Genre: Thriller/Mystery/Crime
Rating: 3.5/5
Mary was always seen the “nice girl.” She was that quiet smart girl, and chubby, so she went mostly ignored in high school. She dreamed of getting out of her small Minnesota town and she did it. She managed to earn a scholarship to Cornell, but that only lasted three years before she’s back in her small town. This time she’s thinner and has more edge to her than she did before. She’s definitely brought back more baggage then she left down with three years ago. She takes a nothing job in the local grocery store and tries to find her footing in the midst of the downward spiral her life is currently on.
But then the beautiful, wannabe influencer Olivia Willand goes missing. Olivia is magnetic and admired by all of those in Liberty Lake, except Mary knows better. She knows just how manipulative and harsh Olivia can be when she wants to be. So while everyone in town is wrapped up with finding out what happened to their ‘it’ girl Olivia, Mary finds out about another missing nineteen-year-old girl and can’t help but wonder if the two disappearances are tied together.
Mary’s going to pry at the careful facades of the two girls to find out if they are connected and she’ll expose an ugly truth in the process.
I have mixed feelings about this book. There are definitely pieces that I loved that made me want to keep reading, but there were also some things that had me almost throwing this book into my DNF shelve.
Let’s me start with what I absolutely loved about it. The mystery/thriller aspect was so good. There were multiple times that I fell victim to the narrator’s thoughts on who was behind the disappearances of both girls and I was CONVINCED that she was right. Only to a view pages/chapters later having that conviction blown up and we were back to square one. So that constant I know who did it to nope that was way off aspect of the story had me hooked to see who was actually behind it. I also loved how the author wrote about topics like racism, pressure to fit in, and the parent/child relationship, it felt authentic.
Now I had a slight problem with the narrator, I didn’t feel like I ever got a real sense of who she was. Sure, I got glimpses of her from her thinking about her high school years and college years before getting kicked out. But I couldn’t really ever picture her, like I almost wanted a more concrete image of her in my mind. She also changed her mind so much in the last like 30% of the book that I started to not trust her and questioned everything she said or thought.
I won’t spoil the ending, but I kinda had a problem with the ending. On one hand, I LOVED the reveal. It was totally unexpected and had me frantically trying to recall if there were any clues to help get us to this conclusion. Which in my opinion makes for a good mystery. I like when the reveal comes out of nowhere. But on the other hand, it felt like it came a little too much out of nowhere. I wanted more breadcrumbs hidden in the story so that when I did go back I could have that “I can’t believe I didn’t see this or that” moment ya know?
But overall I’d say to give this book a chance like I did because there are some really good points throughout the story that resonated with me.
RedHeadsBooks 