Hello everyone!
I am back with another review, today it is Gone Without a Trace by Mary Torjussen. Thanks so much to Penguin Random House for providing me with a copy of this book for an honest review, as always, all opinions are my own.
The story follows Hannah, a thirty-something accountant who is on her way to becoming a director at her firm and has a great relationship with her boyfriend of four years, Matt. But one night, Hannah comes home to find Matt gone. And not only is he gone, but his stuff is gone too. And his number is deleted from her phone, emails erased, photos deleted. There is literally no sign that Matt was in Hannah's life, let alone any explanation as to why he left. Humiliated, Hannah decides to track him down to figure out what happened. Soon her search turns to near madness. She begins to feel like someone is messing with her. Random calls from numbers she doesn't recognize, flowers that were dying in the morning are back to life at night. Someone has been in her house. As Hannah's life falls apart, she tries to figure out why this is happening, especially to her.
I don't want to say too much because I want to keep this as spoiler free as possible, so I think I will leave the synopsis at that.
On a more general note, I really loved how Torjussen flipped the traditional storyline. Thrillers, especially psychological thrillers, have seen a lot of action in the last few years and the genre is getting bogged down with a lot of girls doing things (riding on trains, going away, etc.) but with this novel, Torjussen changes that. In more ways than one, she switches the typical male and female dynamic. Hannah, the girlfriend, is left behind after the boyfriend disappears. This added a really refreshing change of pace to the story that I appreciated greatly. We see more of this at the end of the novel but SPOILERS!
Torjussen also does a great job of creating a very atmospheric read. It's been a long time since a thriller had me looking over my shoulder. I felt really well connected with the story and its characters throughout, especially when things got tense in the novel.
There was a bit of predictability with the novel, there were a few things that I had guessed early on in the story, but there were enough more major twists that the minor ones I guessed were just that, minor. I was right to not like certain characters right from the beginning but wrong about others. I do think that the major twist at the end, while unique and fairly well executed, was a bit out of the blue for me. I understand why she wasn't aware, but I think there should and could have been more signs to point in that direction. As it stood, it was just leaning on plausible for me and upon thinking more about it I like it a little less.
Overall, I think that the uniqueness and overall execution of this novel were very well done and I quite enjoyed the story.
I don't want to say too much because I want to keep this as spoiler free as possible, so I think I will leave the synopsis at that.
On a more general note, I really loved how Torjussen flipped the traditional storyline. Thrillers, especially psychological thrillers, have seen a lot of action in the last few years and the genre is getting bogged down with a lot of girls doing things (riding on trains, going away, etc.) but with this novel, Torjussen changes that. In more ways than one, she switches the typical male and female dynamic. Hannah, the girlfriend, is left behind after the boyfriend disappears. This added a really refreshing change of pace to the story that I appreciated greatly. We see more of this at the end of the novel but SPOILERS!
Torjussen also does a great job of creating a very atmospheric read. It's been a long time since a thriller had me looking over my shoulder. I felt really well connected with the story and its characters throughout, especially when things got tense in the novel.
There was a bit of predictability with the novel, there were a few things that I had guessed early on in the story, but there were enough more major twists that the minor ones I guessed were just that, minor. I was right to not like certain characters right from the beginning but wrong about others. I do think that the major twist at the end, while unique and fairly well executed, was a bit out of the blue for me. I understand why she wasn't aware, but I think there should and could have been more signs to point in that direction. As it stood, it was just leaning on plausible for me and upon thinking more about it I like it a little less.
Overall, I think that the uniqueness and overall execution of this novel were very well done and I quite enjoyed the story.