Where I Left Her by Amber Garza
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
**3.5-stars rounded up**
Whitney’s teenage daughter, Amelia, is at an especially difficult phase. She’s moody and secretive. Whitney hardly recognizes her sometimes.
Whitney tries her best to remain patient. Things have been challenging for them both since the divorce, since Amelia’s Dad moved to Europe with his new wife.
Recently, Amelia has stopped hanging out with her old friends in favor of a new friend, Lauren.
When Amelia asks if she can spend the night at Lauren’s house on the weekend, Whitney is definitely hesitant. She doesn’t know this girl’s parents and has always had a rule that she must know the family before sleepovers.
At this point though, Whitney is at wit’s end. She gives in. Amelia can stay at Lauren’s on one condition, that Whitney can drive her there and drop her off.
So, that’s what they do. Whitney really wants to walk Amelia to the front door, but Amelia is adamant that is not going to happen. Once they arrive at Lauren’s home, Whitney watches as her daughter walks up the front steps, is greeted by Lauren at the door and disappears inside.
The next day, after being unable to reach Amelia on her cell for several hours, Whitney returns to the home for pick-up.
She’s surprised when an elderly couple answers the door, claiming there are no teenage girls there. She must have the wrong house.
Initially, she’s embarrassed. She could have sworn this was the house, the one with the rose bushes out front, but truth be told, all the houses do sort of look the same.
Whitney leaves, drives around the neighborhood looking for anything familiar and ends up right back there. She knows this is the house. Something is very wrong.
She calls her best friend, she calls the police, she calls her ex-husband. They need to find Amelia.
From there, the Reader gets a front row seat to the drama as Whitney desperately searches for her missing daughter. All will be revealed, but we’ve got a long, bumpy road ahead.
After my experience with Garza’s 2020-novel, When I Was You, I was super stoked for this next release. Where I Left Her is an over-the-top, ridiculously far-fetched drama.
We love it. Okay, maybe not ‘we’, but I LOVE IT!!
I really vibe with Garza’s writing and this one totally sucked me in. It was crazy fun.
Once I started, I was completely invested 100%. Honestly, both Whitney and Amelia made me angry. They aren’t making the wisest choices, but no one makes the best choices all the time…
I had a lot of fun learning about Whitney’s past and how it may have come back to haunt her. It was quite intriguing the way Garza pieced it all together.
I would definitely recommend this, particularly if you’ve enjoyed Garza’s writing before.
Thank you so much to the publisher, Mira Books, for providing me with a copy to read and review. I had fun with this and will definitely pick up anything else Garza releases!