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A review by nzlisam
Three Days Missing by Kimberly Belle
4.0
3.5 stars rounded up.
A unique title, but does it give too much away? I’m leaning towards the former, mainly because I’m getting a bit tired of all the books with ‘girl’ and ‘wife’ and ‘liar’ in the title, even if it does make it easier to identify my genre.
The author did a wonderful job of writing a mother and son that you really cared about. Ethan was a gifted, sweet, lovable child, whose safe return you were praying for. Kat’s terror, grief, loneliness, and guilt definitely came across. This passage in particular really resonated with me;
‘I see myself standing on the sidewalk, waving up at the dark smudges behind the bus’s tinted glass. I couldn’t even tell if he was waving back, or for that matter, if it was even Ethan. I just picked out one shadowy lump and waved and waved and waved, because the sooner that bus left, the sooner I could race off to work.
The last time I saw Ethan, I didn’t see him at all.’
The scenes at the camp were my most favourite. Kimberly Belle put a lot of thought into how a police investigation might play out in this situation, and it really showed. The questions the sheriff asked Kat were ones I’d never considered before, such as whether or not Ethan could swim, and if he had a history of sleepwalking.
After the halfway point things unfortunately started to take a downhill slide. Several chapters were pretty much filler, and did little to advance the plot, and Kat spent a lot of time running around like a headless chicken, covering the same ground that had already been covered. The police investigation also took a backseat, which I really missed.
There was an inventive twist involving modern technology , very relevant to kids today, that I’ve never seen done before in missing children fiction, so kudos to Belle for her originality. The end reveal was fairly standard though, but the last chapter did impress me. A tamer read than a lot of mysteries, due to its low level violence, and a solid choice for your next summer read.
A unique title, but does it give too much away? I’m leaning towards the former, mainly because I’m getting a bit tired of all the books with ‘girl’ and ‘wife’ and ‘liar’ in the title, even if it does make it easier to identify my genre.
The author did a wonderful job of writing a mother and son that you really cared about. Ethan was a gifted, sweet, lovable child, whose safe return you were praying for. Kat’s terror, grief, loneliness, and guilt definitely came across. This passage in particular really resonated with me;
‘I see myself standing on the sidewalk, waving up at the dark smudges behind the bus’s tinted glass. I couldn’t even tell if he was waving back, or for that matter, if it was even Ethan. I just picked out one shadowy lump and waved and waved and waved, because the sooner that bus left, the sooner I could race off to work.
The last time I saw Ethan, I didn’t see him at all.’
The scenes at the camp were my most favourite. Kimberly Belle put a lot of thought into how a police investigation might play out in this situation, and it really showed. The questions the sheriff asked Kat were ones I’d never considered before, such as whether or not Ethan could swim, and if he had a history of sleepwalking.
After the halfway point things unfortunately started to take a downhill slide. Several chapters were pretty much filler, and did little to advance the plot, and Kat spent a lot of time running around like a headless chicken, covering the same ground that had already been covered. The police investigation also took a backseat, which I really missed.
There was an inventive twist involving modern technology , very relevant to kids today, that I’ve never seen done before in missing children fiction, so kudos to Belle for her originality. The end reveal was fairly standard though, but the last chapter did impress me. A tamer read than a lot of mysteries, due to its low level violence, and a solid choice for your next summer read.