The Night She Disappeared By Lisa Jewell: My Review
The Night She Disappeared By Lisa Jewell: My Review
ABOUT THE BOOK
The Night She Disappeared
By Lisa Jewell
SYNOPSIS
On a beautiful summer night in a charming English suburb, a young woman and her boyfriend disappear after partying at the massive country estate of a new college friend.
One year later, a writer moves into a cottage on the edge of the woods that border the same estate. Known locally as the Dark Place, the dense forest is the writer’s favorite area for long walks and it’s on one such walk that she stumbles upon a mysterious note that simply reads, “DIG HERE.”
Could this be a clue towards what has happened to the missing young couple? And what exactly is buried in this haunted ground?
My Review
My Rating: 5 Stars!
I am a HUGE Lisa Jewell fan so when I heard she was releasing a new book, safe to say I was pumped. The Night She Disappeared is arguably one of my favourite novels from Jewell, though still hasn’t supplanted the top spot of Then She Was Gone.
One of the reasons I loved this novel was the main character of Tallulah, it was nice to see an unwed teenage mother making it work, and it was even more amazing to see her uncovering her sexuality along the way despite the fact the realisations both scared and baffled her. The character of Scarlett though at times trying was also intriguing to watch develop, and I was just as surprised as Tallulah’s mother, Kim to discover what had actually become of both Tallulah and Zach at the novel’s conclusion. I found the present-day narrative to be oddly out of place, to begin with, even after the head teacher’s author wife discovered the ring, and was left wondering if the dots were ever going to connect with regards to how she specifically linked into the story. Had she not been a crime novelist, I’m not sure I would have bought the sequence of events that unravelled, but given that the author had a predetermined thing for mysteries, this in itself becomes believable when you need it to and was actually a great addition to the novel’s second narrative, that of Kim’s mother.
The other thing I think Jewell does well is slowly inching the reader into the realisation that Zach is a narcissistic gas-lighter of the very worst kind. Often in these novels, I feel bad for the victims, but not for Zach. If anything, his demise only left me with more respect for Scarlett. Twisty, turny, grisly, and yet oddly heart-warming, this novel is definitely one to pick up for fans of thrillers and crime novels alike. If you haven’t picked up Jewell yet, you’re missing out. All her works left me on the edge of my seat, and this certainly was no exception to that rule.
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