Then You Were Gone

Adrienne's relationship with childhood best friend Dakota dissolved years ago. But out of the blue she receives a cryptic, alarming voicemail from Dakota -- and then Dakota is gone. A highly public investigation begins, and the teen's disappearance is presumed a suicide. Adrienne isn't so sure, and her feelings about the case are complicated. The confusion, guilt, grief, and denial start to wear on the life she's built post-Dakota: she stops doing schoolwork, she emotionally retreats from her loving boyfriend and friends, and her dress even changes, as she wears mostly black and dramatic eye makeup. This disarray builds steadily, and eventually she feels "exhaustingly blank, as if someone wiggled up inside me and sucked out my soul with a vacuum cleaner." Strasnick writes in tense, staccato prose that feels increasingly frantic as Adrienne spirals down deeper and investigates the disappearance with Dakota's (hot) ex-boyfriend. Adrienne's choppy, fragmented narration combines with the breakneck pace of the plot to keep readers scrambling through the pages for answers. There are salacious twists that are both entertaining and satisfying, but the resolution isn't entirely complete -- we learn just enough to make us understand Adrienne's obsessive behavior, but are left with some mysteries to deduce ourselves. Here is a lightning-quick read that's also a suspenseful emotional ride. katrina hedeen