The Day She Disappeared

By: Lisa Hall

Narrated by: Sofia Engstrand

Never go home.

Sixteen years ago, Becky told a lie. And someone died. Now she’s back on the tiny island off the windswept Dorset coast where she grew up. The place she swore she’d never return to. She is home for her mum’s funeral.

The islanders make clear she isn’t wanted. They haven’t forgotten what she did. Some ignore her. Some won’t look her in the eye.

Becky wants to get away. But she hears a story that she can’t ignore. About a teenage girl who went missing a year ago. Some say she left for the mainland with her boyfriend. But the girl’s sister thinks they’re lying.

As a storm rages towards the island, Becky knows someone in this tightly-knit community is hiding the blackest of secrets.

©2023 Lisa Hall (P)2024 Bolinda Publishing

Flawed, so flawed.

Spoiler alert: DONT READ IF YOU DONT WANT TO HEAR ABOUT PART OF THE PLOT. I find the way that Lisa Hall wrote and framed the plot twist with Megan and Marcus hypocritical, irresponsible, and actually shameful. In other areas of the book the author, rightfully, speaks about teachers responsibility in being in a position of authority and trust. Yet Marcus, a teacher who was in a sexual relationship with his 17 yr old student, is framed as an innocent martyr through the book. Pushed to committing suicide because he was wrongly accused by another student, but still guilty of the exact same crime with Megan.

It’s basically framed as romantic that Marcus and the student were going to runaway to have the baby. His crime is never called out; instead making it seem ok and acceptable just because the 17 year old student thinks they were in love!? Utterly shameful Marcus is made a martyr rather than calling out that his behavior and influence over a 17 year-old girl - whether it was actually love or not - was wrong and criminal.

Instead, the author has Megan blaming her friend for ruining everything; and also let’s Becky blame herself for ruining everything for her friend for having lied about Marcus being involved with her, but ironically Marcus was completely guilty of the crime she lied about, whether it was with her or Megan.

The author emphasizes how wrong a teacher being involved with a student is when she needs it for the drama of the plot and the tragedy of a student lying about it; but then makes it ok - and even romantic - when the teacher is ACTUALLY having sex with a 17 year old student. Lazy and morally gray for someone who seemingly claims to stand up for the vulnerable.

When lazy writing leads to romanticizing a teacher impregnating a 17 year old student, perhaps you should take a step back Lisa Hall.

A Waste Of Time

I don’t get it…this story (according to the plot summary) had EVERYTHING going for it) just fails in every way.
Weak character development, poorly written (it’s incredibly basic, elementary) not one character that’s “fleshed out” enough to become relatable, and there’s never any atmosphere established…
It’s not creepy or thought provoking, I can’t come up anything good to say.
It’s boring, truly it put me to sleep three nights in a row until I gave up.
And the story itself just isn’t as interesting as the summary makes it seem.
Don’t bother with this one.
I was so excited to start once I read the description and heard the sample, but it fizzled into nothing.
Weak.
Narration is good, that was definitely not the issue.

dumb

This book is stupid, obvious, dumb, poorly written, and way too long. The female lead was so naive and the bad guy was obvious from the beginning.