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A review by hywar
Three Days Missing by Kimberly Belle
3.0
This book was okay, and if you're looking for a quick little mystery to read it could be an excellent pick.
Kat has custody of her son, Ethan, after getting a separation from her abusive husband, Andrew. The separation is not going well, with Andrew spoiling Ethan constantly in an attempt to get his love and prove that Kat is an unfit parent, and with Kat struggling to co-parent when she has a restraining order against the father of her child.
Ethan broke my heart - he's an eight-year-old little boy with absolutely no friends at all. He doesn't bring friends home, he doesn't go to friends' houses, and he is bullied throughout his time at the rich-kids school his father insists he attends. This all makes for him to be rather nervous (but still excited!) to go on the annual camping trip with his classmates.
This is where the story kicks off. After sending her son onto the bus to go camping, Kat wakes to police pounding on her door and dozens of missed calls. Her son has somehow gone missing on the trip, vanishing in the middle of the night, and no one saw him disappear. Kat knows the longer her son is missing, the less likely he is to arrive home safe, and must contend with the knowledge that either his chances for safety are consistently dwindling, or her ex has done the unthinkable and kidnapped their child.
The story is told through alternating points of view, with some chapters dedicated to Kat and some dedicated to Stef. Stef is the wife of the mayor, Sam, who is currently up for reelection and really does not want an unsolved child abduction case hurting his chances. Stef and Sam are also parents to Sammy, a classmate of Ethan's who has been known to bully him. I didn't really care about Stef's chapters and normally found myself skimming through them as quickly as possible to get back to Kat.
I felt like I connected well with Kat and really did feel bad for her throughout the story. I had a vague idea of what was happening, but didn't guess the actual ending of the book - mostly because I don't think the author gave enough detail to get me to make those leaps and connections. I didn't really like the characters of Stef or Sammy. Stef especially seemed to change depending on the chapter, and she never really had a personality of her own other than what the author needed her to be at that moment. Sammy also just wasn't well developed.
None of that is why this book got three stars though. Those stars were lost because of how absolutely ridiculous the author made the character of Ethan to be. I felt so bad for him! Poor boy, no friends, forced to go to a school that I'm not sure he would have wanted to go to! So I'm not sure why the author felt the need to say he also had an IQ of 158 and is just an absolute genius. This wouldn't have been the worst thing, but apparently Ethan is also a prick about his intelligence, too.. I feel like there was stuff going on behind the scenes between Ethan and Sammy that we didn't know about, because Ethan was definitely not a sweet, innocent kid in this story.
The ending was also rather bonkers. Like, it almost made sense...and then the author felt the need to again flaunt that Ethan is crazy intelligent and had him do something crazy like.
It's a good book for a quick read, if you can suspend your disbelief and don't mind kind of hating on a child.
Kat has custody of her son, Ethan, after getting a separation from her abusive husband, Andrew. The separation is not going well, with Andrew spoiling Ethan constantly in an attempt to get his love and prove that Kat is an unfit parent, and with Kat struggling to co-parent when she has a restraining order against the father of her child.
Ethan broke my heart - he's an eight-year-old little boy with absolutely no friends at all. He doesn't bring friends home, he doesn't go to friends' houses, and he is bullied throughout his time at the rich-kids school his father insists he attends. This all makes for him to be rather nervous (but still excited!) to go on the annual camping trip with his classmates.
This is where the story kicks off. After sending her son onto the bus to go camping, Kat wakes to police pounding on her door and dozens of missed calls. Her son has somehow gone missing on the trip, vanishing in the middle of the night, and no one saw him disappear. Kat knows the longer her son is missing, the less likely he is to arrive home safe, and must contend with the knowledge that either his chances for safety are consistently dwindling, or her ex has done the unthinkable and kidnapped their child.
The story is told through alternating points of view, with some chapters dedicated to Kat and some dedicated to Stef. Stef is the wife of the mayor, Sam, who is currently up for reelection and really does not want an unsolved child abduction case hurting his chances. Stef and Sam are also parents to Sammy, a classmate of Ethan's who has been known to bully him. I didn't really care about Stef's chapters and normally found myself skimming through them as quickly as possible to get back to Kat.
I felt like I connected well with Kat and really did feel bad for her throughout the story. I had a vague idea of what was happening, but didn't guess the actual ending of the book - mostly because I don't think the author gave enough detail to get me to make those leaps and connections. I didn't really like the characters of Stef or Sammy. Stef especially seemed to change depending on the chapter, and she never really had a personality of her own other than what the author needed her to be at that moment. Sammy also just wasn't well developed.
None of that is why this book got three stars though. Those stars were lost because of how absolutely ridiculous the author made the character of Ethan to be. I felt so bad for him! Poor boy, no friends, forced to go to a school that I'm not sure he would have wanted to go to! So I'm not sure why the author felt the need to say he also had an IQ of 158 and is just an absolute genius. This wouldn't have been the worst thing, but apparently Ethan is also a prick about his intelligence, too.
Spoiler
At least, I can't imagine another reason why a kid would use their IQ as a gamertag.The ending was also rather bonkers. Like, it almost made sense...and then the author felt the need to again flaunt that Ethan is crazy intelligent and had him do something crazy like
Spoiler
somehow manage to macgyver internet access to a house in the middle of nowhere using the random resources he had on hand, and without getting caught by the kidnapper or their dog, and then...used that internet access to play on the Xbox and send some messages to people. What??It's a good book for a quick read, if you can suspend your disbelief and don't mind kind of hating on a child.