
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I was provided an ARC of this book via Netgalley, however I've since purchased an ebook copy, as always all opinions are my own.
This was disturbing, and that was probably the author's intent. This follows Heather a 16 year old girl in smalltown USA in 1977. She is feeling disconnected from her two best friends as they are hanging out with boys, going to parties, and doing things that she isn't ready for. Heather's got alot going on at home with taking care of her younger sister and keeping and eye on her mom who rarely gets out of bed while her district attorney dad is at the office. She tries to connect with her friends by playing games in the tunnels under their town and playing in their all girl band. When Heather and her friend Brenda see something in the tunnels that they shouldn't things go downhill. There is already a girl missing in town, and when their friend Maureen turns up missing they don't want to be next. Heather decides to take things into her own hands to get answers about what is going on in her town when her world is turned upside down and she beings to question who the good guys are and right from wrong.
We also follow Beth, the first girl to go missing in the town. Her chapters are short, and awful in the sense that what she is going through is terrible. Beth is also a fighter and we see her fight with all she has against her terrible circumstances.
I had to suspend my disbelief that Heather would do all the things she did and be so naive, but then again humans do strange things in real life. The author's note mentions that this is supposed to read a bit like a true crime show, with this story being inspired by real events from Saint Cloud, Minnesota where the author grew up. In that respect, the author achieved her goal, this does give you that experience. You have crooked men in power doing awful things and covering it up to paint their own narrative. You have friendly neighbors that don't ask too many questions and pretend bad things don't happen in their town and when they do they ignore them.
Overall, I enjoyed this. This was a decent thriller, but there was no big reveal. Everyone was a villain for some reason or another, and the real villain was kind of evident from the beginning. There were almost too many "bad guys" and bad things happening to and around Heather all at once that took me out of the story. On the other hand this depicts some very real things that happen in society and they should make your skin crawl, so for that I give the author kudos! I had to put the book down a couple of times because of the way I was feeling about a scene or chapter.
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