Reviews with content warning for Kidnapping - Then She Was Gone

Reviews tagging 'Kidnapping'

Then She Was Gone by Lisa Jewell

575 reviews

haleea's review

4.0

dark emotional sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

so good and so sad

Content Warnings

beth_s98's review

3.5

challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

jasminealizae's review against another edition

1.0

sad slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Plot was all over the place, in a bad way. Poorly thought out. 30% of the chapters could have been excluded. Do these authors get paid per page or character count? How can we switch to a POV of a character who is dead, but is being written as if she’s confessing all of her sins from the future? It was very confusing and unjustified. The ending made absolutely no sense whatsoever.

What was the reason for Floyd to have confessed his wrongdoings in a letter to Laurel, then take a train to another town just to kill hisself? Surely, he could have just killed hisself without fleeing to another town. Especially since it’s not like he committed suicide in a different city to prevent Poppy from finding out, because she ends up knowing shortly after the fact. For Noelle to have been so “obsessed” with not only Ellie, but also Floyd and wanting a child with him, it felt very forced to have her kidnap Ellie, hold her hostage, rape and impregnate her with SOMEONE ELSE’S sperm, not even Floyd’s 🤦🏽‍♀️ just to let Ellie die, and not take care of her child. Noelle was written to be this psychopath who is strange, quirky and really obsessive, but it all felt incredibly underdeveloped. As if the author did no research and thought that having Noelle do these weird/quirky things was going to be enough to get that idea across to the readers. It wasn’t. Prime example would be the hamsters.

Everything felt forced to me. The relationships, the character’s flaws, the timelines, the interactions, the abuse/neglect, literally everything. This book really solidified the fact that I hate reading books that have children in them. Poppy is nine-years-old but is written having much too mature vocabulary and conversational skills, and made entirely too aware. The backstories were extremely flat as were the characters. The connection between SJ and Laurel was for what purpose?

Other than for SJ to be the one to “egg” Laurel on to continue looking into the disappearance of Noelle by telling Laurel she saw Noelle’s stomach completely flat when Noelle was allegedly very pregnant. Poppy’s “cousins” and “grandma” storyline’s were unnecessary. The last nail in the coffin for me to officially “one star” this book was Hannah and Theo. Why make Hannah and Theo (Ellie’s boyfriend) become a couple and get married? As if the whole situation isn’t strange enough. Having Ellie get kidnapped, raped and impregnated by Noelle her math tutor, Noelle do all of these terrible things to Ellie just to secure her relationship with Floyd. Floyd date Ellie’s mother Laurel, while also raising Ellie’s daughter as his own despite knowing it’s not his child and how she was conceived. Then just when you think this is complicated enough, why not have the boy Ellie was dating when she died get married to her sister. What?!

Content Warnings

ogokoo's review against another edition

3.5

dark emotional sad slow-paced

Well written, but left me with many things to be unhappy about. I'm not sure what this book was trying to be.

A story about carrying grief and managing to find light in life? A thriller and mystery? A study of sociopathic characters and family dynamics? The structure of the book was odd to me. If the point was to see a mother coping with grief and mending the relationships in her life despite terrible things happening to her, then having all those chapters spelling out the horror of Ellie's captivity really threw a wrench in that. I also didn't like how we were given glimpses at the way Ellie's father and siblings were dealing with her disappearance throughout the book, but then after the final reveal we didn't get their POV. We just got Laurel's. And don't get me started on the implausibility of Ellie's captivity. How did she not try to escape more? Or hurt Noelle? The hamster cages, the locks, anything, try anything! The chapter where Ellie died was just....so tragic and disturbing and unnecessary.

Content Warnings

noelle1121005's review

5.0

dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Content Warnings

jesscoast's review

2.75

dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Underwhelming story with few developed characters. Instead of setting out clues for the reader to piece together, the story unravels in a mix of disembodied confessions that take a wild stretch of the imagination to believe. The plot didn’t quite go the diabolical direction I was expecting, instead it wrapped up rather neatly. Jewel places so much faith in tropes and stereotypes to do her storytelling for her.

Blue’s character really bothered me, Laurel was awful, and in the end Floyd wasn’t half as evil as I was expecting.

. Overall the dynamics felt forced and didn’t land for me.

Content Warnings

middleagedbookworm's review

4.25

dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Great on audiobook. I recommend speeding it up to at least 1.25x, because the narrator speaks veeeerryyyyy slow. Other than that, the narration is amazing.

I got very frustrated with Laurel a few times. I realized while reading this book, that I do not care for naive women (or men for that matter) in a story. I wanted to grab her by the shoulders, shake her, and ask her “what are you thinking?! Are you really that stupid?!”, a few times. Maybe I am being too harsh though… I tend to assume the worse about a person, where most people assume the best, I think 🤷🏼‍♀️

Anyways, overall, a great mystery thriller, and I would recommend. Even made me get teary eyed at the end… which is saying a lot, for quality of storytelling.

Content Warnings

chaptersofchase's review

5.0

dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Then She Was Gone 🍃

Genre: Mystery
Trope: Missing Child
Format: 🎧
Pub Date: 4.17.2018
Star Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆

"If she could rewind the timeline, untwist it and roll it back the other way like a ball of wool, she'd see the knots in the yarn, the warning signs. Looking at it backward, it was obvious all along."

Then She Was Gone was raw, emotional, and unsettling storytelling at its finest, and I believe this may be my favorite from Lisa Jewell. It's been a few weeks since I finished reading this one, and I still think about the story; it has stuck with me more than I anticipated.

When I finished the last page, I had to sit there for a moment and think about what I'd read and how utterly heartbreaking it all was. I felt like I had the whole story figured out and knew the direction LJ was leading me, but I was so very wrong.

It's hard for me to describe my feelings without giving everything away, but I'll leave you with this — one character in this book deserved so much more from their precious life.

😔 A story that will stick with you long after you're finished
😰 Raw and unsettling
👥 Multiple perspectives
😬 Edge of your seat reading
✨ New favorite from Lisa Jewell

❌- there is some reasonably disturbing content in this book. If you have questions, please DM me.

Read Then She Was Gone if you enjoyed reading Verity from Colleen Hoover or Jar of Hearts by Jennifer Hillier.

______
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Content Warnings

haleygweaver's review

3.0

dark sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Content Warnings

buckydotson's review against another edition

2.5

mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

This was okay. I figured out the big reveal of this book like 3 hours into the 10 hour book. Yes, I was interested to see how we got there, but it felt predictable. I think it's an interesting concept to focus on the family after a tragic event, but I just found myself frustrated with Laurel. I feel like this book could have been successful by evaluating these relationships without having to

cause another traumatic event in this woman's life

. This was not for me but that's okay.

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