The Reappearance of Rachel Price by Holly Jackson
Publication Date: April 2, 2024
Summary from NetGalley:
Lights. Camera. Lies.
Eighteen-year-old Bel has lived her whole life in the shadow of her mom’s mysterious disappearance. Sixteen years ago, Rachel Price vanished and young Bel was the only witness, but she has no memory of it. Rachel is gone, long presumed dead, and Bel wishes everyone would just move on.
But the case is dredged up from the past when the Price family agrees to a true crime documentary. Bel can’t wait for filming to end, for life to go back to normal. And then the impossible happens. Rachel Price reappears, and life will never be normal again.
Rachel has an unbelievable story about what happened to her. Unbelievable, because Bel isn’t sure it’s real. If Rachel is lying, then where has she been all this time? And—could she be dangerous? With the cameras still rolling, Bel must uncover the truth about her mother, and find out why Rachel Price really came back from the dead . . .
From world-renowned author Holly Jackson comes a mind-blowing masterpiece about one girl’s search for the truth, and the terror in finding out who your family really is.
ARC provided by Random House via NetGalley for an honest review.
Confession:
This was such a dark and twisty tale about family and trust. It is also a very well written mystery thriller that will keep you guessing until the end. I didn’t exactly like any of the characters, but I could sympathize with them and hope that things turned out ok for them. I have read many books with dysfunctional families but I think this one takes the prize as the worst.
Bel is the sole narrator of the story and while I didn’t exactly like her, I could feel for her and sympathize with everything she went through growing up. It is hard to grow up without a mother, but it would be even harder when you don’t know what happened to her. She is pretty smart and clever, but she begins to doubt herself as she finds it harder and harder to get people to believe her suspicions about Rachel. She also is quite lonely as she tends to push everyone away eventually before they can leave her. She has no friends except for her cousin Carter, who I adored.
There is a great supporting cast of characters, both likable and not. I adored Carter, and even from the beginning we know things are not ok with her, but it is not entirely clear what is exactly wrong. But she is the sunshine to Bel’s storms and I loved their relationship. Ash is the sort of romantic interest in the story. He and Bel had a wonderful chemistry and he certainly saw through her tough exterior. Rachel was another character I never fully trusted, but I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt and believe that she had Bel’s best interest at heart.
Bel’s family, consisting of her dad, uncle and aunt, Carter and a grandfather, was pretty dysfunctional from the get go. On the surface they seemed perfectly normal, but as the story progressed you can see the cracks in the foundation and how quickly it crumbled by the end of the story. There is a scene where they have a family dinner, for the documentary, and that is when you really begin to see how dysfunctional this family really is, and how quickly things spiral out of control.
I don’t want to give the plot away, but except for a slow start to the story, it was pretty riveting. I really wanted to know what had happened to Rachel and whether or not she was telling the truth. I really enjoyed the documentary aspect of the story and some of the ethical questions it brought up. Ramsey, the director, was an interesting character, and he did his best to tell the truth about Rachel while still protecting Bel’s privacy. My only complaint is that the motive for Rachel’s disappearance was a little weak, and where she was all those years was slightly implausible. But other than that I was totally riveted by this story.
If you loved the Good Girl’s Guide to Murder series, you are going to love this one as well. If you have not read any books by Holly Jackson then this standalone will be an excellent place to start. Highly recommend to all who love a riveting tale of family secrets with a very twisty plot.
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