Thank you to Tor Teen and NetGalley for sending me an electronic copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
A dark, romantic YA suspense novel with an SF edge and plenty of drama, layering the secrets we keep and how appearances can deceive, from the New York Times bestselling author.
In this tiny, terrifying town, the lost are never found. When Araceli Flores Harper is sent to live with her great-aunt Ottilie in her ramshackle Victorian home, the plan is simple. She’ll buckle down and get ready for college. Life won’t be exciting, but she’ll cope, right?
Wrong. From the start, things are very, very wrong. Her great-aunt still leaves food for the husband who went missing twenty years ago, and local businesses are plastered with MISSING posters. There are unexplained lights in the woods and a mysterious lab just beyond the city limits that the locals don’t talk about. Ever. When she starts receiving mysterious letters that seem to be coming from the past, she suspects someone of pranking her or trying to drive her out of her mind. To solve these riddles and bring the lost home again, Araceli must delve into a truly diabolical conspiracy, but some secrets fight to stay buried… (Goodreads)
Good Story, but the pacing could have been better
This story sort of felt like it wanted to be Stranger Things, and I’m not saying that’s bad, but it did sort of throw me for a loop. At the start of the book, you can tell something strange is going on. Honestly, I probably should have figured it out sooner than I did, but the story was good, if not a little slow in parts. The end sort of hits you and while I did feel like it was a little fast, everything does get tied up nicely.
I did really like Araceli. She was maybe a little too resourceful at times, but I can overlook that. I did feel like most to the secondary characters, were very secondary. Even Oliver and Logan who I should have known best still seemed like mysteries at the end of the book.
If you are looking for an interesting read with a kick-ass female lead, you should pick this one up.
Overall Rating: 3.5