Since She’s Been Gone is a nuanced dual-timeline psychological thriller, with a vulnerable look at addiction and recovery.

We follow Beans (Beatrice), a clinical psychologist who lost her mom as a teenager and recently lost her dad as well. She’s finally in a good place. After recovering from a severe eating disorder and a complicated first marriage, she’s in a happy relationship and has a stable job. But her world is turned upside down when a mysterious patient barges into her office claiming that Beans’ mom is alive … and that she needs her help.

As Beans investigates, she quickly gets wrapped up in a powerful & notorious family, one that runs an opioid drug company and seems to have eyes everywhere. She uncovers her mother’s complicated past as she ponders her own, and she has to forge her way forward without relapsing once more. 

It is partly a psychological thriller, but it more strongly leans into themes of family, resilience, and sacrifice. Beans is contemplating her relationship with her mother as she is getting ready to become a mother herself (to the 7-year-old daughter of her boyfriend). She’s grappling with passed down trauma and perhaps genetic predispositions to addiction, and parental love & sacrifice. Since She’s Been Gone asks: how well do you really know your parents? 

Beans is a very reliable narrator, which is kind of refreshing. She honestly & openly has to learn to love & fight for herself. There were very in depth details about Beans’ eating disorder, her treatment, her recovery, and her relapses. Please go into this book with care, as this can be upsetting and challenging to read.

The plot is split pretty evenly between the past and the present, and the present involves opioid addictions and some very convenient mystery solving. Beans is maybe a little too adept at getting people to talk and information falls into her hands so very simply. It’s definitely unrealistic.

And then this is paired with the eating disorder sections - which were deeply detailed and very realistic - which made for a bit of whiplash, even though they are clearly connected. The overwhelming clinical bits of info around opioid addiction and eating disorders sometimes stalled the plot as well.

On a separate note, if you’re interested in the topic of opioid abuse and powerful families profiting off of it, check out the nonfiction book Empire of Pain, which documents the Sackler family (who are definitely the inspiration for the fictional family in this novel).

There were some beautiful arcs by the end – I teared up more than once. There are some open threads that I had questions about, but overall it finished on a hopeful note.

I think this was a very powerful read, and though it had some debut stumbles, I would definitely recommend it.

CW: parent/child death, addiction, drug use, eating disorder, forced institutionalization, miscarriage, gaslighting, kidnapping, murder, car accident, cancer, exercise compulsion, grief, body shaming, fatphobia, mental illness, self harm, fatphobia

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(I received an advance reader copy of this book; this is my honest review.)