Then She Was Gone by Lisa Jewell
Genre: Psychological Thriller
Read: 26th May 2018
Purchase: Amazon
★★★★★ 5 stars
I really don't know what else I can say about this book that hasn't already been said. It is a fantastic psychological thriller. Brilliant. Heart-stopping. And yet sad.
Ellie is 15 years old when she disappears on her way to the library one day, and thus begins a frantic search for her - to no avail. Ten years later, there is still no clues as to her whereabouts and what exactly happened to her. Though it became fairly obvious early on what happened - or rather, where she disappeared to - it is from then on we get the slow unravel of WHY? As the book is told from various perspectives - from third to first and then back to third person again - we begin to form a picture...but not until Laurel meets Floyd and his 9 year old daughter Poppy. Pretty soon after that I suspected what had happened, but without the finer details at this point which all began to fall into place the further I read on.
This book delves into the life of a family torn apart by the disappearance and/or death of a child/sibling and just how it affects and changes the family dynamics. Laurel pretty much loses her family, what is left of it, as she falls apart in the wake of Ellie's disappearance. She stops being a mother and a wife and merely becomes a shell of a person who can't function without her daughter - the apple of everyone's eye. To see a parent react like to just one of their childrens' disappearance it must be so devastating to the remaining children and the spouse to witness the affect it has on them - kind of making them feel somewhat less important. I mean, in Laurel's dialogue in the book she even secretly says to herself of her eldest daughter "It should have been you, not Ellie." I mean, she didn't have to say it out loud, I'm sure Hanna felt those vibes off of her mother - and that would have been incredibly devastating to feel that your mother loved your sister more and wish it had been you and not her that disappeared. That's cold. While I couldn't really warm to Hanna (as the perspective we got of her was really Laurel's) I could feel her pain at having lived through that. Is is any wonder she had closed herself off from her mother. Within 3 years of Ellie's disappearance, Laurel's family had fallen apart. Her remaining children both moved out of home, putting enough distance between them and her, and she and her husband divorced. By 10 years later, from all accounts, Laurel was pretty much a lonely person. But instead of falling back on her family and them sticking together through such a devastating ordeal, she turned her backs on them as if she were the only one feeling the loss because she was her mother; she had given birth to her. But that didn't make their pain any less real. The dynamics explored here were both revealing and painful.
In the early days of Ellie's disappearance, I began to wonder and suspect. Then when my suspicions were confirmed and then 10 years later Laurel meets Floyd and Poppy -a light bulb goes off in my head and I think "THAT'S IT!" I began turning the pages as quick as I could read them to reach the point where my further suspicions were confirmed and it is then we learnt the finer details of Ellie's disappearance.
The ending? I loved the Epilogue. That was a wonderful finish. Even after all that had happened to her, Ellie got the last word. She got to tell what was essentially HER STORY.
This is my first Lisa Jewel book and it sure won't be my last. A brilliant read. A must for fans of this genre!
Ellie is 15 years old when she disappears on her way to the library one day, and thus begins a frantic search for her - to no avail. Ten years later, there is still no clues as to her whereabouts and what exactly happened to her. Though it became fairly obvious early on what happened - or rather, where she disappeared to - it is from then on we get the slow unravel of WHY? As the book is told from various perspectives - from third to first and then back to third person again - we begin to form a picture...but not until Laurel meets Floyd and his 9 year old daughter Poppy. Pretty soon after that I suspected what had happened, but without the finer details at this point which all began to fall into place the further I read on.
This book delves into the life of a family torn apart by the disappearance and/or death of a child/sibling and just how it affects and changes the family dynamics. Laurel pretty much loses her family, what is left of it, as she falls apart in the wake of Ellie's disappearance. She stops being a mother and a wife and merely becomes a shell of a person who can't function without her daughter - the apple of everyone's eye. To see a parent react like to just one of their childrens' disappearance it must be so devastating to the remaining children and the spouse to witness the affect it has on them - kind of making them feel somewhat less important. I mean, in Laurel's dialogue in the book she even secretly says to herself of her eldest daughter "It should have been you, not Ellie." I mean, she didn't have to say it out loud, I'm sure Hanna felt those vibes off of her mother - and that would have been incredibly devastating to feel that your mother loved your sister more and wish it had been you and not her that disappeared. That's cold. While I couldn't really warm to Hanna (as the perspective we got of her was really Laurel's) I could feel her pain at having lived through that. Is is any wonder she had closed herself off from her mother. Within 3 years of Ellie's disappearance, Laurel's family had fallen apart. Her remaining children both moved out of home, putting enough distance between them and her, and she and her husband divorced. By 10 years later, from all accounts, Laurel was pretty much a lonely person. But instead of falling back on her family and them sticking together through such a devastating ordeal, she turned her backs on them as if she were the only one feeling the loss because she was her mother; she had given birth to her. But that didn't make their pain any less real. The dynamics explored here were both revealing and painful.
In the early days of Ellie's disappearance, I began to wonder and suspect. Then when my suspicions were confirmed and then 10 years later Laurel meets Floyd and Poppy -a light bulb goes off in my head and I think "THAT'S IT!" I began turning the pages as quick as I could read them to reach the point where my further suspicions were confirmed and it is then we learnt the finer details of Ellie's disappearance.
The ending? I loved the Epilogue. That was a wonderful finish. Even after all that had happened to her, Ellie got the last word. She got to tell what was essentially HER STORY.
This is my first Lisa Jewel book and it sure won't be my last. A brilliant read. A must for fans of this genre!
