Review: See Jane Run by Hannah Jayne

Title:  See Jane Run 

Author: Hannah Jayne

Publisher:  Sourcebooks Fire
Publishing Date: January 7th 2014

Pages: 288
Genre:  YA Mystery/Thriller

Series: Stand Alone
Source:  Digital ARC 

  

I know who you are.

When Riley first gets the postcard tucked into her bag, she thinks it's a joke. Then she finds a birth certificate for a girl named Jane Elizabeth O'Leary hidden inside her baby book.

Riley's parents have always been pretty overprotective. What if it wasn't for her safety...but fear of her finding out their secret? What have they been hiding? The more Riley digs for answers, the more questions she has.

The only way to know the truth? Find out what happened to Jane O'Leary.

I love a great thriller. I really had some high hopes for this book, the summary didn’t give too much away but sounded interesting enough. The title is what really grabbed me and the cover was pretty cool too. I enjoyed the book enough to say it wasn’t a waste of time. The book did keep me interested enough to keep reading, I really wanted to know how it would end. The story was lacking a bit on the mystery and suspense for me and the I didn’t connect with any of the characters.

The synopsis pretty much covers it. Riley is junior in High School. Her class is taking a trip to a college she is interested in, one her father attended. Before going she is rummaging through boxes in her parents room for a college sweatshirt and finds a birth certificate that isn’t hers. It’s for Jane Elizabeth O’Leary. Riley starts to wonder who this Jane is and decides to figure out, Along the way she figures out secrets lie within her family and danger lurks around the corner.

I think this book had a lot of potential . The story was there but wasn’t executed well. I loved the story, but I think it was meant to be more of a mystery thriller and it didn’t quite hit that mark for me. For the most part, the mystery was pretty easy to figure out from the very beginning. The how and why were very easy to detect, the who was a bit more difficult but not enough to make the story unpredictable. There were some very thrilling and creepy parts. Those kept me going for the most part. It didn’t lack in the fast paced thrills or the creep factor.

I really liked how fast paced the book was, but I think there could have been put into the story. There were basically two mysteries to solve and for the most part it was pretty much figured out by the middle of the book. The other half of the book was a more of a long sequence of thrills. There is a fine line in writing a fast paced book without lacking in other aspects, like the character building.

I didn’t connect with any of the characters. I didn’t care much for the main character but I didn’t dislike her either. She was just there. Instead of really making an impact, she just existed for the story to be there. I rooted for her, I hoped she would figure things out and wouldn’t get herself in any danger, but I wasn’t able to really feel for her. She was a bit too dumb for my taste too. I felt all the answers to her questions were right there and any amateur detective could have been able to figure them out and if not there were people to question, such as her parents. Riley was more concerned with her parents outrage that she went through her stuff than whose birth certificate she found. Didn’t seem very logical to me.

The secondary characters lacked too, although I did like J.D. He seemed like a real caring and genuine guy, but there just wasn’t enough of him. His story didn’t even come up until the very end and it was about 2 paragraphs long. Riley’s parents really drove me nuts. They weren’t very realistic to me and I had a hard time buying into their reasoning for their actions.

A very fast read that was intriguing enough to keep me reading , but not enough to make the book memorable.