Scan barcode
A review by katiebtatton
Last Seen Leaving by Kelly Braffet
3.0
Huh. I read this book on a recommendation from Elizabeth, and I'm not sure what I think of it. Last Seen Leaving is the story of an estranged mother and her daughter who has come up missing. The mother treks across the country to do her own investigation while the daughter drifts away from her former lives once again. The reader is aware the entire time that the daughter is alive, but the mother is not. Enter George, who either is genuinely philanthropic towards the deadended Miranda or really creepy. Could he be the killer plauging the beach? The writing was well done---the narrative is in the past tense while the flashbacks are present tense and is an interesting and easy way for the reader to distinguish the two. The heartbreak of Anne (the mother) is palpable, and the lines of two lives lived separately are drawn back to the disappearance of Anne's husband and Miranda's father Nick.
I don't know how I feel about the book. It postulates that all the heartbreak and estrangement stemmed from Anne's reaction to the news of Nick's death. Perhaps my life would be completely different had my mother reacted to the death of my father in the same way, but I refuse to believe that any one event has that much power over our lives.
I don't know how I feel about the book. It postulates that all the heartbreak and estrangement stemmed from Anne's reaction to the news of Nick's death. Perhaps my life would be completely different had my mother reacted to the death of my father in the same way, but I refuse to believe that any one event has that much power over our lives.