Book Review : Then she was gone by Lisa Jewell @lisajewelluk #Nikitasbookshelf @singh_nikita

Title : Then she was gone

Author : Lisa Jewell

Genre : Mystery ; Suspense ; Psychotic Thriller

Pages : 359

Blurb

THEN
She was fifteen, her mother’s golden girl. She had her whole life ahead of her. And then, in the blink of an eye, Ellie was gone.

NOW
It’s been ten years since Ellie disappeared, but Laurel has never given up hope of finding her daughter.

And then one day a charming and charismatic stranger called Floyd walks into a café and sweeps Laurel off her feet.

Before too long she’s staying the night at this house and being introduced to his nine year old daughter.

Poppy is precocious and pretty – and meeting her completely takes Laurel’s breath away.

Because Poppy is the spitting image of Ellie when she was that age. And now all those unanswered questions that have haunted Laurel come flooding back.

What happened to Ellie? Where did she go?

Who still has secrets to hide?

Review

Then she was gone by Lisa Jewell is an instant New York Times Bestseller novel. Then she was gone is a story of a mother whose life shatters completely after the sudden disappearance of her teenage daughter. This book talks about how that incident has affected the family and made a havoc in their lives. It also focuses on emotional turmoil and incompleteness felt by the mother at a greater extend.

First of all, the very best thing about this book is the writing and the narrative style of the author. It was utterly captivating and that made the book an ultimate page turner. In your life time, you will rarely come across an author whose writing skills are exceptionally beautiful and make the readers fall in love with their writing style right from the very first word. And Lisa is one such author. For this, it’s completely worth reading this book.

The plot was very simple and subtle. In fact, at many instance it was absolutely predictable and there wasn’t much work for twists and turns and thrilling aspects. If you are expecting a spine-chilling and hair-standing novel, this is not that kind of a book. Though there was lot of scope for making it a nerve-racking thriller I don’t why the author had opted for an easy way out by making it a simple and predictable novel. But as I told you earlier, the wonderful writing style of the author made up for these disappointments and presented itself as a subtle and tenuous mystery novel with the dark and suspenseful aura to it.

The development and formulation of certain doubtful/bait characters was tremendous. The characters in the book was really good to read. The emotions felt by Laurel, after her daughter’s disappearance was so akin and how she struggles with her life henceforth was very realistic. The author made the readers understand her characters in a minimalist yet in an effective manner.

The atmosphere set up for the book was just right and the way the author had described the places in the book was in itself an added advantage to the materialization of the plot. And it was not just a dark, mystery and suspenseful novel because it had so much more to it which made the book more humanly relatable. It spoke about family values, relationships, emotions, love and misunderstanding entwined in it. So on the whole, it had a lot of flavors to it.

On the whole, it was a good read. The writing style was addictive and compelling, I’m sure most of you would finishing it off in one-sitting. Very predictable plot-line with interesting characters and numerous flavors of genre. The book was penned down and edited masterfully. There wasn’t any logical problems with the book. The dialogues were finely written and surfaced.

My views

I can proudly say, I have become addicted to Lisa Jewell’s writing. Now on you could expect me to read more of her writings. I particularly liked the relationship between Laurel and Paul, and one particular dialogue that’s said by Paul to Laurel is the decided factor which made me love Paul despite his minimal presence. His character was like that of an off-screen character who doesn’t play much part but even their little presence will give the lead character an enormous strength. Paul is that to Laurel and I guess that dialogue is what a relationship is all about.

“As the father of your children, as a friend, as someone who shared a journey with you and as someone who loves you and cares about you. I don’t need to be married to you to be all those things. Those things are deeper than marriage. Those things are forever”

–Paul to Laurel

My rating for this book would be 3 out of 5 stars

I really kinda enjoyed this book as I read it as a read-along with my friend. We kept on predicting things and it way fun. Read-along’s are always fun, everyone should do it more often, it will simply increase the joy of reading by multiple times.

I recommend this book to mystery lovers and to people who wants to read rich and wonderful narrative and writing style. I’m sure Lisa Jewell’s will cast a captivating spell on you too with her words, just like she did to me.

Do read this book and tell me how you feel about it on the comment session below!

And I should thank Author Nikita Singh and her private little book club Nikita’s Bookshelf which I’m a part of, for this wonderful book suggestion and a great discussion!! Then she was gone is our Book of the Month for this September and particular it’s a debut book reading as a Book Club.

Happy Reading Folks!!

~ Meenu

“Then she was gone” A gripping and captivating novel by @lisajewelluk ! Read the book review to know more about the book!!!

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