I read Lisa Gardner's new releases every year now and it's always a source of excitement for me. To be honest, she tends to be a fairly middling author. I give her a lot of three stars, with occasional books falling on either side. But her writing style is so easy and compelling that I never want to put her books down and I'm engrossed all the way through.

This book was actually a bit different than her others. Instead of being centered around an investigation, the main character joins a search party looking for the body of a hiker who went missing five years before and is now presumed dead. This book almost feels more horror-esque in the sense that a big bad is watching them from afar and picking them off one by one. It's creepy and thrilling and a really interesting story, but not her usual police (or police adjacent) investigation. And it wasn't really to my taste.

I think for that reason I found it a bit disappointing, but I still think this is a solid book. Just not the book for me and not the reason I generally pick up Gardner's work. But if you like this kind of story, I'd definitely recommend this the way I'd recommend most of her other books. They're light and easy and fun and so utterly enjoyable that I'll probably be picking them up every year that she continues writing them.

I had a bit of an iffy experience with the first Tim O'Brien book I read, In the Lake of the Woods (wanted to love it, didn't really), and had been itching to pick up another by him so I went with his nonfiction account of being drafted in the Vietnam war. And I loved it.

This is such a great firsthand account of someone's experience in Vietnam. It's so immediate and visceral and everything about it drew me. It took me ages to read and I can't figure out why because every time I picked it up, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

My favorite part was the immediacy. This book feels so utterly present. It was published only a few years after the war and it almost reads like O'Brien kept journals or something while in Vietnam because his thoughts are so in the moment and fresh. To me it felt like it lacked almost any after the fact reflective thoughts, which worked in the book's favors. He's in Vietnam and you're there with him and you really feel it.

Only caveat I'd say going in is you should definitely have a basic understanding of the war and the politics of the time because they're very relevant and he discusses them without really explaining (his audience in the 70s would already be incredibly familiar). But I'd wholeheartedly recommend this if you're looking for a firsthand account of Vietnam. It's great and poignant and he has such interesting thoughts and ideas. Definitely made me excited to read more from him.

I adored this book. This is exactly the kind of book I love to read, a very slow, drawn out character study focused on the interpersonal dynamics of a group.

I loved the characters. They're all so fully formed and dynamic. I hated them at times, but I loved reading about them. I loved Jules for all her jealousies and pettiness. I loved how real she felt, at times painfully (or annoyingly) small, but full of depth. I loved that Ash was presented as an ideal of perfection but contained multitudes and so many negatives. I loved how people behaved badly in ways that were treated as normal until all of sudden they weren't. It fascinated me.

I think some of the ending fell a little flat to me. I definitely cried for a while and certain events hit me really hard, but at the same time, books like this don't end well for me. Because the book isn't about the plot or events that are happening. They're just about the people living their lives, which means that unless it follows every character until their deaths, the book kind of just stops. I don't mind that too much, but it does often feel like a letdown after such an amazing experience.

This is definitely not the book for everyone. It's painfully slow. The characters feel so real to me, which means at times they can be incredibly annoying. Not a whole lot happens because it's mostly just about them as people. But I loved this because it was exactly the kind of book for me.

This is one of those books that's so full of tragedy you almost start growing numb to it, only to be horrified further the next page. It definitely had me tearing up over some of Lloyd's history or the specific stories of a few girls she worked with.

Overall, though, I wasn't hugely fond of the structure of the book. It's split pretty evenly between Lloyd's memoir, her current work with a nonprofit to help sex trafficking victims, and general information (statistics, facts, what have you) on sex trafficking. I kind of felt like I'd have rather she just picked one of those topics to focus on and used the other two to supplement. Since it all felt fairly equal, I constantly felt like I wasn't getting the depth on any of those subjects that I wanted. My copy was only about 250 pages total, which means about 80 pages for each topic. That's not a whole lot of time.

I think it's a worthwhile book if you're interested in the subject. Definitely moving, and I love a book that moves me. I wish I'd adored this book, but I do think it just fell a little flat for my tastes. I'd still wholeheartedly recommend it, though. Perhaps not a favorite, but I'm glad I picked it up.

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.

This is one of those books that just feels like it shouldn't be real. People are awful. Cops are awful. Even the "good" cops in this book are awful. This broke my heart from start to finish. I can't imagine being an 18 year old kid who gets attacked in such a traumatic way, and then is retraumatized for literal years as the cops call her a liar and arrest her, her foster parents ban her from their home, her friends ostracize her. I don't understand how you could ever move on from something like that.

Which isn't at all a review of this book, but man I had the hardest time with this one. It hurt and it scared me and I wish I could say I was surprised this could happen, but I wasn't.

It's so unbelievably detailed. That's really where the greatest strength of this book is. I can't fathom how the writers managed to get all this information. It's really just an absurd amount of information for a true crime book. I walked away feeling like I got a picture of the entire case. So much information on the rapist himself, even with sections from his perspective. So much detail on Marie's thoughts and feelings. So much on all the cops involved. This book is an amazing piece of investigative journalism.

I will admit I wasn't expecting so much of the book to focus on the police who tracked down the rapist. I was a lot more interested in the victims than the cops, but they're kind of the center piece of this book. And they don't entirely rebuke the cops who bullied Marie into recanting which left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth.

This book is really hard and graphic, so be warned going in. The man is a serial rapist and it recounts a fair number of his rapes, as well as his plans and a good portion of the trauma the victims went through after the fact. It's detailed. Painfully so. It was really hard to read, but well worth it if you think you can. Definitely not one I'd recommend to everyone, though, because I'm usually pretty good with stuff like this and my anxiety skyrocketed.

Great book, though. Like I can't recommend this enough. Amazing journalism and such an important story.

This was a good book. Like overall, that's just the feeling it gave me. It was a solid good read that I enjoyed, but perhaps not one that stuck around for me.

It just flows so well. This was one of those books that was utterly engaging. The story kept me drawn in entirely the whole time I was reading. I love a book that feels that engrossing, regardless of what it's about. If it holds my attention every page, it's done what I'm looking for. I really liked the development of Hetty as a character. I loved getting to see her learn and begin to think for herself throughout the book.

My main issue for this book was just how focused on the romance it was. I knew there was a romance in this, but I hadn't realized that the romance was the entire plot. Everything else that happened was either secondary to or supporting the romance story. I like romance, but I generally prefer when it's an important secondary element instead of the main story. If you really like a romance (romance plot line, not romance novel- this isn't a romance novel), I think you'd probably get along with this book better than me.

My other main issue was that while the main character, her love interest, and their relationship were really well developed, it felt like the secondary elements of the story fell flatter. The main character had an interesting relationship with her best friend, but that part of the story never felt like it was as developed as it could have been. I felt that way about all the secondary elements. Everything relating to the main storyline was so well done, but everything else felt like it needed a little more time and depth to create a well rounded story. It was so disappointing to me because there were a lot of elements that could have been great.

I'd definitely recommend this if you like a historical romance. It was compelling and well written and full of interesting characters. I even cried a bit at the end and I love a book that makes me cry.

So let's talk about expectations versus reality a little bit. I expected this book to be a dual account by a mother and daughter about their relationship and the daughter's drug addiction/rehabilitation. It was not so much that. The drug addition aspect was a poor assumption on my fault because the synopsis mentions drugs and bootcamp schools. It's not very much about drugs. Mia used them, but it doesn't talk very much about addiction so I don't know if she even was an addict or just a casual user. It's honestly not even much of a dual account. This book is clearly written by the mother. Mia has sections, but for the most part those sections are pretty short and stream of conscious. They seemed like they only existed out of necessity because this book couldn't really exist without them. The mother's perspective was the main focus of the story and the driving force, and a big disappointment to me because I was much more interested in the daughter's experience.

Now getting into the actual book itself, the way it started and the way the synopsis was described immediately made me feel lied to. Mia is described as happy and well adjusted and normal, nothing wrong in her life. When she runs away the first time, the mother expresses shock and says she could never have seen it coming. It was so unlike her daughter. And then we cut back a little in time and find out Mia had started cutting months before, become withdrawn, started acting different and her mother put her in therapy because of it. And as a child, she'd been sexually abused by her biological father. The mother says a few pages in that nothing even hinted that she would run away and she was happy. Even assuming Mia kept other secrets, that list is just the stuff her mother knew about. And you had no idea something was wrong? Even though she was self harming and withdrawn and you were concerned enough to force her into therapy? It felt like an utter betrayal of trust as a reader because it was so blatantly not true.

I really hated the mother. The book seemed constantly full of her intentionally doing and saying awful things to and about her daughter. She suspected her husband was going to sexually abuse her daughter at some point, but never even tried to get her daughter away from him until after the abuse had happened. She didn't keep her daughter in therapy regularly through childhood despite being warned by therapists that Mia would need it. She called Mia's clothes disgusting and for druggies. Said public schools were for gangbangers and slutty girls (referring to children???). She, at different points, referred to her fifteen year old daughter as a bitch and a whore. I felt disgusted reading the way she described her own child, and I can't imagine her daughter reading this.

The behavioral modification "school" Mia was sent to was shut down for child abuse while she was there. It was the second time the owners had one of their facilities shut down for child abuse (in two different countries). It seems questionable at best to send your vulnerable kid to a reform school when the owners have already been shut down for child abuse once. Mia and her mother swear up and down it was a great experience, but the way they describe it, it sounds abusive. At one point while driving away, Mia comments that she hadn't seen the moon in six months. When a driver taking them to a different school says she can't sleep in the van, she stays awake for hours in the middle of the night despite being jetlagged and traveling for days and being desperately tired. Because she's used to obeying orders like that.

If it helped her, if she's happier now, I'm glad. But if you look up some of the "schools" she attended, there are tons of testimonials of abuse. It's hard to take much seriously in this book when they completely disregarded all of that as lies. I hope Mia is doing a lot better now, but I thought this book was awful. I thought her mother was awful. I couldn't ever recommend this.

I did not expect to like this book at all, but I adored it. I would highly, highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys lighthearted YA contemporaries because this book was everything.

I loved the friend group. All four of them were fantastic and well developed characters. They all had interesting stories and personalities. Usually in books with multiple POV characters, there's at least one that bores me, but I genuinely enjoyed all of their sections. I could've read an individual book about any one of those characters.

Despite being on the lighter end of the spectrum, this book had enough gravitas to keep me invested. It was always going to be a happy book, but it still had depth and high enough stakes that I really cared. I even cried a bit at the end because it just hit me so hard emotionally. I almost never cry at happy books or happy moments, so that was incredibly impressive.

The main thing I didn't enjoy was the whole president aspect of this book. One of the girls in this friend group is going to be the first female president. It's the main thing that turned me off and the reason I almost unhauled this without reading it. I felt towards it pretty much exactly how I expected. It was gimmicky and kind of pointless and didn't add anything to the book expect a kind of "whodunit" aspect. But to be honest, it's completely irrelevant to most of the book. It's only really a focus of the prologue and epilogue, so ignoring those is pretty easy and the rest of the book is fantastic. (I wouldn't recommend actually not reading them because it does affect how you experience the ending a bit, but they don't matter to the book overall.)

I feel like this is going to be a book I reread in a few years. I genuinely can't recommend it enough. It's just one of those happy making books that still makes me smile to think about.

I was kind of ready to write this book off as a mediocre, forgettable thriller. Just a whatever of a book. But then I got to the end and there was animal abuse and the whole thing just left off on such a sour note that I had to knock my rating down. I hate ending a book with a bad taste in my mouth.

I liked the premise, daughter is missing for ten years and an imposter takes her place, but there's something darker underneath the happy family, why did Bek really go missing, etc etc. It's honestly really standard for a thriller. As much as I didn't like this book, I'm struggling to think of things to say in this review. It was almost just so nothing that it left no impression on me. The characters felt really flat, the story was contrived, it didn't have a great ending. It just fell flat in pretty much every respect. I'm planning to unhaul it and then I'll likely never think of it again.

Like sorry for the extra crappy review, but it kind of matches the book.