Propulsive and suspenseful, Good as Gone will appeal to fans of Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train, and keep readers guessing until the final pages. Thirteen-year-old Julie Whitaker was kidnapped from her bedroom in the middle of the night, witnessed only by her younger sister. Her family was shattered, but managed to stick together, hoping against hope that Julie is still alive. And then one … is still alive. And then one night: the doorbell rings. A young woman who appears to be Julie is finally, miraculously, home safe. The family is ecstatic–but Anna, Julie’s mother, has whispers of doubts. She hates to face them. She cannot avoid them. When she is contacted by a former detective turned private eye, she begins a torturous search for the truth about the woman she desperately hopes is her daughter.
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This was a really unusual setup with an unexpected execution–which I know sounds wordy but when you read it you’ll see what I mean. The author obviously used the Elizabeth Smart case as a jumping-off point, but after that jump it’s totally different.
It’s not a bad book, but it’s not great either. Somewhat implausible.
Could not get into it. Did not read
I found this book riveting. The author had me guessing with every chapter. Wonderful, wonderful page-turner.
This was one of those stories that had me guessing the whole time. Every time I thought I had it figured out I was wrong. A very good intriguing story.
Just not my thing. I quit reading. I am almost tired of stories about little girls being taken from their bedrooms. Sad but almost trite.
Finished in (almost) one day. The twist totally threw me for a loop and I’m pretty decent at calling twists!
Julie Whitaker, 13, is taken from her bedroom at knifepoint as her younger sister, Jane, watches, terrified. Anna and Tom, their parents, have been trying to cope for 8 years with the disappearance of their daughter. When a young woman shows up at their home claiming to be Julie, they are overjoyed, until some things don’t seem quite right.
Told through several voices, this story examines what happens to a young mind when it is manipulated. Is it really Julie, or someone claiming to be Julie?
Quite sad. However, I think the book was a bit confusing, and I didn’t like the Charlie/John David storyline at all.
My mind was a whirlwind of questions while reading this novel. Every time I thought I had this story figured out, I would turn the page and find another twist. Then another, and another…
Truly kept my interest with all of the suprising confessions and tales of the different lives one person lived.
This was a twisted story about a 13-year-old girl who is abducted and then returns back to her family as an adult. The abduction pretty much destroyed her family – her parents and younger sister left behind. For years, they have essentially been looking for a body, but now she is back (or is she?). This story highlights the pain and wide realm of emotions that each family member feels as they face the return of the missing.
This book started out so good, then took a nose dive! As if two different people authored the book, the first 40% was page-turning suspense and intrigue. Then, it just got strange and stranger. If the psychological profile of the daughter in question had been better written, the story might have had a chance, but her complexity was just not written well enough for the book to remain interesting.
What happens when an abducted child miraculously returns? That’s the question Good As Gone attempts to answer. While there are elements of suspense in this book, it is ultimately a story of survival, love, and acceptance of the imperfections that color the lives of a family experiencing their worst nightmare.
When a knife weilding intruder abducts thirteen year old Julie from her home in Houston, Texas it leaves her family ripped and ragged with grief and guilt. Her sister, Jane, witnesses the crime, but her fear wastes precious time in alerting authorities. In the aftermath, the guilt and self-recriminations pull both Jane and her mother into seperate orbits of guilt around the crime. And then, miraculously, Julie returns.
There is not a great deal of suspense in this story. It’s not too hard to figure out who the girl claiming to be Julie is and who committed the abduction, but this does not detract from the beautiful unwrapping of the gift of a mother’s love and a young victim’s resilience. Both are survivors of the worst event a family can experience, and both come across as vulnerable, sympathetic, and believable.
While this is the story of a violent crime and it’s aftermath, there are few descriptions of violence or overtly triggering events. Still, if you are triggered by abduction, rape, abuse, or hardship you might want to prepare yourself before reading this book instead of complaining about it afterward. There are also religious aspects that might offend some.
This book is so much more than a typical novel of psychological suspense. It is triumphant, healing, and beautifully written. The characters are real, with flaws and strength and wounds that need binding. It moves beyond the guessing games to the crippling anxiety experienced by women who feel responsible in some way for the crimes that made them victims. Read it and renew your faith that for some, the worst stories can end in healing.
Nothing about this novel seemed realistic. The parents seemed like people who were unable to face reality from the moment their doorbell rang. I finished the book, but lostl interest quickly. Not a favorite.
I can honestly say that this is one of the oddest books I’ve ever read. Most of it was well written, I liked it. However it gets so convoluted at one point that I didn’t know what was going on and I sure didn’t know who was who. I understand that’s part of the plot, but it’s done very poorly IMHO.
This heart-pounding novel follows Anna, whose daughter Julie was kidnapped from her house at knifepoint when she was thirteen years old. Now twenty-one, Julie returns home, but the years’ worth of devastating secrets she carries could upend Anna’s life even more than the kidnapping did—especially when Anna begins to question whether the woman who’s returned is really her daughter at all. I was so blown away by this book. The structure is fascinating and compelling, as we alternate between Anna’s story in the present and Julie’s experiences moving further and further into the past. The twists were smart, surprising, and satisfying, and the writing itself was electric. The final sentence gave me CHILLS because it was so perfect and beautiful. This is a book I will think about for a long time, and now I’m even more eager to read Amy Gentry’s most recent release, LAST WOMAN STANDING, which thankfully I already have waiting for me on my bookshelf.
It’s gritty and it’s sad, but I could not stop turning the pages. I love a book that compels me to come back to it every free moment, and keep turning those pages.
Confession – I usually flirt on the back cover page to get a general idea of the plot but not delve into the sequence of events so as not to destroy my reading.
When I began to read this book and realized that the missing daughter was coming back into the lives of her family already at the beginning of the story, I was troubled. I was afraid that it was another book pretending to be a thriller yet ending without even to begin. I was glad to be wrong.