Review: Six Months Later by Natalie D. Richards

Title:  Six Months Later
Author: Natalie D. Richards

Publisher:  Sourcebooks Fire 
Publishing Date: October 1st 2013

Pages: 326
Genre:  YA Mystery Thriller

Series: Stand Alone
Source:  ARC 

 
  

She has everything she's ever wanted. But not her memory...
When Chloe fell asleep in study hall, it was the middle of May. When she wakes up, snow is on the ground and she can't remember the last six months of her life.

Before, she'd been a mediocre student. Now, she's on track for valedictorian and being recruited by Ivy League schools. Before, she never had a chance with super jock Blake. Now he's her boyfriend. Before, she and Maggie were inseparable. Now her best friend won't speak to her.
What happened to her? Remembering the truth could be more dangerous than she knows...

This was a book with a real bang. Non-stop from start to finish, intense, amazing main character, and awesome writing. I couldn’t read the book fast enough and couldn’t stop thinking about it when I couldn’t read it. Every spare moment I had, I was reading. Loved every moment of the book. I will be gushing over this book for quite a while.



Chloe is a normal teenage girl making her way through school, has a best friend she hangs out with, and is pretty happy with her life. Everything changes the day she decides to pull a fire alarm at school and gets detention for the first time at the end of her junior year. In detention she falls asleep and when she wakes up, it’s 6 months later. She doesn’t remember anything, last she knew it was May. Not only does she wake up in a completely different month, but there is a boy she isn’t friends with in the room with her stating she called him… oh and the popular guy that she always crushed on is picking her because he is her boyfriend. Even more strange, her best friend will not answer her calls at all. Oh but wait.. it gets even stranger… she complete rocked her SATs, way beyond what she knew herself ever being capable of. Chloe tries to find a way to recover her lost memories and unearths a dangerous scheme going on at her school.


This book blew me away. I knew it sounded like something I would enjoy but I didn’t think I would adore it as much as I did. It was a complete page turner. The mystery was perfect for me. The big mystery was kind of easy to guess… at least part of it was for me. The who was not the problem, the how was the real mystery that I didn’t discover until the end. The why was obvious and so was the when. But the how was the real mystery for me.


The little mysteries in the book that slowly unraveled was really the thing that kept me so immersed within the story. The memory loss, the new friends, the boyfriend and the non boyfriend, and so on. Just enough was given in each chapter to make me want to keep on reading. This is the kind of mystery I love. The pacing was just right for me. Mysteries generally grab me before other books do, it is my favorite genre, but if the pacing isn’t good I give up. I need to be pulled in and held strongly. This book did just that. The two most important things for me in a mystery are pacing and guessing. This one was just right on both.


I really liked the main character, Chloe. She was easy to form a connection too. I completely enjoyed living her life and finding the missing pieces with her. Since she couldn't remember the last six months or the changes in her life and personality, I was able to watch her grow into a completely new person. Chloe not remembering anything from the last six months off course made the missing six months ever more mysterious. Chloe wasn't in a coma, she lived her life as normal except for the major changes... like becoming a genius, snagging her major crush, losing her best friend, and somehow forming some kind of relationship with the local bad boy. Yeah she did it real good. When it came to finding out the truth and taking her life back, s he was a very determined and strong person. Persistence and snooping was her friend and her enemy but she dealt with it with great awesomeness. She was flawed but in a realistic way and that made her even better because there was some growth to be had by the end.

The romance in the book was very sweet too. It had the passion of new love but throughout the story it was obvious there was more to it then new love. There are two boys in the picture but it was not a love triangle. There was a definite boy she should of been with and one she should have ran from... as fast as possible. It was of course a bit more involved and complicated but it all made sense in the end.


The book was more than just a mystery to me. It had a realistic issue feel with a bit of a sci-fi edge. I really do love it when books make a big leap into crossing genres. This one did an excellent job and it made this book suck me in even more.




This one made my top mystery list of the year and I hope there is more coming from this author.

Natalie D. Richards won her first writing competition in the second grade with her short story about Barbara Frances Bizzlefishes (who wouldn't dare do the dishes.) She later misplaced her writing dreams in a maze of cubicles and general office drudgery. Natalie never forgot about Barbara or those dishes, and eventually she found her way back to storytelling, following the genre of her heart, teen fiction. When she's not writing or shopping her manuscripts, you can probably find her wading through the towers of dog-eared paperbacks that have taken over her bedroom. Natalie lives in Ohio with her amazing husband and their three children, who inspire her every day to stick with her dreams.