¡Gracias por compartir! / Thanks for sharing!

“Even if you do not like this genre, I think you should read this book, and experience what is like to read a first class thriller narrative.”

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First things first

We read The Girl who was Taken at Book Club; actually, it is October’s pick, and probably many members haven’t read it yet. However, thriller is my favorite genre, so I was really looking forward to this one.

I did not vote for this book, but when I started reading it, I couldn’t put it down! I finished it in two nights; the second night I was done by around 03:00. At that moment I wanted to go to the kitchen and have a drink, it’s the first time I got that feeling, the reading was very intense.

Synopsis

The night they go missing, high school seniors Nicole Cutty and Megan McDonald are at a beach party in their small town of Emerson Bay, North Carolina. Police launch a massive search, but hope is almost lost—until Megan escapes from a bunker deep in the woods. A year later, the bestselling account of her ordeal has made Megan a celebrity. It’s a triumphant story, except for one inconvenient detail: Nicole is still missing.

Nicole’s older sister, Livia, a fellow in forensic pathology, expects that one day soon Nicole’s body will be found and her sister’s fate determined. Instead, the first clue comes from another body—that of a young man connected to Nicole’s past. Livia reaches out to Megan to learn more about that fateful night. Other girls have disappeared, and she is increasingly sure the cases are connected.

Megan knows more than she revealed in her book. Flashes of memory are pointing to something more monstrous than she described. And the deeper she and Livia dig, the more they realize that sometimes true terror lies in finding exactly what you’ve been looking for…

Personal Opinion

Even if you do not like this genre, I think you should read this book, and experience what is like to read a first class thriller narrative.

The Girl who was Taken is delivered through a third person narrative and it first focuses on Livia, a medical examiner and Nicole’s sister. The first part of the book centers in her working life. I must point out how detailed is the reading regarding her line of work; I really liked that, I felt like I was present during each autopsy and I thought it was awesome how the author carried the investigation from a forensic point of view, instead of a police pov, through Livia.

Livia lives with the pain of not being able to find her sister, also with the guilt for not answering her phone call the night of her disappearance. Ever since that event, she has remained distanced from her parents and hometown. Her life is all about her job and boxing, both help her stay focused. However, every day, when new bodies arrive to work, she feels like one of them might be her sister.

Megan, the girl who escaped from the kidnapper, is not doing well, but she pretends to be fine so her parents would leave her alone. That is the reason why she wrote the book. Even though she doesn’t remember many things about the two weeks she was kidnapped, with help of therapy and hypnosis, Megan is trying to remember everything. This character is very well developed; one can really feel her pain and frustration. Her evolution throughout the reading is overwhelming.

The reading jumps between past and present, but it’s developed in present time. Actually, these jumps do not difficult the reading at all; it is easy to read and very comprehensive.

During the readings about the past, we get to meet Nicole, the girl who is still missing, her concerns and personality. She is a conflictive teenager, but we manage to understand her somehow. As a child, a tragic family event affected her greatly, but no one in her family noticed that, and the person she loved most, her sister Livia, is ten years older than her, so too soon she left for college. It’s one of those life circumstances that leaves a mark on you, and if you do not receive help on time, a snowball forms, growing into things that you are unable to control.

At times, we also entered the mind of the kidnapper; it’s very shocking and creepy. We don’t get to read explicit scenes, which is very nice; however, to read his thoughts is very disturbing.

During the reading, we also find a few clues, here and there, that might give us a slight idea of who the kidnapper might be, that kept my heart pounding the entire time and I couldn’t put the book down, I had to keep going until I find out who was behind it all.

The ending was given in such way, that it gave a flavor of realness to the story, a bittersweet ending, just like life itself.

A little ending note

This is a book that you will enjoy from beginning to end, that you’ll have to digest little by little and go with it, looking for a way to find the truth. It was a very intense journey, so I highly recommend this reading.

As soon as I finished this book, I bought another one from the same author. I’ll let you know how it went.

Xoxo,

MJ

Other book reviews on mi Blog:

Almond, a Novel, by Won Pyung Sohn

The Invisible Guardian, by Dolores Redondo

Carthage, by Joyce Carol Oats

¡Gracias por compartir! / Thanks for sharing!