The premise of this sounded so interesting, but then the book itself fell kind of flat for me. For starters, what really drew me in was the fact that this was set after the kidnapping. The cover literally says "The real nightmare starts when her daughter is returned." But that's like, halfway through the book. A lot of the book is just about the daughter being missing. It made me feel like I was a little bit lied to by the synopsis, but also for that first half of the book, I was mostly just waiting for the "real" story to begin. The synopsis promised that her daughter would be returned, so I didn't feel a whole lot of stress when she was missing.

Another thing I didn't enjoy was how obvious the book was. When I don't like a thriller, a lot of what keeps me going is guessing at all the little intricacies of the story. You might guess the major plot twists, but unless I already know the entire ending, I'm still invested enough to keep going. I didn't even have that in this book. Because there are so few characters, it's really obvious who the kidnapper is from the beginning. And it's really obvious what their motivations are. Everything else that happens falls in line with that, so I felt more tired than compelled to finish.

But for me the biggest issue was just the way the plot unfolded. I found it so cringe, almost akin to secondhand embarrassment. I don't think this is so much a critique of the author as just a personal thing I have because I literally can't handle secondhand embarrassment. I will straight turn off a tv show I like and walk out because I just can't. This wasn't exactly the same thing, but it had the same feeling for me. As a reader, I knew what was happening and why. I could see it unfolding and I could see the main character walking into the trap time and time again, and it kind of made my skin crawl in that secondhand embarrassment type way. You could even see her realizing it and still behaving in that way. I had to put the book down a few times to get through that, but again, I don't think that's an inherently bad thing, just a personal issue.

I don't think this was a bad book, and definitely one of those thrillers that seemed well written and decently constructed that I can understand why someone would enjoy it. But it wasn't a book for me at all. If it does sound interesting, I'd caution that a lot of it takes place during the kidnapping itself, but if you don't mind that, maybe give it a go.