If I Disappear by Eliza Jane Brazier
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
**3.5-stars**
With a story as strangely compelling as its cover, If I Disappear, is perfect for Readers who prefer an unconventional narrative.
After her divorce, Sera Fleece is a boat adrift. She spends her days listening to, and obsessing over, her favorite True Crime podcast, Murder, She Spoke.
When the podcast’s host, Rachel Bard, suddenly stops posting, Sera doesn’t take it well.
In fact, she suspects foul play is behind Rachel’s sudden disappearance from the air waves.
Further, Sera believes, armed with clues left within the podcast episodes, she will be able to find Rachel and possibly save her.
With this in mind, she travels to Rachel’s hometown, Happy Camp, in Northern California to investigate.
Once there, she is able to locate Rachel’s family ranch and secure a job through one conversation with Rachel’s greatly eccentric mother, Addy. Her duties will include working with the horses and general maintenance around the ranch; two things she’s not necessarily qualified for.
Doubts aside, Sera sees this as the best opportunity to delve into Rachel’s life and possibly discover what happened to her.
The strangest part is, no one else seems to be disturbed by Rachel’s disappearance. Not her parents, her brother, the other ranch hand, or any of her previous acquaintances in town.
Sera is able to make some progress and soon it is clear, something is not right with the Bard family.
Even though she realizes she is putting herself in danger, Sera cannot leave without solving the mystery. She is the only person left to advocate for Rachel.
While the content of this story is extremely intriguing, the writing style did not work that well for me. I never settled into the fact that it is told in the second person.
I wish it wasn’t, but honestly, I can’t imagine it otherwise. I think it just didn’t work for my taste.
I definitely needed to keep going. I wanted to find out the mystery of Rachel’s disappearance as much as Sera did; even though Sera, as a protagonist, drove me a little batty.
Some of the elements involved in building the mystery seemed off for me, but overall it is a good story. It’s tense and dramatic, with a whole host of suspicious characters, including Sera herself.
Additionally, there is some solid commentary in here on the treatment of girls and women within our society. I found that aspect interesting as well.
Overall, this is a solid debut and I look forward to reading more from this author in the future. I would absolutely pick up more stories from her.
Thank you so much to the publisher, Berkley, for providing me with a copy of this to read and review.
If I Disappear is slated to release on Tuesday, January 26th!!