Good as Gone Book Review

Good as Gone by Amy Gentry

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Blurb:

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 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.

Review by Brittany:

As mentioned in a previous review, I subscribe to Book of the Month, and this was one of the selections that they offered. I've been loving mystery/thrillers lately, so I picked this book because the blurb was very intriguing.

Gah. This book hooked me from page one and became a one-day-read. The story opens up with Jane telling the story of Julie's abduction as she remembers it. Then it jumps forward to the day Jane returns home, giving the reader a glimpse into what life is like for the Whitakers now, eight years later. It is clear that relationships have become strained and that nothing is the same as it was.

One way this writer kept me in suspense was to make me doubt if Julie was genuine. Is it really her? Or is this someone posing to be Jule for some reason? Is it about money? The story switches from the present to Julie's life in the past, working backwards to the time of Julie's abduction to reveal if this person is actually Julie or not. Either way, this girl's story is painful and traumatic, and I found myself often thinking, "I don't care if she's Julie; she needs to be safe." It's interesting to me that this writer wanted the reader to doubt if Julie was genuine, but then roped us into not caring. It made for good reading, and I honestly couldn't decide throughout if this person was really Julie or someone else.

At the end of the story, the truth comes out about this person and what happened to lead her to their door. And some of the unanswered questions about Julie's abduction also come to light, leaving all of the characters with the feeling that they really had no idea what was going on in their own home.

I loved this book. I was hooked from the start, wondering about the new Julie and piecing together her life. This was a very well-written, suspenseful novel.