This is a difficult book to review. I gave it 4 stars as it kept me up, listening, until 5 am. Then I had to take a break to sleep but immediately picked it back up to finish. I had to know about the children. This sounds like an easy peasy 5 star, right? No. Wrong.
The story does ensnare you in its trap. I didn't find myself really liking nearly everyone, including most of the children. Some parts were difficult to read/hear. Some parts didn't make a lot of sense, (behaviors of some adults and even the children). At one point I rooted for the kidnappers! (I can handle whiny kids but at this particular point, I felt it would have been justified. If you choose to read this book, you will immediately recognize that point). It left a bad taste in my mouth after the ending settled and I sat down to write this.
Would I recommend this book? Yes, but to carefully selected individuals. It is a gripping story. It is interesting. It is one where you could find plenty to discuss. But it is not for everyone. I suspect this book might end up being placed on a lot of DNF shelves.
There is a rape scene, involving one of the older children. It was very difficult to get through. If you want to read the book but not this part, when two of the kidnappers are drinking and playing cards, jump a few pages or fast forward a couple minutes. This book is definitely intended for a mature audience. ( )

Finished in one day, couldn't put it down! Thankfully it was my day off :) ( )

I received this book free from the publisher via netgalley.com in exchange for an honest review.

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Unfortunately I had to DNF this novel. While the concept is interesting I couldn't relate to any of the characters which completely lost me. ( )

This was a fast read which I was excited to get into--unfortunately, I'm afraid my praise stops there, and I don't see myself picking up another one of Meloy's works.

There are a lot of issues with this novel, although I thought the concept was great. The first big issue is the characters--aside from being privileged and selfish (especially the adults), it's almost as if they've been created with the intention of making them as unlikeable and similar as possible. Aside from having different distractions, they talk/sound/think in the same way, which makes reading their perspectives and worries all the more tedious. The children, similarly, all pretty much sound the same, to the extent that I think Meloy would have been better off if she'd just focused on giving us a few perspectives rather than so many, as the sheer number of voices only make it all the more obvious that all of these characters are basically the same person cast in slightly different situations. The children are also, for the most part, pretty unbelievable, although there are moments that shine through as being something only a child would do/think. Unfortunately, those moments are rare, and although the children are more sympathetic than the adults, that's not saying much.

Besides taking some unbelievable turns, the big problem with the plot is how predictable it is. Simply, I thought there'd be more to it, and there wasn't. In fact, everything played out exactly as I would have expected it to, as of a few chapters into the book, so while an engaging, surprising plot might have overcome the flaws instigated by unlikeable, unsympathetic, self-involved, and spoiled characters, we just didn't have that.

It's possible that part of the point of this book is to put forward a privileged bunch of characters who get in the way of their own survival and happiness, and I suppose the author succeeded if that's the case, but I simply didn't enjoy this book, and as fast a read as it was, I'm afraid I can't really imagine recommending it to anyone. The primary emotion it drew from me was annoyance with the characters, and that's never a good thing to have to report. ( )

Kind of a weak effort for Maile Meloy, whose Apothecary series is much better. Two families go on a cruise, and while the husbands are off playing golf, the wives' and childrens' excursion goes horribly wrong when there is a car accident, followed by a kidnapping. Kind of predictable, and it was hard to feel sympathy for the privileged Americans and Argentinians, even at the hands of the ruthless criminals. Maybe 2.5 stars... ( )