The Night She Disappeared by Lisa Jewell
2017: 19 year old Tallulah is going out on a date, leaving her baby with her mother, Kim.
Kim watches her daughter leave and, as late evening turns into night, which turns into early morning, she waits for her return. And waits.
The next morning, Kim phones Tallulah’s friends who tell her that Tallulah was last seen heading to a party at a house in the nearby woods called Dark Place.
She never returns.
2019: Sophie is walking in the woods near the boarding school where her boyfriend has just started work as a head-teacher when she sees a note fixed to a tree.
‘DIG HERE’ . . .
A cold case, an abandoned mansion, family trauma and dark secrets lie at the heart of Lisa Jewell’s remarkable new novel.
For the Reading Challenge(s):
None
The Reason
It was my online bookclub’s BOTM for December.
The Quotes
“Men don’t know, she thinks, they don’t know how having a baby makes you protective of your skin, your body, your space. When you spend all day giving yourself to a baby in every way that it’s possible to give yourself to another human being, the last thing you want at the end of the day is a grown man wanting you to give him things too.”
“Kim sometimes thinks that women practice being mothers on men until they become actual mothers, leaving behind a kind of vacancy.”
“She thinks, You didn’t see the look he gave me just now on the stairs. You don’t know how he looks at me when you’re not in the room; the way his voice sets hard like stone, his eyes bore through me like lasers. You really don’t know.”
My Thoughts
I was very disappointed with this book. I had heard good things about the author and was eager to read a delicious mystery but this story fell flat for me.
The biggest issue I had with the book is that the characters are very one-dimensional and I didn’t connect to any of them at all. Many of them acted inconsistently, and any personality they had were often told to us, rather than shown. The one character that had any depth at all was the boyfriend, Zach, and while I hated him as a character, I thought his portrayal was incredibly scary and accurate. Other than Zach, none of the other characters made sense, which was obviously a detriment to the story. The plot only made sense because the characters didn’t make sense, which ultimately means that the story doesn’t work.
This was my first Lisa Jewell book, and based off this book, I probably wouldn’t bother with any more of her books, but I’ve been told that this isn’t a good representation of her works so I might try another one eventually.
My Rating
⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?
