This one dragged! I didn't enjoy reading this and had to force myself to pick it up at times. It's the story of Maddie, whose best friend Nora went missing when they were 17, and 10 years later she's not over it. Another girl is killed and Maddie decides to find out who is responsible.
I spent most of the book rolling my eyes and disliking the main character, who acts like the disappearance of her best friend at 17 is far more important and life changing to her than to anyone else. She gets angry with the missing girls brother because he's being short tempered with her ON THE 10 YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF HIS SISTER'S DISAPPEARANCE. A short while later she's talking - well, interior monologing, which she does a lot - about relationship issues when the boys sister was killed the previous day. "Your sister might have been murdered, but what about us!!! " (not an actual quote, but its how i felt). She is deep and fragile and special and nobody else has had it so bad. Ugh. I know people like this in real life who beleive their life trauma and inability to cope with it makes them unique and tragic when, in fact, it makes them identical to most people around them. She speaks about how she's often depressed in regular flashbacks, but it didnt feel real to me, more like someone wallowing in her special unhappiness. Anyway!
Main character aside, there weren't that many characters and it was easy enough to keep track, although I didn't find them that personable. They mostly struck me as the Tortured love interest, perky journalist friend, stoic young cop, etc, though I quite liked the mostly underused male FBI agent. Didn't really understand why he kept going for a drink with the main character, though. The plot was fine, not the most exciting for most of it as it follows Maddie whole she goes around interfering in police business and asking about irrelevant things, but the ending was alright, even though it wasn't the surprise Maddie seemed to find. By age 27 I had long moved on /grown out of my best friend at 17 and reading this at 42 I just found it a bit silly, I suppose. Still perhaps someone younger and less jaded than myself would feel differently!
I am grateful to Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this book. ( )

This one dragged! I didn't enjoy reading this and had to force myself to pick it up at times. It's the story of Maddie, whose best friend Nora went missing when they were 17, and 10 years later she's not over it. Another girl is killed and Maddie decides to find out who is responsible.
I spent most of the book rolling my eyes and disliking the main character, who acts like the disappearance of her best friend at 17 is far more important and life changing to her than to anyone else. She gets angry with the missing girls brother because he's being short tempered with her ON THE 10 YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF HIS SISTER'S DISAPPEARANCE. A short while later she's talking - well, interior monologing, which she does a lot - about relationship issues when the boys sister was killed the previous day. "Your sister might have been murdered, but what about us!!! " (not an actual quote, but its how i felt). She is deep and fragile and special and nobody else has had it so bad. Ugh. I know people like this in real life who beleive their life trauma and inability to cope with it makes them unique and tragic when, in fact, it makes them identical to most people around them. She speaks about how she's often depressed in regular flashbacks, but it didnt feel real to me, more like someone wallowing in her special unhappiness. Anyway!
Main character aside, there weren't that many characters and it was easy enough to keep track, although I didn't find them that personable. They mostly struck me as the Tortured love interest, perky journalist friend, stoic young cop, etc, though I quite liked the mostly underused male FBI agent. Didn't really understand why he kept going for a drink with the main character, though. The plot was fine, not the most exciting for most of it as it follows Maddie whole she goes around interfering in police business and asking about irrelevant things, but the ending was alright, even though it wasn't the surprise Maddie seemed to find. By age 27 I had long moved on /grown out of my best friend at 17 and reading this at 42 I just found it a bit silly, I suppose. Still perhaps someone younger and less jaded than myself would feel differently!
I am grateful to Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this book. ( )

Enjoyed the book. From the moment I started reading it, I was hooked and I needed to know what happened to Nora. She completely disappeared and no clues were left. I suspected who was behind everything after the information Maddie found was never relayed.

Maddie's best friend Nora disappeared ten years ago. Maddie has been stuck in that moment. She suffers from depression and at times it's crippling for her. Maddie relied on Nate, Nora's brother, as her safety blanket but now their relationship is complicated and they don't talk. It's Nora's ten year memorial and friends and family have gathered for it. Unfortunately, tragedy strikes the family again. Nora's younger sister, Noelle, is found dead. Noelle was killed exactly ten years after her sister disappeared and in the exact same place where Nora's abandoned car was found. Maddie is convinced Nora's disappearance and Noelle's death are connected. She makes it her mission to find out what happened to both of them.

Loved the story, characters and writing style. I kept switching who I thought was involved with Nora's disappearance. I figured one of her friends had to know something and were lying. The book was full of twists. I honestly thought Nate hated Maddie with the way he treated her. Maddie's family acted like she was going to fall apart at any moment. She was almost thirty but they acted like she was a child. Maddie definitely needed to find out what happened to Nora.

Definitely recommend the book. It was a great mystery and kept me interested from start to end. I look forward to reading more books by the author.

Thanks to NetGalley, Harper Impulse and Killer Reads and the author, A.M. Taylor, for a free electronic ARC of this novel. ( )