Review:

When a teenager vanishes from her Adirondack summer camp, two worlds collide

Early morning, August 1975: a camp counselor discovers an empty bunk. Its occupant, Barbara Van Laar, has gone missing. Barbara isn’t just any thirteen-year-old: she’s the daughter of the family that owns the summer camp and employs most of the region’s residents. And this isn’t the first time a Van Laar child has disappeared. Barbara’s older brother similarly vanished fourteen years ago, never to be found.

As a panicked search begins, a thrilling drama unfolds. Chasing down the layered secrets of the Van Laar family and the blue-collar community working in its shadow,

Rating:

Review:

This book was one of the biggest examples of “everyone loved it but me” that I have ever seen. EVERYONE loves this book. It feels like everyone on the planet has rated this one five stars. And I hated it. I stopped about 40% of the way through because I just couldn’t wait for something to happen anymore.

I would tell you what happened in this book but I can’t. Because nothing actually happened. There are 1, 001 characters and we get to hear all of their POVs. And some of them even have multiple names, oh joy! I was so confused. All of the characters seemed exactly the same and I had no idea who was who. I hoped that we’d get past the constantly shifting POV to some actual story but alas, all that happened was to add in another timeline too. I had the most difficult time following along of any other book I’ve ever read. And there’s a lot of meandering in this plot that doesn’t accomplish anything.

After about 8 hours of nonsense I asked myself if I was willing to listen to this for 10 more hours. And I quickly decided that I was not willing to do that. So, I Googled the ending. It didn’t get better, but I saved myself a bunch of time.