'Vanishing Girls' by Lauren Oliver
Review by Sarah Nuttall
Summary:
Lauren Oliver returns with her exceptional new book ‘Vanishing Girls’ once again delivering a novel that will appeal beyond her adult audience with a coming-of-age story with YA appeal.
Dara and Nick used to be inseparable, but that was before the accident that left Dara's beautiful face scarred and the two sisters totally estranged. When Dara vanishes on her birthday, Nick thinks Dara is just playing around. But another girl, nine-year-old Madeline Snow, has vanished, too, and Nick becomes increasingly convinced that the two disappearances are linked. Now Nick has to find her sister, before it's too late.
In this edgy and compelling novel, Lauren Oliver creates a world of intrigue, loss, and suspicion as two sisters search to find themselves, and each other.
Dara and Nick used to be inseparable, but that was before the accident that left Dara's beautiful face scarred and the two sisters totally estranged. When Dara vanishes on her birthday, Nick thinks Dara is just playing around. But another girl, nine-year-old Madeline Snow, has vanished, too, and Nick becomes increasingly convinced that the two disappearances are linked. Now Nick has to find her sister, before it's too late.
In this edgy and compelling novel, Lauren Oliver creates a world of intrigue, loss, and suspicion as two sisters search to find themselves, and each other.
Review:
New York Times bestselling author, Lauren Oliver, has once again created a story that will appeal to adult readers with Vanishing Girls due to its rich complexity and emotional intelligence but with characters on the cusp of adulthood, faced with life-altering decisions, the books are relatable for YA readers too. The central theme of Vanishing Girls is loss; the loss of identity through a person’s beauty, body, relationships and friendships. The accident rips all these from Dara and her loss of identity and anger at Nick feels justified and relatable because Dara feels she’s vanished from her own life; a pale shadow of her former self. When Dara crashes a nearby party to avoid the first night she’ll see Nick, she’s struck by her peers' reaction to her now to what it would have been a few months earlier. When her best friend drops by to return her possessions she’s left in her car, Dara notices that she doesn’t look at her eyes; that the possessions aren’t because she thinks Dara would want or need them but because she doesn’t want to see them; she doesn’t want to be reminded of Dara. When she leaves and Dara realises that this is the end of their friendship, because neither know how to be friends now, it's real and heart-breaking.
It’s a testament to Oliver’s writing that we are able to understand the closeness of Nick and Dara’s relationship from a few past memories and little instances in these scenes sow the seeds for later developments in the book, causing an unsettling air or tension. Within this tension, we are also introduced to the disappearance of Madeline which breaks into the forefront of the main story in unexpected places. Oliver uses this dual storyline to her advantage ratcheting up the tension in the book between the sisters, between the past and the present and the loss of Madeline to create an unsettling thriller. Yet, it's also an extremely emotional drama about the loss of the relationship between two sisters who were so close they were almost one. I found Vanishing Girls both extremely emotional and unsettling. I enjoyed it so much that I passed on my copy immediately to a friend as I needed someone else to read it so I could talk about it.
It’s a testament to Oliver’s writing that we are able to understand the closeness of Nick and Dara’s relationship from a few past memories and little instances in these scenes sow the seeds for later developments in the book, causing an unsettling air or tension. Within this tension, we are also introduced to the disappearance of Madeline which breaks into the forefront of the main story in unexpected places. Oliver uses this dual storyline to her advantage ratcheting up the tension in the book between the sisters, between the past and the present and the loss of Madeline to create an unsettling thriller. Yet, it's also an extremely emotional drama about the loss of the relationship between two sisters who were so close they were almost one. I found Vanishing Girls both extremely emotional and unsettling. I enjoyed it so much that I passed on my copy immediately to a friend as I needed someone else to read it so I could talk about it.
Like Oliver’s other books this is a well-written novel that will stay with you long after reading and can be read as an introduction to Oliver’s style as well as a standalone novel. I’d highly recommend trying any of Oliver’s works as she is in a class of her own, from her chilling horror book Room, to dystopia with the Delirium trilogy to this thriller in Vanishing Girls she is able to write in any genre and make it engaging, providing complex and interesting characters and themes YA readers will adore.
Rating: 5/5 Stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Sarah Nuttall
Sarah is an active contributor for the YAfictionados blog site. She has written posts for the Waterstones blog and has worked as a bookseller (for 9 years), a Children's bookseller (for 6 years) and is now a manager at her local bookstore. Needless to say, Sarah is a valued member of the YAfictionados team - a true Children's and YA literature expert.
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