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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
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
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Without giving too much away, some women will do anything to keep a man but find one who actually likes them. 🤦🏽♀️
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Kidnapping, Grief, Murder, Pregnancy, Gaslighting
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
A book club selection, not one I would've picked up independently. It goes quickly, perhaps 3-4 sittings. Things move along slowly as you're introduced to a family deep in grief, a mother who lost her favorite child, and well, she finally meets a nice man.
Of course there's links to her lost Ellie, glorified in her absence, practically ignoring the existence of her other children. Laurel is living in a fog and only beginning to come out of it with Floyd, a mathematics professor & writer. He has 2 daughters, one is struggling through young adulthood and the other is a precocious/obnoxious/creepily intelligent child who LOOKS JUST LIKE ELLIE---I'm sorry but how is that not grounds enough to be like, "sorry I'm gunna head out byyyye." There are so many moments of eerie overlapping memories, vague at times but they become more poignant and stark. Like girl why are you shrugging this off?
Finding out what happened to Ellie is fucked up. I have no other description. I actually had the thought of it simmering in the back of my mind as things unfurled & hoped to God I was wrong...but I wasn't. Sad as heck. I also wondered aloud about why I'm considered weird for preferring fantasy novels when people like books like this. Where captivity is suffocating. Where some deranged person destroys a whole family's life (even if it sounds like Laurel was deep in resentment towards her bore of a husband before Ellie disappeared). But okay, here we are. The end is sad, there's closure but it's ultimately a tragedy.
Of course there's links to her lost Ellie, glorified in her absence, practically ignoring the existence of her other children. Laurel is living in a fog and only beginning to come out of it with Floyd, a mathematics professor & writer. He has 2 daughters, one is struggling through young adulthood and the other is a precocious/obnoxious/creepily intelligent child who LOOKS JUST LIKE ELLIE---I'm sorry but how is that not grounds enough to be like, "sorry I'm gunna head out byyyye." There are so many moments of eerie overlapping memories, vague at times but they become more poignant and stark. Like girl why are you shrugging this off?
Finding out what happened to Ellie is fucked up. I have no other description. I actually had the thought of it simmering in the back of my mind as things unfurled & hoped to God I was wrong...but I wasn't. Sad as heck. I also wondered aloud about why I'm considered weird for preferring fantasy novels when people like books like this. Where captivity is suffocating. Where some deranged person destroys a whole family's life (even if it sounds like Laurel was deep in resentment towards her bore of a husband before Ellie disappeared). But okay, here we are. The end is sad, there's closure but it's ultimately a tragedy.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Confinement, Kidnapping
Moderate: Death, Suicide, Toxic relationship
Minor: Miscarriage
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-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:
No
This was so fucked up. Heartbreaking and devastating don't cover it. Absolutely loved it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Miscarriage, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Kidnapping, Grief, Stalking, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Abandonment
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Gun violence, Infertility, Infidelity, Panic attacks/disorders, Rape, Sexual content, Terminal illness, Torture, Medical content, Medical trauma, Murder, Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Cancer, Eating disorder, Fatphobia, Vomit, Alcohol, Classism
dark
sad
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Gun violence, Infertility, Miscarriage, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Kidnapping, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Abandonment
dark
sad
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Infertility, Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Toxic relationship, Kidnapping, Grief, Stalking, Murder, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, Sexual harassment
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Death
Moderate: Grief, Pregnancy
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Suicide, Kidnapping, Grief