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lajaat 's review for:
If I Disappear
by Eliza Jane Brazier
Sera is a superfan of the podcast, Murder She Spoke. When the host of the podcast, Rachel, stops recording and updating her social media, Sera is determined to make sure that Rachel does not become one of the missing women she has devoted so much of her podcast work to.
Sera goes to Rachel’s childhood home in Happy Camp, California, and begins to investigate everyone in Rachel’s life. For Sera, the mystery only grows even more complicated, as she must determine if Rachel is in danger and by extension, she is.
It took two tries to read this, as I started this book earlier in the pandemic and I think the story of a woman isolated in one place was not a book I wanted to read. I think the key to my embracing and finishing this book was that I had to stop thinking of it like a murder podcast hybrid thriller, like Sera was just going to run into a place of gasps and dark corners. It is a much more measured pace then that.
The characters and the place are so well-described that you are continuously confronted with discomfort for the situation just as you are reminded of the natural beauty of the place.
If I Disappear is also about obsession/devotion, and how spending an hour a week listening to someone, it is easy for the line between listener and friend in your head to get blurred. In recent years, a lot of true crime podcasts with female hosts have sprung up, and as a listener it can feel conversational but unlike Sera, listeners remember that it is only a segment of that hosts’ life. They are still strangers, and Sera is continuously reminded of this as she gets deeper into Rachel’s life.
Naturally, there is a twisty dark ending, but I think I respect the book more for giving me the ending I did not expect, even if I was not happy with it. Overall, I really enjoyed this book!
Thanks to Berkley and NetGalley for the ARC!
Sera goes to Rachel’s childhood home in Happy Camp, California, and begins to investigate everyone in Rachel’s life. For Sera, the mystery only grows even more complicated, as she must determine if Rachel is in danger and by extension, she is.
It took two tries to read this, as I started this book earlier in the pandemic and I think the story of a woman isolated in one place was not a book I wanted to read. I think the key to my embracing and finishing this book was that I had to stop thinking of it like a murder podcast hybrid thriller, like Sera was just going to run into a place of gasps and dark corners. It is a much more measured pace then that.
The characters and the place are so well-described that you are continuously confronted with discomfort for the situation just as you are reminded of the natural beauty of the place.
If I Disappear is also about obsession/devotion, and how spending an hour a week listening to someone, it is easy for the line between listener and friend in your head to get blurred. In recent years, a lot of true crime podcasts with female hosts have sprung up, and as a listener it can feel conversational but unlike Sera, listeners remember that it is only a segment of that hosts’ life. They are still strangers, and Sera is continuously reminded of this as she gets deeper into Rachel’s life.
Naturally, there is a twisty dark ending, but I think I respect the book more for giving me the ending I did not expect, even if I was not happy with it. Overall, I really enjoyed this book!
Thanks to Berkley and NetGalley for the ARC!