Then She Was Gone

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I always have a hard time finding thrillers that are shocking but don’t rely on shock value, if that makes sense. They are ordinary people with ordinary worries who have ordinary awful things happen, and who react like I imagine that I, or any of my friends, would react should a child of mine go missing. Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. I usually really dislike predictable books and I usually figure out most mysteries which annoys me; not with this book though. I read a Lisa Jewell novel last year and connected immediately with her writing style, tone, and voice.

Ten years later, her mother finds new love (divorced her ex-husband though they still remain friends) and slowly learns of connections to her missing child who was feared dead. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Lisa is a New York Times and Sunday Times number one bestselling author who has been published worldwide in over thirty languages. Floyd is kind and sensitive and has a young daughter named Poppy, who looks inexplicably like Ellie. But also there were times I did feel for her and even warmed up to her the more we go into the book but then she'd do some other stuff that I'd go back to not liking her a whole lot.In addition to being a complex and genuinely suspenseful narrative, Then She Was Gone is a rich study of the ways in which people respond to grief and how past trauma can continue to shape their decision-making and relationships years or decades later. Thank you so much to NetGalley, Atria Books, and Lisa Jewell for the opportunity to read an advanced copy of this book. As Laurel unravels the horrors of Poppy's origins and Floyd's true intentions, she comes to terms with the loss of her daughter and reconciling with the children she still has. I really find myself enamored with Jewell's characters, plots, and settings, so much that I've added ten of her other books to my TBR and hope to read a few more later this year. Had lots of people rating it low when I first visited this page a few weeks ago, most of whom thought they were rating The Family Upstairs!

The fact that she was standing in her adult daughter’s kitchen picturing her dead in a ditch because she hadn't left a cereal bowl in the sink was perfectly sane and reasonable in the context of her own experience. But the author's writing skills, narrative style, and the way Ellie was crafted will compensate for it easily.Is it not more believable than a regular person saying she didn't like Floyd because he gave her the heebie-jeebies? The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for your discussion.

The main character in this novel is Laurel who has three children, two of whom are daughters whom she adores and they have great family dynamics. How can you distinguish between when you are being pessimistic, and when you should trust your intuition? Before she knows it, she’s meeting Floyd’s daughters—and his youngest, Poppy, takes Laurel’s breath away.Lisa Jewell is a brilliant storyteller and I will be recommending this book for an emotional, suspenseful, and captivating read. Apologies for republishing this, but apparently some haters thought it would be funny to report my review and get it taken down because they have nothing better to do. For much of the book, Laurel and her daughter Hanna have a fraught relationship as Laurel fails to let go of unfavorable comparisons between Hanna and Ellie.

From the New York Times bestselling author of Invisible Girl and The Truth About Melody Browne comes a “riveting” ( PopSugar) and “acutely observed family drama” ( People) that delves into the lingering aftermath of a young girl’s disappearance. It’s been ten years since her daughter disappeared, seven years since her marriage ended, and only months since the last clue in Ellie’s case was unearthed. the mystery/thriller stories i have read lately have been really predicable, so im starting a new game with myself where i predict what will happen before i read it, based solely on the synopsis.The atmosphere, characterization, and raw emotion that is infused into each of her novels elevates their status to something that few suspense novelists have attained. The big secrets were pretty obvious and it soon became only a question of how the characters would figure it out. maybe i wont be playing the whole ‘predict what happens based on the synopsis only’ game because it turns out i only got 1 out of 4 guesses right and its not a good look for my ego.