Review: Vanishing Girls by Lauren Oliver

Title: Vanishing Girls

Author: Lauren Oliver 

Publisher: 

Publishing Date: 

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Source: Audio

  

Dara and Nick used to be inseparable, but that was before the accident that left Dara's beautiful face scarred and the two sisters totally estranged. When Dara vanishes on her birthday, Nick thinks Dara is just playing around. But another girl, nine-year-old Madeline Snow, has vanished, too, and Nick becomes increasingly convinced that the two disappearances are linked. Now Nick has to find her sister, before it's too late.

In this edgy and compelling novel, Lauren Oliver creates a world of intrigue, loss, and suspicion as two sisters search to find themselves, and each other.

I enjoyed this read. It wasn't quite what I expected but I liked it. I went into this book for the mystery and yes there was mystery but that wasn't really what the book was, a mystery. It felt and read more like a realistic fiction and I think that many readers who read realistic fiction will enjoy this book too. I didn't quite get what I was expecting but I still liked the book. 

Dara and Nick are sisters not even a year apart, they are close, they do lot of things together. A car crash changes everything. The sisters no longer speak. Nick is miserable, and Dara plays the avoiding game and then the disappearing game. Nick sets out to find her and discovers many truths... about a missing little girl, her sister's avoidance and disappearance, and even a bit about herself. 

I really truly was not prepared for this book. I went into the read expecting a mystery and yes there was mystery but it was so much more. It had a realistic fiction feel. I wasn't expecting this but I liked it. I actually loved the tone and the writing style. I was curious from the very beginning and had a real need to fix the characters and find out the truth. 

The characters were annoying at times but after what has happened in their lives I really didn't expect anything more out of them. They were pretty screwed up. I didn't particularly like them but I connected with them. It was more of a "I want to slap you connection" but I enjoyed disliking them. I felt that in the end something would come out their issues and I was right. In the end there was growth and there was hope. SO I enjoyed my relationship with the characters. 

I did not enjoy the parents involvement in this book. There was so much going on and so little being address by the parents. I know this was a ya book and parents aren't always involved, but I feel that this book thy should have been. It was a story about family, loss, secrets, and some pretty dark stuff. I think parents needed to be involved. 

I loved the story. The story was good and I was a bit disappointed I figured out the mystery out before it was revealed. Of course this book had more than one mystery. That was one of the great things about this story. I only figured out one mystery, the others not so much. This story was, in a way, three stories intertwined. It was told in pieces from present and past. I love these stories, It adds so much. I also loved the blog entries, journal entries, and news stories that were added to pieces the story together. It flowed very well. 

The only piece of this journey that really held me back was the main mystery, figuring it out early brought down just a tad for me. I liked the story, enjoyed it very much but I think I would have been wowed if I hadn't picked up on the things that gave it away.

I liked it,  A well done story that was beautifully written.

Lauren Oliver comes from a family of writers and so has always (mistakenly) believed that spending hours in front of the computer every day, mulling over the difference between “chortling” and “chuckling,” is normal. She has always been an avid reader.
She attended the University of Chicago, where she continued to be as impractical as possible by majoring in philosophy and literature. After college, she attended the MFA program at NYU and worked briefly as the world’s worst editorial assistant, and only marginally better assistant editor, at a major publishing house in New York. Her major career contributions during this time were flouting the corporate dress code at every possible turn and repeatedly breaking the printer. Before I Fall is her first published novel.She is deeply grateful for the chance to continue writing, as she has never been particularly good at anything else.