Here and Gone by Haylen Beck

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Goodreads Summary


*NO SPOILERS*


Here and Gone is an alluring tale of a mother’s struggle to reclaim her children from backwards cops while fighting off self-doubts and the public’s condemnation. Overall, I liked Here and Gone. This book is a nice change from my usual reading genres, but I had a few problems with some of the logic in this book. I’m new to reading mysteries/thrillers so I haven’t yet trained my brain to not point out all of the steps not taken to solve the murder/mystery. For example, why don’t people use lie detectors or drug tests to figure out if a suspect really is a suspect? Ignoring these things, I really enjoyed the author’s writing style even though this book took a while to pick up action wise. I was expecting something to blow up or some gun fights right off the bat, but I forgot you also have to tell a story. This being a new experience for me, I think I was expecting more than what the author could give me. I really liked most aspects of this book though, Audra was a believable character and I felt that all of her actions were just. She didn’t do anything that made me think it was over the top like some characters in other mediums (TV shows). I also really liked how the author wrote the relationships between the characters, there was a lot of emotions and connection that I felt were life-like. I can’t tell if this story was exactly original, per se, because I haven’t really read any other book in this category, but I will say I liked the possibility of this being true. Something like this could actually happen in today’s society (and probably does) and it is scary to think about. The predictability in this story kept throwing me for loops, one minute I would think I had everything figured out and the next my assumptions would be totally wrong. I liked that about this book, and was surprised it could throw me off like that because I like to think I know everything 😉. Two things on my grading scale that wasn’t up to par, Emotions and relatability. I am not a mother so therefore could not imagine what it must have been like for our main character Audra, therefore I would consider the relatability and emotions categories void. This book didn’t make me cry or laugh or make my heart race, and I was a little disappointed that it didn’t. The cover was pretty okay too, I guess I can award a few bonus points for the cover's tie in with the story and cool font. Despite the minor issues I had, this book was a nice change of pace that I enjoyed reading!





*SPOILER ALERT*


Firstly, I want to say Mrs. Gerber was my favorite character, even though her revelation that she killed her husband had me saying WHAT?? I liked the way she switched sides and ended up helping Audra. I also would like to point out that Sean was super smart. Like an 11-year-old helping his sister survive was pretty brave in the face of danger and panic. Color me impressed with his level head and skill, and no, I didn’t think that his actions were unreasonable for a kid in his situation. Although, I do hate that he had to grow up so soon. One problem I had with the characters was Danny, he seemed like a flat character that only cared for revenge. I wish we had gotten to see more in terms of his character development. In my opinion Patrick and his mom were sociopaths that had no feelings and were truly horrible people. That is all I want to say on that topic because thinking about what he did makes me sick. So now for my last observation, if this situation has happened before (with Danny’s family) and it was national news, why was no one suspicious or even remotely concerned when a situation EXACTLY LIKE IT popped up on the news again? If you have an answer let me know.


*DISCLAIMER*
In accordance with FTC guidelines regarding endorsements and testimonials for bloggers, I would like my readers to know that this book was provided for me for free by the website Blogging for Books in exchange for an honest review. I am in no way compensated for this review.


For more info on the book visit the site: http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/551393/here-and-gone-by-haylen-beck/


For more info on the author visit the site: http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/authors/2145392/haylen-beck/

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