A review by geraldine
Don't Forget the Girl by Rebecca McKanna

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

liked the writing style, I found it immediately gripping. really liked the focus on the two women and their friend, and the critique of the true crime genre, and appreciated how they were all complicated and messy people.

i feel like i understand the reasoning behind bree's actions, and how different forms of abuse feel so normalized that you start repeating them yourself, but i strongly disagree with the authorial choice of her keeping the baby. i understand why the character does it but i feel like it hurts bree's growth. she recognizes how she hurt zach and takes responsibility for her wrongs at the school and with him...... but lies to him and tells him it's not his baby and keeps it??? continuing to hurt him with this lie.

as though her baby will never ask about their dad or reach out or even just do a mail in DNA test when they get older and now you bring this guy back to when his teacher preyed on him when he was a teenager. i'm not even questioning her desire to be a mother (both as an aspect of her character in the book and also as an authorial choice) but why could she have not gotten an abortion and THEN gotten a sperm donor. like the pregnancy cemented that she realized she did want to be a mother for real, but she knows the circumstances are shitty exactly like the original circumstances with the detective, just swapped around. it was gross when it was her and the detective and it was just as gross when it was her and zach.


anyway. i docked a half star due to chelsea
having her final character breakthrough moment in a lutheran church. true jumpscare of the book. i put my kindle down and ran my hands down my face.
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