Review: The Reappearance of Rachel Price by Holly Jackson

Holly Jackson's A Good Girl's Guide to Murder is a series I would recommend to literally every single person I've ever met, and after her standalone thriller Five Survive proved that she was more than a one-hit-wonder, I was super excited when I heard she was coming out with yet another YA thriller book. The Reappearance of Rachel Price was released on April 2nd, and you can bet I was ready to dive into the book right away.

The book follows eighteen-year-old Annabel 'Bel' Price, whose mother, Rachel, disappeared without a trace sixteen years earlier. The public consensus is that she was murdered, but no body has ever been found. The prime suspect in her murder? Bel's loving father, Charlie. Bel knows her father is innocent - after all, he has a rock solid alibi - and so years after he was aquitted for his wife's murder, the family has mostly returned to normal. But the Rachel Price case is still a hot topic among crime junkies, and the Price family has agreed to take part in a documentary about the mystery surrounding her disappearance.

Then - out of the blue - Rachel suddenly reappears. Thin, dirty and full of scrapes and scabs she tells an unbelieveable story about where she has been for the past sixteen years. The media is in a frenzy over her miraculous return, and Bel's quiet life is irrevocably turned upside down. Bel is in shock, as is the rest of her family. And then Rachel slips up. It's nothing big - just a few small inconsistencies - but it immediately makes Bel suspect that Rachel is not being completely honest. The more time Bel spends around her mother, the more she starts to doubt her story. But if Rachel is lying, where has she really been all this time? With the help of a ridiculously dressed British camera assistant (who she does not find cute whatsoever), Bel sets out to find out the truth about why Rachel Price really has come back from the dead.e

Holly Jackson has done it again! This YA mystery thriller is full of exciting twists and turns that keep you on your edge of your seat. I was so intrigued by where the story was going that I actually struggled to fall asleep when I put the book down for the night. My mind was running at a million miles a minute, going over every little hint and trying to work the mystery out for myself. If that is not a sign of a well-crafted mystery, I don't know what is! Luckily for me (and my sleep schedule), it only took me two days to finish the book.

The main protagonist, Bel, is an interesting choice for a protagonist, largely in due to the fact that she's not very likeable. She has grown up being known simply as Rachel Price's daughter - the toddler who was left behind alone in the car when Rachel vanished without a trace - and her not knowing if her mother left her voluntarily or not has obviously given her some major trust issues. Over the years she has pushed everyone away, and now she's left with only a single remaining friend: her fifteen-year-old cousin Carter. When Rachel reappears and obviously wants to bond with her daughter, Bel is extremely quick to distrust her. She's not even willing to give her mother the benefit of the doubt: Bel is so determined that Rachel is a liar that she actively sets out to prove it almost immediately following her return. She basically just wants her mother to go away again so that things can return to normal, which seems at bit harsh considering her mother claims to have been kidnapped and held captive for the past sixteen years.

Not that Rachel isn't suspicious. Not only does she conveniently reappear just when a documentary about her disappearance is being filmed, but there are also plenty of inconsistencies surrounding her story. She slips up on the details about her escape from captivity, she seems to know details of Bel's life that should be impossible for her to know and she snoops around not only the family home, but also the house of Bel's grandfather. There is clearly a lot more to the story of Rachel Price than we have initially been led to believe. Unraveling her story and her lies thread by thread is what makes this book such a compelling mystery thriller. 

The reason this book is not getting a top score from me, is because of what happens in those last few chapters. Don't get me wrong, I am extremely satisfied with the conclusion of the main mystery (it's sooo good), but not how the events following the big reveal played out. I do think some characters were a bit quick in changing their loyalties, and the whole scenario reminded me a bit too much of the parts of As Good as Dead (the final book in the A Good Girl's Guide to Murder trilogy) that just didn't work for me. Holly Jackson has to learn that you don't necessarily have to use a crime to cover up another crime, especially not when just telling the truth would have worked just as well in this scenario. Sometimes it is more satisfying to see the bad guys having to actually face charges and jail time for their wrongdoings. Maybe it's just me, but I would prefer to leave innocent characters without the potential of suffering major emotional trauma and PTSD for the rest of their lives.

But all in all this is another solid mystery thriller from Holly Jackson! If this is a genre you're interested in, I highly recommend checking it out for yourself!

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Review: In the Orbit of You by Ashley Schumacher

Like I said in my Can't-Wait Wednesday post a couple of weeks ago, I've been a fan of Ashley Schumacher's writing since her beautiful debut novel, Amelia Unabridged. When I read the synopsis of her newest YA novel, In the Orbit of You, I was immediately intrigued. 

When they were children, Sam and Nova were inseparable. As the self-appointed king and queen of a little bug hollow they named Snailtopia, the two spent all their waking hours playing together by the hole in the fence that separated their yards. Growing up with alcoholic and physically abusive parents, Sam's only bright spot was Nova. Then he was suddenly sent away to live with his aunt and uncle, but not before he got to say goodbye to Nova and make her a promise: He would come find her when they turned eighteen.

Fast forward twelve years: Seventeen-year-old Nova lives a semi-transient lifestyle, moving from city to city because of her mothers job. When Nova starts her junior year at yet another new high school, the last person she expects to run into is her former childhood friend. Sam has built the perfect life for himself in his small Texas town: The perfect family, the perfect high school football career and the perfect cheerleader girlfriend. Despite having this gnawing feeling that he's not really happy, he does not want anything to change. Then Nova blows back into his life like a whirlwind, and suddenly he has to reevaluate everything. Nova is the only person who has ever truly known him, but is getting close to her again worth possibly upending the stable life he has built for himself? 

One of the things I really liked about this novel were how real the characters felt. Nova and Sam are both highly flawed characters with tons of personal issues to work through. For Sam this has has a lot to do with his traumatic childhood - he tries to go along with what everybody else wants for him, because not rocking the boat is how he survived as a young child in an abusive household. He has built up the life that he thinks he should have to please the people around him, not the life he truly wants for himself. Nova also struggles with figuring out who she really is, but for her this is largely because her mother keeps moving them around every few months. She has been to so many different schools, and tried out so many different styles, hobbies and social cliques that she is confused about her own identity. The thought of choosing a college major - choosing that one single path for her future - terrifies her. And this part of their individual characters really make sense based on the lives they have lived up until this point.

The relationship between the two of them has that magical meant-to-be feeling. You understand why these two people are so emotionally connected to one another, and you just find yourself rooting for them to work out their issues and get together. But boy do they play that push-and-pull game. I can't count all the times one of them tries to pull away from the other, only for them to immediatly go back on that. It's like they're planets constantly orbiting around eachother (which I suppose is where the title of the book comes in), or like magnets constantly being drawn together. It's raw and it's beautiful, but there's always this clock counting down to the end of their time together, as Nova is only staying at Sam's high school for two short months before her mother's job takes them away again. 

The side characters are wonderful, especially Sam's girlfriend Abigail. It can not be easy for Abby to understand Sam's relationship with Nova when he basically refuses to tell his own girlfriend anything about his past, but instead of acting catty like you would expect from an YA novel, she welcomes Nova into their circle with open arms. Even when she finds out about Sam and Nova's romantic entanglement, she acts super classy about it. She is just a genuinely good person, and I think we need to see more characters like her in fiction targeted at teenagers and young adults.

I was a bit scared when I reached the end of the story, but then the epilogue came along and made my heart whole again. And while the story technically is left open-ended, it is not difficult to guess what comes next for these wonderful characters. 

In the Orbit of You might not have usurped Amelia Unabridged's place as my favorite Ashley Schumacher novel, but it was a solid read that will stay with me for a long time.

Check out other reviews on Goodreads, or buy the book at Amazon US / Amazon UK / Blackwells

Review: Clever Creatures of the Night by Samantha Mabry

Have you ever finished a book, put it down - and then wondered if you actually liked it or not? That was my experience reading Clever Creatures of the Night by Samantha Mabry, and trust me, it is a strange feeling. The book was released on March 5th to mixed reviews, but as I am trying to to be too influenced by ratings, and also because I actually thought the premise of the book sounded really interesting, I decided to pick it up. 

The book follows a girl named Case, as she arrives at a somewhat dilapidated house in the middle of nowhere where her best friend Andrea (Drea for short) has lived with her roommates from boarding school ever since a volcano outside of Austin, Texas suddenly erupted, forcing the group to flee their school in a hurry. Even though months have passed by since the eruption the world has yet to return to normal, and Case has not seen Drea since before the world changed.

But when Case arrives at the house at the arranged time, Andrea is nowhere to be found. When questioned about Drea's whereabout, her roommates act all vague and cagey, and seem more concerned with carrying on with their bizarre rural utopian fantasy life than helping Case locate her friend. They also seem to want Case gone sooner rather than later. Case is desperate to figure out what happened to her best friend, and during her twenty-four hour stay she intends to solve the mystery. But there's definitely something strange going on in the house and the surrounding woods, and the more Case looks into Drea's life, the more she is convinced that her roommates had something to do with her disappearance. 

I think the reason I can't give the book more than three stars is because I really didn't feel a connection to any of the characters. We are told Case and Drea are the best of friends, but except for a few flashback scenes from their early high school years, there's really not much to indicate that the two are as close as Case claims. Yes, she carries around a bunch of letters sent to her by aspiring writer Drea, but as Case mentions herself, she only wrote Drea back once. And she doesn't even know the names of Drea's new friends/roommates except for one. Wouldn't a best friend have told her everything about them? While reading, I got the feeling the two were pretty estranged, but were essentially told the opposite was true - hence my confusion.

Where the author truly shines is in the overall mood of the book. The rural location, the post-apocalyptic descriptions of the sky and the air and the strange animal phenomenons - all of it made for a pretty unnerving atmosphere. There was this creepy, claustrophobic feel to the mood that I really liked, and the bizarre habits and actions of Drea's roommates only helps elevate that creepy feeling I got while reading. The creepy atmostphere was by far my favorite part of the book.

This book itself takes place over a twenty-four hour period, and for the first half or so of the book nothing major really happens. We follow Case as she looks around the house for clues of Drea's whereabouts, try to speak to Drea's roomies and see Case just chilling with said roommates. The second half is more action-packed, but by that time I had gotten so used to the slower pace of the first half that the sudden switch in pace felt rather jarring. And I kept waiting and waiting for something big to happen - because it honestly felt like it would - but even when we reached end and the big reveal, it all just felt rather... flat. 

Don't get me wrong, I had a genuinely good time reading Clever Creatures of the Night. It's just that the story had so much initial potential that I just wanted it to be more.

Check out other reviews on Goodreads, or buy the book at Amazon US / Amazon UK / Blackwells