There has been a LOT of hype surrounding this book, and I was waiting with bated breath for its availability at my local library. It might have been this and due to the myriad reviews that ranged from interesting to gushing that I had extremely high hopes when I started it and this might have doomed the situation. It did not live up to the hype for me.
It is a story of two sisters. One found dead and another missing at the start of our story, a year after the death. The journey the elder sister Sadie takes is told in alternating chapters and in between, we have a podcast (and the narrator of the podcast) trying to retrace those same steps. There have been a lot of reviews that talk about how good the audiobook was and I can get how that might be a better way to read the book. Although it is an interesting format to see the dialogue of the podcast, the conversations on the phone and the monologue of the narrator in the script form, it was not that easy to get involved. The script format kept me apart from the narrative and I found it hard to feel for the people. It was easy to empathize with Sadie to an extent despite the sheer idiocy of her quest.
Do not get me wrong, I did not dislike the book. It has its moments of tense situations, is well written and has some good characters (also bad ones, but that is the point) but I did not get that thrill that everyone else was talking about. I still recommend it to readers of YA as a well-written drama and partial thriller.
Superfluous Reading 