The Reappearance of Rachel Price by
Holly Jackson
My rating:
4 of 5 stars
* This review will have major spoilers. If you don't want spoilers, don't read.*
This book surprised me in a good way - I couldn't put it down once I started it and finished it in less than 24 hours.
Bel went through some intense and crazy things during this novel. Her life has always been weird with her mother disappearing out of thing air and leaving Bel in a running car in February when she was 2. And then to stir everything up again, a documentary about her mother's disappearance. Only for her mother to mysterious come back after being missing for 16 years. A lot of coincidence that Bel wasn't believing for one bit.
I loved how quick Bel was to find clues and lies, but then also be so oblivious to other things right in front of her face. She was so determined she was right that she couldn't look at the one person in her own house for the past 16 years.
To find out her father, Charlie, blackmailed HIS father, Patrick, to kill his wife, Rachel, is just... a lot to process. That Bel's grandfather kept her mother prisoner in his property for 16 years, and her father wanting to kill her mother because she wasn't under his thumb? Again, blown away. I knew things weren't as they seemed when they were being revealed in this book, but I never guessed it was that twisted and webbed together in the Price family to make Rachel disappear. That takes brains and power and guts and it's a bit scary to think about that manipulation.
But also Charlie? To want to kill his wife because she wasn't getting gaslighted by him anymore? That's craziness. The fact he's gotten away with manipulating everyone in his family. To the fact his brother Jeff said Charlie is what keeps this family running. That's definitely an extraordinary power running through Charlie knowing he has that control over so many people.
So yes this book had me hook, line and sinker. I needed to know how it all ended because it was an amazing novel that kept me guessing from page to page. I really enjoyed it and I'm really glad I read it!
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