This book took me on a wild ride, complete with sharp turns, suspicious characters, and enough possible suspects to make me side-eye everybody. The actual culprit was mentioned so briefly that I didn’t even think twice about her. Of course, hindsight is 20/20, and now I’m sitting here like, “Ma’am, the clues were right there. Please pay attention next time.”
Let’s get into these characters.
The story centers around 9-year-old Avery, who goes missing after a brief altercation with her father. Now listen, I know she was a child, and I know I was supposed to feel worried and heartbroken…but Avery made that extremely difficult. Never have I felt less sympathy for a missing child in a book. She was a tiny menace, and at a certain point, I wasn’t even concerned about whether they found her. I just wanted her family to be released from the emotional hostage situation she had them living in.
Then there’s William. William, William, William. Sir. You made your situation so much worse than it had to be. My issue with him wasn’t that I thought he was guilty, because I honestly never suspected him. My issue was that he was weak, cowardly, and allergic to making a good decision. He didn’t stand up to his wife, and he was so terrified of being implicated that he backed himself into a corner that probably could have been avoided with just a little bit of backbone and common sense.
His wife, Erin, was the catalyst for the nightmare that was Avery. She made it her personal mission to ignore every red flag Avery waved directly in her face. She was embarrassed by Avery’s behavior, but apparently not embarrassed enough to give that child a consequence. Erin seemed convinced that gentle parenting was going to magically stop Avery from becoming a sociopath. Spoiler alert: it did not. Epic fail. Zero stars for the parenting plan.
Overall, this was a good read. I enjoyed seeing all the different intricacies of the characters and how their secrets, choices, and messy little lives connected. But I have to admit, this book had my morals completely off kilter. I wanted the affair partners to end up together because, honestly, their respective spouses were exhausting. I didn’t particularly want them to find the little girl. And I wanted the mother to be the culprit just because I was tired of her blaming everybody else while taking absolutely no responsibility for the chaos she helped create.
My main grievance is the abrupt ending. This is the second book I’ve read by this author, and both endings felt like she got tired, closed the laptop, and said, “That’s enough.” Ma’am, no. I need closure. I need resolution. I need at least a small bow, even if it’s from the clearance section.
I’m still deciding whether the endings annoy me enough to stop reading Shari Lapena's books altogether. The stories are good, the characters are layered, and the drama definitely keeps me turning the pages. But these sudden endings? They are testing my patience and my commitment.
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