3.5. The story was intriguing, but the pacing was slow

I received this book as an advanced reader copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

I appear to be stuck in a trend of psychological thriller books based in London/England. They are all starting to meld together.

In this case, Hannah is a young professional making a career for herself. She goes away on a business trip and comes home to find all traces of her live-in boyfriend, Matt, have disappeared. Photos, phone records, texts. Even his digital life is gone. It is as if he never existed. Yet, her family and friends know him.

We go through her unraveling because of his disappearance. She sets out to track him down. Obsessively. Even months later, she has not come to terms with his disappearance. She never tells her parents, hides all this information from everyone except a few friends. She completely falls apart and everything suffers because of it. Especially her work, which she has had such pride over.

So, what starts as you feeling sorry for her, and her circumstances starts to transition into contempt. This made it hard to get through the rest of the book. There became a desert of any forward action in the plot. Eventually we get there, but not before you want to abandon it. I must be a sucker for punishment, because I did not abandon it. It takes a lot for me to abandon a book once I start.

spoilers following **************************


Finally we get somewhere in the story. Hannah finds Matt. And we discover the reason for his disappearance. Hannah is physically abusive. And this isn't the first time. In a previous relationship Hannah was abusive and her "best friend" helped him get away from her. And eventually, they end up in a relationship. And once again, the best friend and boyfriend hook up.

I don't have a problem with Hannah becoming the villan and the exposure of her being physically abusive to a male. I think this is a topic that is very taboo in society and people can't believe it happens. But it does. However, I dislike the manner in which hannah's friend helps these guys get out of the relationship, yet she remains in close contact with Hannah. Is there a point in which anyone tries to get Hannah help so that she isn't abusive? Why does it seem like her friends, family, neighbors are oblivious to all of this. It just doesn't sit well with me.

And if that didn't make me feel ill enough, Hannah really looses her grip and attacks her friend and ex boyfriend, causing her death. It still gives me shivers writing it.

This was a fun "read". I'm glad I chose to listens to it as Amy read it herself. Who really helps with connecting it to her.

I live that this book wasn't linear in time. I think that allowed anecdotes to pop in and out throughout the books

My favorite parts were when she was talking with others in her booth--such as Seth Meyers. That's when you really get "Amy". She's more herself in those times, than when she was just reading.

As always, with someone who's role in life is to make people laugh, I wonder if the stories were embellished. Probably, but I'd like to hope not.

There are some food nuggets I would like to pull from her book, so I will be getting a paper copy from the library so I can write those down.

Great for fans of Figment. Truthfully, that is the only reason I picked this up at the library. There's not much too it, so we shall see what future volumes give us.

I think this would be a pretty good book for teens to read. It's not too complex or heavy.

I had just finished reading "stopping Scoliosis" when I read this one. It seems to have taken ( with sources) a bit of the information from that one. Some of the anecdotes were directly quoted.

Here is the double edge sword of this book. Most, if not all, of the "stories" ( I'm not sure if they were testimonials or fiction) were about kids/teens not wanting to be braced, how bad it is for body image, how horrible it was if it was genetic and the parents felt guilty over it. It would have been nice to have a balance of stories that weren't "everything is bad, my life is over". I do feel that these do show the many expressions and emotions that most teens will go through with this diagnosis. But that's not the whole truth.