🫣🫣🫣1/2
HAVE YOU SEEN HER
Catherine McKenzie
Atria Books
Publication Date: June 27th, 2023
336 Pages
Goodreads | Amazon
While reading this book I couldn’t help but compare Jim and Jada to Gabrielle Venora Petito and Brian Laundrie. I don’t know why but these characters just gave off that vibe to me and I liked it because it gave the book a true-crime feel. The book is about two deaths decades apart and the story is told in two timelines fairly close together, it is never clarified but it comes across as mere months. We have Cassie in the now and Cassie a few months ago as she has quickly left her husband and has gone back to the area where she grew up. In fact, all of the main characters are running away from something and we the reader eventually find out what and why that is. The book was very diverse with characters of different ethnicities and included LGBTQ characters. We get a clear background on all of them as well.
Petal is a character in the book that I liked a lot, her journal entries were the highlight for me. I really enjoy epistolary novels and this was a good way to get into Petal’s head and understand her internal thoughts. The book was quite the adventure, to say the least…I loved the location as it becomes a character itself and Yosemite National Park sounds beautiful yet dangerous. The rescues and descriptions were amazing, realistic and well-researched. This was a twisty rollercoaster ride, very fast-paced and the ending threw me for a loop. I wonder if there will be a book two? I would read it.
One thing I did not like about the story is the fact that Cassie hooked up with someone. Why does every book have sex and/or romance in it?! It is not needed in thriller books and it added nothing to the story. She is running away from her husband but hooks up with someone right away, women do not need men. Hence the half-star taken off.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the Advance Readers Copy.
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