“Dark and atmospheric, with palpably vivid details and complex characters harboring plenty of secrets” (Kimberly Belle, internationally bestselling author of The Marriage Lie), this riveting and suspenseful thriller–by the author of the critically acclaimed Everything You Want Me to Be–follows the mysterious disappearance of a boy and his stunning return ten years later. There is a place in … later.
There is a place in Minnesota with hundreds of miles of glacial lakes and untouched forests called the Boundary Waters. Ten years ago, a man and his son trekked into this wilderness and never returned.
Search teams found their campsite ravaged by what looked like a bear. They were presumed dead until a decade later…the son reappears. Discovered while ransacking an outfitter store, he is violent and uncommunicative and is sent to a psychiatric facility. Maya Stark, the assistant language therapist, is charged with making a connection with the high-profile patient. No matter how hard she tries, he refuses to answer questions about his father or the last ten years of his life.
But Maya, who was abandoned by her own mother, has secrets, too. And as she’s drawn closer to this enigmatic boy who is no longer a boy, she’ll risk everything to reunite him with his father who has disappeared from the known world.
With breathless pacing and edge-of-your-seat twists and turns, “Leave No Trace is as thrilling as whitewater rapids and as dark as the Minnesotan wilderness itself” (Amy Gentry, internationally bestselling author of Good as Gone).
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I became a fan of Mindy Mejia after reading Everything You Want Me to Be last year. I was eagerly awaiting her next book, Leave No Trace. Leave No Trace is very different from Everything You Want Me to Be but just as brilliant and incredibly engrossing. This is a story about Lucas, a boy who disappeared with his father into Minnesota wilderness only to be found 10 years later with no trace of his father, and Maya, a speech therapist, who is tasked with helping Lucas integrate back into society. Lucas is mistrustful of people but he and Maya develop a connection and he needs her help to get back to his father. This was such an intriguing premise! There was more than one mystery to unravel in this book, not just Lucas’s but Maya’s too.
I found very hard to put this book down. I was riveted by the mystery of Lucas’s disappearance and his survival in the harsh Boundary Waters. I found both Lucas and Maya fascinating and couldn’t wait to discover all their secrets and see their relationship grow. The descriptions of the lakes and Boundary Waters were so vivid, I could easy imagine them in my mind. Mindy Mejia has a way with words that just grabs readers from the first page and doesn’t let go until they reach the end. Leave No Trace is another winner from her and I am thankful to have had the chance to read it early.
When I first saw that this author had written another book, I had to jump on it. I was in love with her first book, Everything You Want Me to Be.
In the likes of her previous book, the plot is unique and intriguing. You get pieces of the current story intermingled with the past and how they eventually connect. I was a little shocked in how the past connected to the present. The author is a genius in this fact.
The downside. I was disappointed in the telling of this book. Most of the book drug. There was more down time in the book than things actually happening. I found myself struggling to keep going in many places. I needed a little bit more in this book for me to fall in love with it.
Overall, this wasn’t necessarily a bad book. I am sure there will be people that will fall in love with it. However, there will be many that will be bored due to the lack of things happening to keep their attention.
Leave No Trace is an interesting enough story and maybe my definition of a thriller is different than the author’s, but I didn’t find one here. There is suspense and quite a lot of dangling carrots throughout that hint at answers, but the pacing is very slow and those answers take their sweet time coming. I realize this is fiction and certain allowances can be made, but this one requires more suspension of disbelief than what I would consider reasonable. To make matters worse, I didn’t find Maya particularly interesting. She’s rather bland as far as a protagonist goes, other than the sheer number of times she manages to be hurt by Lucas in his many attempts to escape. And that’s just one thing that stretched the imagination. I can’t imagine a speech therapist being left alone with a dangerous or violent patient even once, let alone repeatedly. The only saving grace in this one for me was Josiah. His chapters are very well done and are quite compelling, but about halfway through, I realized I was just plunging through hoping for another of his chapters. The author does have talent, but this one missed the mark for me.
This is the second book I’ve read by this author and I just love the rhythm of her writing. Her words pull me in and the meter of those words keep me turning the pages.
Before I get into the actual characters of this story, I want to talk about the location. Although I’m from a suburban area and I’m just a handful of miles from the big city, growing up in Michigan I’ve been to plenty of rural areas…even “up north” all the way to Lake Superior. I found so many parallels between Minnesota and my beloved Michigan that I couldn’t help being enchanted by Maya’s surroundings, her dad’s job, her mom’s obsessions, etc. The bits and pieces the author reveals about the Boundary Waters has me fascinated and ready to take a canoe trip!
Maya hasn’t had an easy life. Not only did her mom leave when she was a young girl, but then she got into some trouble when she started acting out. Some of that trouble is one of the mysteries (to the reader anyway) that slowly unfolds as the book progresses. It’s obvious her dad loves her to pieces, he just doesn’t know what to do to make things okay for her. And as her father, that’s what he feels he needs to do. Maya just wants to be left to do the things that make her happy. So what if she doesn’t have a bunch of girlfriends to go out with and would rather spend time with her dog than her coworkers after work? That’s the life she likes. Socializing isn’t an easy thing for her and she doesn’t appreciate when anyone tries to force those situations upon her.
The other, bigger, mystery of this story is Lucas. He disappeared with his father 10 years before this story begins. When he reappears, there are way more questions than answers. Maya is put in charge of his case at the high security mental hospital where she works and there is an instant connection. There are possibly reasons for this connection, but neither Maya or Lucas are quite sure what those reasons may be.
As always, a mystery is very hard to review without spoilers. That means I won’t be saying much more. But I will say this is an alluring story with so many layers. What, if anything, was Lucas’ dad running from 10 years ago? Is Lucas telling Maya everything he knows? What is so terrible in Maya’s past that she avoids a whole city for fear of the memories? I loved pealing back the layers, one by one, and taking this journey Mindy Mejia laid out for her readers. I cannot recommend this one enough. It’s funny, when I reviewed Everything You Want Me to Be I said I hope they never make it into a movie. With this one, in the right hands and with the right cast, I think it would make a captivating film. The location shots alone would be a draw.
**I received an ARC of this book courtesy of Net Galley and the publisher. All opinions expressed are my own and given freely.**
https://allingoodtimeblog.wordpress.com/2018/08/31/leave-no-trace-book-review/
A boy missing for ten years emerges from the Minnesota wilderness in Mindy Mejia’s spellbinding page-turner, Leave No Trace. Dark and atmospheric, with palpably vivid details and complex characters harboring plenty of secrets, Leave No Trace is the perfect combination of gorgeous prose and edge-of-your-seat storytelling. Clear your calendar, this is a book you’ll want to swallow in one sitting. A stunner!
An intense psychological thriller, taking place in a guarded psychiatric facility and in the thick woods of Minnesota called Boundary Waters.
The suspense builds as Maya a speech therapist, becomes enmeshed with a young resident in the ward considered “dangerous”. She is determined at all cost to help him, despite the risks and dangers involved.
This is truly a captivating story that won’t let you go until the very last page!
Excellent!