Then She Was Gone: Book Review

I just finished reading Then She Was Gone, by Lisa Jewel. This book is a psychological thriller about a mother whose fifteen-year-old daughter disappeared unexpectedly, without explanation. A decade later, she starts dating this man who has a daughter who looks and acts fairly similar to her long lost daughter, Ellie. What follows is a rather creepy character study, as the mother, Laurel, begins to question what she knows.

The read was rather quick, and I was drawn to the characters and the mystery, but in retrospect, I think the story could have had less predictable plot points and less instances of lazy execution.

I'm not sure I can say much about the story without spoilers, so I will simply review the story with spoilers. Anyhow, these are the types of books you just pick off the shelf due to author recognition or because they are mystery alone. The best approach is to just go in blind. So, go read the story and then come back.

Strides (Spoilers)

What I liked most about the story were the characters.

Laurel is a flawed mother, someone who's entire life has been upended by the disappearance of who was undoubtedly her favorite child. Now, her relationship with her other daughter and her son is strained and somewhat estranged. She fell out of love with her husband, and her husband has now moved on from her. Only a decade later, does she finally start to take the first steps towards a new life. When she starts her relationship with Floyd, the trauma she experienced at her daughter's disappearance is underlying everything. Floyd represents her first real attempt to turn her life around after basically shutting down and not being there for her family. This relationship is at the center of the book, and I think Jewel handled it well. Floyd obviously means something significant to her—more than just love, but a sign that she is moving on—so when she is forced to confront his darker side, her reaction is realistic and characteristic. This relationship is something I won't easily forget, at the very least, so that matters.

Floyd was also interesting. The way the story is set up, the reader almost immediately suspects that something is up with this character. This is mainly because of his daughter Poppy, and how she suspiciously looks like Ellie. The fact that he seems perfect, and is the right turn around for Laurel, only adds to the suspicion.

Poppy is also interesting, given that you are wondering throughout much of the story what she actually knows; and her distinctive personality that suggests she is old for her age, at the very least for me, made me suspect things of her. In fact, because I was listening to an audiobook, I actually missed that Poppy was nine years old. I just knew she was younger than her sister who was in her twenties, and that she was old for her age. So, for much of the story, I suspected that Poppy actually was Ellie. Ironically, the story was more enjoyable to me because I wasn't paying enough attention to the information.

Then, there is Ellie. She is not particularly complex, instead serving the function of a sympathy character. If Poppy actually had been Ellie, that would have made her more complex, I guess, but the story went in a different direction. And I think Jewel did a good job fulfilling the function that Ellie was supposed to fulfill. When you learn what happened to her, especially her death, you feel the horror of the events.

Penultimately, there is Noel. Noel is the crazy character who ends up kidnapping Ellie in order to use her for making a child. Noel's character was probably the most interesting. Everything about her comes down to her insane desire to appeal to Floyd, despite her inability to do so in the long term. My favorite stories are the ones that get inside the psychology of people who do horrifying things, and this story really delivers on that.

Hannah, her living daughter, is the last character I will mention. She is described as emotionally vacuous, as empty, leaving her mother worried about her future. However, her character eventually gains more depth as you begin to realize that her character is merely like that around her mother, and that she is more expressive around everyone else.

My experience of the story is also what made my reading so enjoyable. I liked piecing together the clues over the course of the story, especially when I realized that Poppy was Ellie's daughter, and the implications of all that.

Now, that said, there is something that undercuts this a bit, and that leads me to the next section.

Missteps (Spoilers)

I enjoyed the story when I put it down, but it is only in retrospect that I've come to question how good the story actually is. I already mentioned that I missed the fact that Poppy was only nine years old. I thought Poppy was purportedly a teen who was old for her age; and because of that, I thought that Poppy was Ellie (who was supposed to be twenty-five at this point in the story). This fact made the whole story more enjoyable. I especially remember the moment that I realized that Ellie had instead given birth to the girl. This was a kind of gestalt switch moment that is always fun in a story.

The problem? Well, this really wasn't supposed to happen. I find it rather telling that the most enjoyable part of the story was not Jewel's design, but because I missed the fact that Poppy was only nine and was obviously too young to actually be Ellie.

I've had to step back, and now that I have, I have realized that there really wasn't that much of a mystery to this story at all. Indeed, it is rather obvious. And what was the point, then? The Floyd twist at the end was rather banal. It was set up to be something much more, but it really wasn't. I read a number of reviews of the story all saying that the twist was too obvious, with some defenders also admitting as much, but explaining why they think that it is okay. Now, I have to say I agree.

I've tried to adopt a policy of being open-minded and avoiding speculation while reading/watching mysteries, because I find that I enjoy them more if I simply ride the waves, instead of trying to figure it out. I guess this might also play a part.

This book did get me thinking about the genre of mystery, however. I haven't read a really good mystery novel in a while. I enjoyed Sharp Objects, but only because of the atmosphere and the characters; the mystery was obvious, as well. The only promising one that comes to mind is Killing Floor, and I will definitely check out another Reacher novel. Now, I don't read mystery as often as most, but I know these authors churn these things out like hotcakes, and sometimes I wonder if any of them are really trying to do anything fresh. I know that many people think these kinds of books can get repetitive, and I think I see what they mean.

This leads me to another major criticism of this book, in particular. This is mainly the execution of the story. When we find out about Ellie, it is either the narrator telling us directly, or a character (like Noel) telling us directly what happened. I thought these might be excerpts from letters Noel had written, but the passages end at the moment she is killed by Floyd, so that option isn't the case. And I can't get around the fact that this is an incredibly lazy way of writing.

I don't have issue with portraying Ellie's time in captivity from her perspective, nor do I have an issue with getting into Noel's psychology, but I do take issue with the execution of Noel's "perspective," where she simply talks at the reader. Why? Can you not get the information to the reader in a more creative manner? A mystery works best when you are limited in perspective and forced to learn information with the character. This can be balanced with scenes like the one's through Ellie's perspective, but Noel's accounts were poorly executed.

Conclusion

Overall, my thoughts about this book are complicated. I will give it a 5/10.