I've been reading a lot of books lately, and I'll be honest: I've hit kind of a slump in the sense that most of my recent reads have been pretty mediocre. That is, until I read Vanishing Girls. It was just the edge-of-your-seat exciting thriller that I was hoping for. It managed to pull me out of my recent reading rut and made me hopeful of what the other books that I have yet to read might have in store.
Vanishing Girls is narrated from the perspective of two sisters, Dara and Nick. Although once very close, a car accident that left Dara injured has rendered their relationship tempestuous, with Dara and Nick avoiding each other as much as possible. Meanwhile Madeline Snow, a young girl, has gone missing in their hometown. Nick's suspicions surrounding a possible connection between Madeline's disappearance and her sister are aroused when Dara goes missing as well. Nick then sets out to discover the truth to the secrets surrounding the disappearance of both Madeline and her sister.
To begin my review, I just want to quickly say that the one minor issue I had with this book was the changing point of views that were used to narrate the story. I found myself having to flip back to previous pages to figure out who was who, and to a degree it rendered Vanishing Girls to be a bit confusing. However, I can appreciate what Oliver was attempting to do by writing the story from different viewpoints, and I think it was a creative direction to take the book in. However, it might take a second read-through to really grasp and make sense of the story line of Vanishing Girls because of the numerous point of view changes.
Getting into the elements that really made me like this book, I'll begin by saying that it does a great job of mixing genres. There are strong elements of teenage angst, sibling and familial relationships, romance, mystery, psychological thriller, and it's surprisingly not too much. All of these genres are bundled together really well within the pages of Vanishing Girls. I particularly enjoy when a book can pull this off, as I often get bored with books that are clearly just focusing on mystery, or just on romance, for example. A second positive thing going for this book is its deftness at capturing characters with a lot of layers; that is, complex and occasionally conflicting personalities that are not one-note. The two sisters, Dara and Nick, are especially skillfully created by the author and their shifting emotions make them seem more real to the reader. This also creates a very complex yet strong bond between the two sisters, which is clearly evident. Lastly, I want to make note of this book's surprise ending. I obviously will not say anything specific as I don't want to spoil Vanishing Girls for any potential readers out there, but I'll just say that I was caught by surprise and it made the book even that much more layered and complex. In retrospect the book makes a lot more sense knowing how it ends, but until the twist was revealed I did not see it coming at all.
To conclude my review, I feel that Vanishing Girls is an exemplary psychological thriller. It not only has all of the required elements of one, but goes beyond this by having complex and interesting characters and a twist ending that I, at least, was not expecting at all. I would strongly recommend this book, especially if you are a lover of mysteries and thrillers like myself.
Author: Lauren Oliver
Genre: Psychological thriller/mystery/YA
Vanishing Girls is narrated from the perspective of two sisters, Dara and Nick. Although once very close, a car accident that left Dara injured has rendered their relationship tempestuous, with Dara and Nick avoiding each other as much as possible. Meanwhile Madeline Snow, a young girl, has gone missing in their hometown. Nick's suspicions surrounding a possible connection between Madeline's disappearance and her sister are aroused when Dara goes missing as well. Nick then sets out to discover the truth to the secrets surrounding the disappearance of both Madeline and her sister.
To begin my review, I just want to quickly say that the one minor issue I had with this book was the changing point of views that were used to narrate the story. I found myself having to flip back to previous pages to figure out who was who, and to a degree it rendered Vanishing Girls to be a bit confusing. However, I can appreciate what Oliver was attempting to do by writing the story from different viewpoints, and I think it was a creative direction to take the book in. However, it might take a second read-through to really grasp and make sense of the story line of Vanishing Girls because of the numerous point of view changes.
Getting into the elements that really made me like this book, I'll begin by saying that it does a great job of mixing genres. There are strong elements of teenage angst, sibling and familial relationships, romance, mystery, psychological thriller, and it's surprisingly not too much. All of these genres are bundled together really well within the pages of Vanishing Girls. I particularly enjoy when a book can pull this off, as I often get bored with books that are clearly just focusing on mystery, or just on romance, for example. A second positive thing going for this book is its deftness at capturing characters with a lot of layers; that is, complex and occasionally conflicting personalities that are not one-note. The two sisters, Dara and Nick, are especially skillfully created by the author and their shifting emotions make them seem more real to the reader. This also creates a very complex yet strong bond between the two sisters, which is clearly evident. Lastly, I want to make note of this book's surprise ending. I obviously will not say anything specific as I don't want to spoil Vanishing Girls for any potential readers out there, but I'll just say that I was caught by surprise and it made the book even that much more layered and complex. In retrospect the book makes a lot more sense knowing how it ends, but until the twist was revealed I did not see it coming at all.
To conclude my review, I feel that Vanishing Girls is an exemplary psychological thriller. It not only has all of the required elements of one, but goes beyond this by having complex and interesting characters and a twist ending that I, at least, was not expecting at all. I would strongly recommend this book, especially if you are a lover of mysteries and thrillers like myself.
Author: Lauren Oliver
Genre: Psychological thriller/mystery/YA
Pages: 357
Year Published: 2015
My Rating: ★★★★☆
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