When She Was Gone by Gwendolen Gross
Publisher: Gallery Books
Pages: 304
Format: ARC
Buy the Book: Amazon
Goodreads: Seventeen-year-old Linsey Hart disappears the day before she’s due to leave for college. As her neighbors piece together what they saw and what they think they know about the missing girl, their long-held secrets, prejudices, and entanglements become rudely evident.
There’s Linsey’s mother, Abigail, whose door-to-door searching makes her social outcast status painfully obvious; stay-at-home mom Reeva, whose primary concern is covering up the affair she’s been having with the Starbucks barista; Mr. Leonard, a reclusive retired piano teacher—and the last person to see Linsey alive; George, an eleven year-old gifted loner who is determined to find out what happened to Linsey; and Timmy, Linsey’s ex-boyfriend, who is left grieving as he embarks on his own college career.
Kritters Thoughts: A new and interesting way to tell the story of a missing girl, by sharing the stories and the impact of her disappearance through the eyes of her neighbors; both young and old. Edited by starting each chapter by their address was unique, but at times confusing; I liked that this book shows how living in a neighborhood we overlap each other and come out of experiences with different viewpoints.
After reading the book and other reviews, I would disagree and say that Mr. Leonard was my least favorite character, I think he came off as a sketchy old guy and it was the predictability of missing girl and sketchy old guy that I didn't enjoy. Although, my favorite character was the queen bee of the neighborhood Reeva, who although is a cheater had some truth to the way she was feeling in regards to the missing girl, her husband and family, and her friends - she was the character that didn't seem fake. I was a little disturbed by the very small reaction to a sibling missing by Linsey's brothers, although they were on the young side, I still didn't feel the impact of her missing in an honest light.
Unique and different, but not the book that I thought it could be. I wanted more emotion from Linsey's immediate family and a little more of woven interactions with the neighbors.
Rating: enjoyable, but didn't leave me wanting more
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received one copy of this book free of charge from Gallery Books. I was not required to write a positive review in exchange for receipt of the book; rather, the opinions expressed in this review are my own.
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