Summer Reading: Then She Was Gone

The final selection on my summer reading list (where has the summer gone?) was Then She Was Gone by Lisa Jewell. Fifteen year old Ellie Mack is a vibrant girl who enjoys spending time with her boyfriend Theo while earnestly studying for her exams with a math tutor named Noelle Donnelly. She is optimistic and excited for her future but one day she goes missing and is never heard from again. Her mother Laurel is completely devastated and doesn’t believe the police when they conclude that she must have run away.  She spends a decade obsessively trying to find her which destroys her marriage and her relationship with her remaining children. When Ellie's remains are eventually discovered, Laurel tries to put the past behind her and move on with her life. She meets a handsome and charismatic man named Floyd Dunn at a cafe and begins a relationship with him. However, she is soon haunted by a series of coincidences that lead her to suspect that Floyd might be connected to Ellie's disappearance. This novel is incredibly suspenseful because the narrative alternates between Laurel's perspective in the present and Ellie's in the past. Even though Ellie's death is revealed early on, I kept reading well into the night because I had to know what happened to bring it about. You know what happens to Ellie but you don't know why and the answers make for a pretty dark psychological thriller. The characters are very well developed and I found them all to be quite sympathetic. Laurel, especially, is incredibly poignant in her despair over not knowing what happened to her child. Even the characters who are deeply flawed are portrayed with a certain humanity and it is fascinating to see how these damaged people impact those around them. There are some very disturbing elements that I found difficult to read but that didn't detract from my enjoyment of this novel. I highly recommend it as a suspenseful character study that will keep you guessing until the end.

Note:  Have you read Then She Was Gone or any of the other selections on my summer reading list?  What did you think?