After a full year of only rating books 2-4 stars, I had a 5 star and a 1 star back to back. Reading at extremes is what I do best, apparently. I do mention that upfront because perhaps my opinion on this book is ever so slightly skewed by the fact that I just read The Project by Courtney Summers and it's literally the best book I've read since 2019. Perhaps I would have been a bit more inclined to give this book some sort of benefit of the doubt if it had followed something mediocre. I try not to give one stars unless it really makes me cringe. But uh this really made me cringe.

Annie was kidnapped and held over a year. As far as that kind of story goes, this plot line was pretty basic. It's told in dual timelines, first in the present post kidnapping while she's in therapy trying to deal with her trauma. And second in the past, starting right before the kidnapping and basically at some point they kind of meet up and it feels a bit jumbled toward the end, but whatever.

My biggest problem with this book was the present bits. It's literally told through a monologue with her therapist. Like Annie is addressing her therapist directly. ("You know, Doc, you're not the first shrink I've seen since I got back." -first line of the book) It's like those really cringey introductions where the main character is like "hi nice to meet you I'm so and so, I look like this, and here's my story," only every single chapter of this book started and ended with this monologue. No description, no response from the therapist. Nothing but Annie speaking. And it didn't sound real either. People don't speak like that. I mean people in general don't just monologue for five straight pages with literally no input from the other party, but it sounded like the fakest thing I've maybe ever read. I hated those sections. I hate books written like that. The rest of this book could have been amazing, and I still don't think I could have given it more than two stars just for how much I suffered every time she felt the need to talk to her therapist about what kind of tea she brought her for the session or how she looked like a sexy grandma.

But that wasn't the only problem. Alas. Beyond that my next struggle was the disconnect I felt. The way I felt reading this book is the way I feel when someone tells me a story about a friend of a friend. It doesn't matter what the story is. I'm inherently bored because I don't know those people. I don't usually feel that way when reading books because through the story, you do know the characters and you do care. The caring is my favorite part of reading. I want so badly to care immensely about every aspect of the world. But I cared about basically nothing in this book. I guess there was kind of a mystery of if anyone else was involved in the kidnapping, but I didn't realize that was actually an important element until like two thirds of the way through. I felt like I was waiting for something that was never coming.

The only character with any personality in this book was Annie, and that was almost unfortunate just because of how annoying she was. Not unlikeable, I feel it's important to specify. There are plenty of characters who are unlikeable yet compelling. Annie was just annoying. Insufferably so. She was honestly pretty likeable in every way and seemed like a pretty decent and caring individual despite her trauma, but my god every second she was speaking I considered putting the book down. I could not stand her voice. Nothing she said or did felt like it had real motivation behind it. She'd cry hard about a specific trauma that occurred while she was in captivity, and then two pages later it would be like it never happened. Not that she stopped talking about it, but that it only informed on her actions when she was literally talking about it. Nothing felt like it had staying power, which was hard since this whole book was about her deeply traumatic experience. She'd talk about sleeping in the closet because she was afraid, but it felt like going through the motions of "here's a behavior a traumatized character might have" rather than something that actually made sense for Annie specifically.

The other characters were basically black holes. She had an annoying mother, and a former boyfriend who seemed kind of lovely, and a best friend who I think was supposed to be the most meaningful connection in her life but said things like comparing her to her rapist for wanting to go to art school or accusing her of running away. My personal favorite was when she complained that it had happened to all of them, not just Annie, so Annie needed to be a little more aware of that. Which sure, I understand the intention there, but oh boy that did not come across how the author wanted it to at all. None of them had actually personalities. They were just voids where personalities should have been.

Nothing about the plot really made sense. Annie gets kidnapped immediately. Like within twenty pages, she's met the therapist, introduced all the side characters, been kidnapped, and is starting to learn to survive with her kidnapper. Literally in the first twenty pages. It was a lot and it kind of just threw it at your face, and then the whole rest of the book went like that. It needed to slow down, first of all, but also it didn't really seem like it had a point. Most of the first half was just Annie complaining to her therapist and Annie being abused by her kidnapper. It took until right near the end for me to realize there was going to be a massive plot twist and the book had (apparently) been leading up to that. It felt very slapped on. It didn't work and it wasn't developed, but without the plot twist there was nothing to this book. So it was simultaneously the best and worst thing.

Technically a spoiler because it's the last sentence, but personally I don't think it was really important to the overall story so read at your own risk:

Spoiler

So throughout the book, Annie talks about her daughter. She was impregnated in captivity and the baby died, and she's obviously grief stricken over it. But we never learn the daughter's name. I suppose it was meant to be a big deal, but to be perfectly honest, I never thought about it because I didn't particularly care. But the final sentence she's having a moment with her friend and she finally says she named her daughter Hope. I'm pretty sure I cried. From laughter. Like it's a very sad moment, it's sad her daughter died, but she named her Hope. So that means when her daughter died, her hope literally died. Literally. I just can't. That's one of those things that's too on nose. And maybe I could have gotten past it, except that's what the book ended on and I couldn't. I cackled and that was not the appropriate reaction.

There's more I could say, but I'm at the point of why bother. I wouldn't recommend this. Like read it if you want, I'd never want to talk someone out of a book that sounds good to them because we've all got different tastes, but I really cannot think of one single positive thing to say about this book. I can't fathom why someone might enjoy, although more power to you if you do. I got nothing out of it and will be quite pleased to get it off my shelf.

I also read Those Girls by Chevy Stevens and didn't like that either. It was a few years back so I don't remember anything about it, but I think after two attempts I will not be picking up anymore of her books.