chapter from Ellie's PoV when she meets the character we later learn is her eventual kidnapper. Then Laurel driving to the police station. More Ellie. Then finally what the cops found. Good thing the chapters are short. Another issue with the structure is that the reader gets information from other PoVs that tell the audience a lot of information about what happened to Ellie, that Laurel is not privy to. However, it didn't bring me a sense of satisfying dramatic irony so much as a desire to shake Laurel and say "confront him already."
Characters are OK. Most of Laurel's family are likable enough and don't overstay their welcome, but I'm not sure if I would have been as attached to Ellie if she wasn't so similar to me at that age. For better or worse, Lisa Jewell does not shy away from the more unpleasant side of someone coping with a parent's worst nightmare, and at times Laurel's PoV can be frustrating to read about. The worst though, is probably Floyd. Maybe it's the fact that the synopsis hints at a connection with Ellie's disappearance, but it was obvious that something was off with him. However, my big issue is that while Laurel finds him charming, I never did. He comes off as a clingy sex pest with a weirdly clingy relationship with his younger daughter, and the climax revelations make him even worse in retrospect.
This is another book club book that didn't look like what I normally read (contemporary mystery vs fantasy, sci fi, and historic fiction) but decided to read anyways. My specific thoughts when reading the synopsis was "this looks so messed up, I want to read it." It did not disappoint on that front.
The story is told in short chapters in a mix of third person limited and first person PoV, following Laurel in the story's present, Ellie around the time of her disappearance,
Characters are OK. Most of Laurel's family are likable enough and don't overstay their welcome, but I'm not sure if I would have been as attached to Ellie if she wasn't so similar to me at that age. For better or worse, Lisa Jewell does not shy away from the more unpleasant side of someone coping with a parent's worst nightmare, and at times Laurel's PoV can be frustrating to read about. The worst though, is probably Floyd. Maybe it's the fact that the synopsis hints at a connection with Ellie's disappearance, but it was obvious that something was off with him. However, my big issue is that while Laurel finds him charming, I never did. He comes off as a clingy sex pest with a weirdly clingy relationship with his younger daughter, and the climax revelations make him even worse in retrospect.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Death, Kidnapping
Moderate: Physical abuse, Sexual content, Violence, Dementia, Stalking, Murder, Pregnancy, Classism
Minor: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Car accident, Death of parent
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Predictable and terrifying in the sense that I’m sure people like Noel probably exist and that makes me see the world as a little worse than I previously did
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Death, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Torture, Kidnapping
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Rape, Sexual assault
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Content Warnings
Graphic: Confinement, Pregnancy, Gaslighting
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Death, Miscarriage, Sexual content, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Kidnapping
Minor: Suicide
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Wow. I feel like a lot of stories about “missing kids” can be very easy to predict. They tend to be written the same. I did not feel that way with this book. There are times you think you know. But you don’t. The ending was exactly what it needed to be.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Violence
Moderate: Death, Mental illness, Kidnapping, Murder
Minor: Suicide
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
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
Content Warnings
Graphic: Kidnapping
Moderate: Pregnancy
Minor: Death