by Mary Kubica
352 pages
I had seen this book around before, but never really knew what it was about. The cover is a close up of (what I thought was) a little girl. It’s a bit haunting to be honest, a little washed out. I purchased the book when it showed up on Book Bub. Haha, seriously, if you haven’t signed up for Book Bub yet, you should. It’s free (and I don’t work for them, I promise).
As is pretty common these days (see the review of The Cellar), this book is told from three different perspectives. It is also, totally by coincidence, about a girl who gets kidnapped (again, see the review of The Cellar). One unique take that this book had was whose perspectives we got. Normally, in a story like this you’d get the perspective of the girl who got kidnapped. Here, you don’t. First is Eve, mother of Mia, the kidnapped girl. Then is Gabe, the detective looking for the girl. Finally is Colin, the guy who took the girl. Also, if you meet a guy named Colin, run away. He’s probably a kidnapper (see the review of The Cellar).
Okay, so these are three very different perspectives. I like it. This book even goes further. We learn pretty quickly that Mia has been returned safely. The problem is that now she suffers from selective amnesia - she even thinks her name is Chloe. So now we have these different perspectives, and we have them at different points in time: before the kidnapping and after the return.
Eve is a mother of two daughters. Mia is the younger (but she is already grown). She is 25 years old and working as an art teacher at an underprivileged high school (maybe a credit recovery type school, I don’t remember exactly) in Chicago. Eve’s husband is a high-profile judge who sees Mia as a disgrace. The older daughter is a successful lawyer and Mia was expected to be too. Through the course of the book, we see the guilt that Eve experiences because she feels she didn’t call Mia enough or that the dad’s disappointment has pushed them apart. As a mother, it was hard to read some of these things. It definitely made me think about my own relationships with my mom and my daughter (but I think we’re good. Haha).
Gabe is a detective who has a lot riding on this case. Because of the judge’s name attached to this, and the fact that the judge is a close friend of Gabe’s boss, his job is on the line. Gabe is a likeable character. He sees what is on the surface, what people want him to see, but then he tells us what’s really going on. We follow his line of clues to discover what has happened to Mia and he does anything that he can to help recover her lost memories.
Colin is actually a really interesting character. He’s like a good-bad-guy. He’s a bad guy that you almost want to root for. We find out immediately that Colin is a career criminal. Up until now, he has never done any kidnapping. He mostly specialized in theft and drugs and roughing people up a little. Then he is hired by another guy to kidnap Mia. Ultimately the idea is that Colin gets Mia and turns her over to this guy, who then holds her for ransom from the judge. On the way to drop Mia off, he realizes that this other guy will probably rape and kill her anyway. So, Colin goes on the run with Mia – essentially saving her life.
Obviously there is a lot more to this story. I liked it. I thought it was a unique take on this type of plot. I liked the twist at the end. Maybe most importantly though, I liked how every single character developed. I actually think I will be reading another Kubica novel soon (there’s one called Don’t You Cry that showed up on another list). I liked the style. I also recently joined a book club and they picked this as the next book, so I am excited to see what they think!
4 Stars