The Night She Disappeared

A good mystery, I like. But when it gets too draggy, it's a bit of a turn off. No matter how good the writing is, when it gets too much, you just kind of get that exhausted feeling, like you just could not care to go on. But you're curious. And you just get it done.

This probably more like 4.5 stars because of one the stupider twists but I'm rounding up because it's better than some of the other stuff I've read lately.
Things done well:
The post partum experience. While I've never had a baby, I could tell the author was starting from a realistic well researched place. I liked that the character actually *liked her baby. It would have been very easy to write a party girl book.
* Characters behaved consistently and knew their worth.
* The rich peoples choices were hilarious.
The bad
* One of the final twists made sense...but felt forced. Like that final flourish where the author wants to make the book seem really messed up. It just fell flat for me.
* You really mean to tell me no one ever rented out tools to find the the secret compartment?? A house that expensive, you can afford an expert.

this was a good one. I need to let it sink in a bit.

4.25. Listened to this in one go while driving to San Francisco and really enjoyed it. Great narration by the actress who plays Mrs. Bates on Downton Abbey AND the dog's name is Toby

Mayyybe 2.5?

These books are fast but Lisa Jewell is just not for me. The endings always just make me upset and are never fulfilling enough for the journey there's books take me on.

Absolutely loved the different perspectives and time jumps. A really fleshed out plot and set of characters!

A riveting, page turner. Enjoyed it from start to end. Not my favourite thriller but I still a great read. Will look to read more Lisa Jewel books. Recommended.

Dit begon goed, heel goed zelfs. Maar dan “ontdekt” Sophie dat het bordje met “dig here” voorkwam in haar allereerste gepubliceerde boek. Hoe kan die nu niet meer weten dat dit een centraal plotpunt is in haar eigen boek? En dan ontdekken we dat ze uiteindelijk nog maar 6 boeken heeft geschreven, waardoor het nog moeilijker is te geloven dat ze dat niet meer weet, tenzij ze echt een compleet achterlijke trien is. Echt, dit maakt uiteindelijk niks uit voor de ganse plot, maar ik kon dat detail maar niet naast mij neer leggen, waardoor het mijn ganse leesplezier aantastte.
De uiteindelijke oplossing van het mysterie vond ik ook nogal bij het haar gegrepen. De motivering sloeg gewoon nergens op. En dan hoe een simpele schrijfster erin slaagde om het hele ding op te lossen via een zeer eenvoudige zoekopdracht op sociale media was ook nogal verbijsterend.
Dus ja, goede start, ontgoochelend einde.

4.25
Lisa Jewell is officially an autobuy author for me!!
She has this way of making you care so much abt the characters and in some parts of the book I almost teared up.
And the ending, one of the most satisfying endings ever!

Read this if you love;
-Mother daughter relationships
-short chapters
-Alternating timelines
-Multiple povs
-An emotional roller coaster

There were some parts in the middle where it felt a bit slow, but towards the end it became more intense and I just kept flipping pages to see what would happen next.

Cant wait to complete her backlist!

3.5 stars!!!!

Since this is my third Lisa Jewell book, I have to say she is an author that delivers good quality novels constantly, at least in my opinion. This is her most recent release and even though I liked Then She Was Gone the most out of the ones I have read, I really enjoyed this story about a couple that goes missing, leaving their infant son behind and a mother determined to find out what happened to them. I had no problem getting through this book and I thought the story was really captivating and even made me tear up a few times.

To begin with, The Night She Disappeared is about a young couple that goes missing, leaving their infant son at home with the grandmother, who is determined to find out what happened to them at all cost. I really enjoyed this plot and even though I have read some stories about missing people, this one didn't feel too similar to any I have read before. The only reason this book is a four star for me and not a five star was because the pacing was just a little too slow in my opinion. The book itself was almost 400 pages and I feel that it could have been condensed a little and would have packed more of a punch that way. Otherwise, I have no complaints on that front.

Further on, the characterization in this story was good. It wasn't the most in-depth look into the characters' psyches and yet it definitely explored who they were on the inside somewhat. I really enjoyed the short chapters and the different perspectives and had no problems deciphering between whom I was reading about at the moment. The characters' definitely had some flaws to them but those weren't really discussed at length, we were only able to see them from the context of what was happening in the story. I thought that the ending was pretty satisfactory, even though I would have liked it to have been a little darker and more intense. And no, I definitely did not guess the ending, I wasn't even close.

Finally, the writing style was typical Lisa Jewell. It's easy to read and comprehend and it helped the story move right along. Some words were used that aren't quite used in the US, where I live, but those were easy to decipher what they meant in the context of the sentence they were in. I really don't have any complaints about Lisa Jewell's writing style and will continue to pick up all her future books for this reason and some others. It definitely doesn't blow me away but it gets the job done in an enjoyable way.

In conclusion, this mystery was well-written and I would recommend it to fans of the slower-burn stories, because the pacing was a little on the slower side. Otherwise, it was extremely captivating and the story sucked me right in and I had to find out what happened to the missing couple no matter what. Lisa Jewell delivers once again!

4.5⭐️ !!!! loved this

4.5 only reason its not a 5 because i felt like the ending was rushed and predictable but i love anything lisa jewell writes

Enjoyable but nothing mind-blowing.
I liked Sohpie's parts the most and i hated Scarlett so much which made the final part with Liam incredibly satisfying.

3.5 ⭐

This book starts out slow and probably could have been avoided completely had the main character been honest from the get go.

I feel like this book could have been a little better had they put more of an emphasis on some of the things that make how things were being revealed was indeed creepy.

In the end, the reason things happened the way they did seemed a little anticlimactic. Everything also kind of wrapped up into a neat bow at the end. This book seemed to messy and rushed at the end for such a neat ending.

Absolutely loved the first 90% of it but found the last bit hard to follow and rushed.

SO GOOD. Slow burn, but the three POVs are so captivating and well written that I couldn't put it down. One of my all time favs.

Lisa Jewell still surprises me being a thriller author. That said, I thought this one could have used some more editing: some of it seemed to drag longer than it should. Still, it was a good job with Tallullah and Zach and Scarlett and Noah and Kim and even the less good job of the mystery writer so much better than most detectives who has everything put on her lap.

This thriller was excellent. One of the best I've read in recent years! It was really well written, probablyLisa Jewell's best work, and the audio version was superbly narrated. I completed this book in record time, and it kept me guessing. Although I did figure out a few basic elements of the plot, I certainly wasn't able to guess how they were used by the characters, and my theories kept changing every few chapters. The characters were really well developed, the various settings were well described, multiple timelines and points of view were handled with apparent ease, and the book was wholly absorbing. I'm a sucker for protagonists who are writers, so I enjoyed that aspect with of the novel, as well as the themes it explored: controlling people, friendship, family, classism, narcissism, etc.

There was only one very tiny thing that didn't seem plausible and that was the protagonist not recognizing an element from one of her own books. While it is believable that a writer would perhaps forget plot details, I just couldn't accept that she would've forgotten this particular thing, and it's still not clear to me why she even needed to temporarily forget. Perhaps someone out there can enlighten me...?

“[b:The Night She Disappeared 55922299 The Night She Disappeared Lisa Jewell https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1628703473l/55922299.SY75.jpg 87068692]” by [a:Lisa Jewell 93504 Lisa Jewell https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1657723367p2/93504.jpg] was a truly suspenseful read! Tallulah, 19, mother to baby Noah, and her boyfriend Zach of the same age vanish without a trace. Left behind is Tallulah's mother Kim who takes care of Noah.In three narrated time strands we get to better understand what happened in the eponymous night - in one from Tallulah's point of view, in another from that of her mother Kim who cannot rest until her child is at least found and in the final strand we get to accompany mystery writer Sophie who literally unearths the key to the entire mystery...A mansion with a secret tunnel, a boarding school for “difficult” pupils, a new head teacher, an illustrious but shady prominent family - what could possibly go wrong in a novel with these ingredients!?And, in fact, almost nothing does: Every character feels real and convincing - up to and including the dog. The atmosphere shifts between village peace and harmony, the fore-boding and - in the present time - uninhabited mansion as well as Sophie's curiosity when she digs deeper into the mystery; they all work very well and made this book into one I didn't want to put down.There are a few loose ends, though, which I think would have been nice to get closure on - from the burnt odour in Sophie's cottage which we hear about several times but never get to the bottom of to the unresolved relationships issues between Sophie and Shaun to, last but not least, the strange behaviour of Megs, Zach's mother.All in all, a suspenseful mystery. Four out of five stars.Blog Facebook Twitter Instagram Pinterest Medium Matrix TumblrCeterum censeo Putin esse delendam