Book Review: THE DAY I DISAPPEARED

Title: The Day I Disappeared

Author: Brandi Reeds

Publisher: Lake Union Publishing

Pages: 319

My GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

 

Holly Gebhardt was abducted at age four from the park, even as best friend Katherine (Kitten) Hershey watched, and their mothers chatted nearby. Three months later, she was found at the same park, with no memory of her ordeal.

On the statement of Kitten, local handyman Alan Kohlbrook was arrested and sentenced to jail, while Holly’s mother, Cecily, struggled to live down the allegation that she was somehow involved. The drinking habit, fast turning into an addiction, didn’t help matters.

Twenty years later, she’s trying to lead a normal life. On-off boyfriend Derrion Sterling won’t let her have any peace of mind, and Kitten is engaged to her boyfriend, Eliot.

When police officer Jason Guidry wants to pick Holly’s brain about her abduction 20 years ago, she doesn’t want to be reminded about the past. But it seems that a child named Skylar Jane Kipniss has been abducted, and Holly’s memories might help the police to find her. Cecily is in a coma after meeting with an accident.

 

The book is written in the first person past tense PoVs of Holly and Cecily, the latter’s thoughts awhirl while in a coma. It is both a mystery and women’s fiction, with a very slight paranormal element. The mystery lies not just in the identity of Holly’s kidnapper. It also has to do with her mother’s secrets.

The book highlights the situation of those mothers to whom mothering doesn’t come easy. It doesn’t come naturally to all of us. We’re not all meant to spend our lives performing puppet shows and building with blocks and coloring in books and singing nonsensical songs to entertain our offspring. We see how judgemental society, and even the other mothers, can be when a woman doesn’t fit the accepted mould of a doting mother. Cecily was right to call them mommy-vultures.

Right off, you know which way the romance with Derrion will go.

I found both Holly and Cecily very likeable. I didn’t like Kitten. She was selfish and self-centred, always wanting to be the focus of everyone’s attention, and over-dramatising her own situation.

The men in this story, Matt Hershey, Kitten’s much older brother; Derrion and Eliot, are all much older than the women. And you’ll figure out why that is so.

I found this book very well written and engaging. 

 

(I read this book on NetGalley. Thank you to the author, the publisher and NetGalley.)