About the Book:
Think twice before you swipe.
She met him through a dating app. An intriguing picture on a screen, a date at a downtown bar. What she thought might be just a quick hookup quickly became much more. She fell for him—hard. It happens sometimes, a powerful connection with a perfect stranger takes you by surprise. Could it be love?
But then, just as things were getting real, he stood her up. Then he disappeared—profiles deleted, phone disconnected. She was ghosted.
Maybe it was her fault. She shared too much, too fast. But isn’t that always what women think—that they’re the ones to blame? Soon she learns there were others. Girls who thought they were in love. Girls who later went missing. She had been looking for a connection, but now she’s looking for answers. Chasing a digital trail into his dark past—and hers—she finds herself on a dangerous hunt. And she’s not sure whether she’s the predator—or the prey.
My Review:
I loved the premise of this book: Wren, who is apparently trying to put a tortured past behind her, is “ghosted” by a man named Adam who she met online.
Wren and Adam fell for each other fast and hard. When he seemingly disappears without a trace, Wren makes it her mission to find him. She simply can’t accept that what they had together was not real. She was in love with him but soon the plot becomes very twisted. Is Wren the hunter or the prey?
I thought this book was going to be all about Wren seeking revenge for Adam’s web of lies or maybe even just finding a rational reason for why Adam disappeared from her life. Wren slowly begins to learn that everything he told her about his life was a complete lie. But the story began to develop in a very surprising and very ominous way. The plot is slow to develop but the conclusion was well worth the slow build.
I loved the multiple timelines in the book. Wren’s childhood was traumatic but the author slowly reveals what happened to Wren to cause her to close off from everyone emotionally. Her father was a “doomsday preppier” and Wren and her family lived off the grid due to his paranoia. This part of the novel was absolutely riveting to me. The narration by Vivienne Leheny was what drew me to his audiobook in the first place and she was the perfect voice for Wren.
I think what surprised me was the direction this book took at about the 75% mark. It almost became a different book at that point. The whole mood became very different from what the story started off with. I didn’t dislike it but it just seemed unsettling. However, I still kept listening because I had to find out what happened to Adam!
I also loved the author’s character development. Trauma, PTSD and recovery are all defy explored here. I also really loved Bailey, who provided some much needed lightness from the tension in the book. Bailey was such a strong character that I could definitely see a spin-off series for him.
I did not obsess over this story the way I did for ‘Confessions on the 7:45’ but I still enjoyed this thriller and applaud the author for her treatment of trauma victims and their recovery. This is a dark-ish thriller that I would still recommend, especially the audiobook. A very slow burn but worth it in the end.
