Rating: 3 / 5
After reading and enjoying SOMEBODY’S DAUGHTER by David Bell, I picked up a few more of his books. I picked up THE FORGOTTEN GIRL as part of the prompt to read a pair of books with title in direct opposition. In this case I picked two books based on knowing and (with this book) forgetting.
THE FORGOTTEN GIRL begins with Hayden showing up at her brother Jason’s door with her teenage daughter. She has a turbulent past with her family, but she’s now sober and working on making amends and cleaning up her past, but she needs Jason and his wife to watch over his daughter while she takes care of a few things. Jason agrees, but when Hayden doesn’t return Jason and his niece must try to find out what has happened.
Hayden’s disappearance isn’t the only blast from the past Jason is facing. When the search for Haden leads to the discovery of a body in the woods where his high school graduation party was held years ago is raising questions. That night led to a fight with his best friend over a girl with fists thrown and tears spilled and there are a lot of unanswered questions.
This was a fun quick read in terms of plot, though I didn’t find anything especially shocking along the way. I found most of the twists to be pretty predictable, though there were a few things I didn’t entirely see coming. Even though I wasn’t surprised, it was still an enjoyable read.
Where the book fell a bit flat for me was with the characters as I felt that they really could have been more fleshed out. There isn’t a lot of motivation behind their actions or feelings coming through in the pretty straight he said, she said dialogue. Even with Jason’s marriage in a rough patch and his high school crush back in his life, the tension of the relationships didn’t fully come through.
Overall this was a good, easy read but not one I’d necessarily recommend putting at the top of your TBR.
Reading Challenge Categories:
#AroundtheYearin52Books – two books that are related to each other as a pair of binary opposites
DG Reads 