Ellie Mack was the perfect daughter. She was fifteen, the youngest of three. She was beloved by her parents, friends, and teachers. She and her boyfriend made a teenaged golden couple. She was days away from an idyllic post-exams summer vacation, with her whole life ahead of her.
And then she was gone.
Now, her mother Laurel Mack is trying to put her life back together. It’s been ten years since her daughter disappeared, seven years since her marriage ended, and only months since the last clue in Ellie’s case was unearthed. So when she meets an unexpectedly charming man in a café, no one is more surprised than Laurel at how quickly their flirtation develops into something deeper. Before she knows it, she’s meeting Floyd’s daughters—and his youngest, Poppy, takes Laurel’s breath away.
Because looking at Poppy is like looking at Ellie. And now, the unanswered questions she’s tried so hard to put to rest begin to haunt Laurel anew. Where did Ellie go? Did she really run away from home, as the police have long suspected, or was there a more sinister reason for her disappearance? Who is Floyd, really? And why does his daughter remind Laurel so viscerally of her own missing girl?
I really enjoyed Then She Was Gone! My mom read it before I did, and when she told me she couldn’t put it down, I knew I had to start reading it ASAP. I was a bit skeptical though, because usually when someone tells me a book is really good, I hype it up too much for myself and end up being disappointed as a result.
But not this time.
Overall, I’d highly recommend this book if you’re into mystery -thriller type novels.
SPOILERS BELOW
The moment I started reading the first page, I was hooked. I spent most of Sunday reading, and then I finished it on Monday. I think part of the reason I didn’t want to put it down is because I kept thinking I knew how the story would end. Whenever I feel like I’ve guessed the outcome of a book, I desperately want to get to the end to find out if I was right or not.
I was kind of on the right path with my main prediction, but wasn’t 100% correct. When I was reading the parts were Noelle is bringing Ellie gifts, and keeps calling her things like “my best student”, I definitely thought she was grooming her. And then when Laurel thinks that Poppy looks just like Ellie, and Floyd asks Laurel to hide photos of Ellie because Poppy is obsessed with other peoples photos and will ask questions, I knew. I knew that he knew Ellie had to be Poppy’s mom. And I knew him and Noelle had to be involved in some way.
However, this is where my prediction was wrong. I thought that him and Noelle worked as a team, that they were in on it together. That they had some kind of human trafficking thing going on, or they couldn’t have kids themselves so they decided to get a young girl to carry a child for them (for a fleeting moment I had a thought that this would be some kind of disappointing split-personality twist where Floyd and Noelle were the same person). I thought that maybe Noelle fled because she couldn’t handle the guilt anymore, or that she maybe decided she just didn’t care to be a mom anymore. Or maybe she was still around, but obviously couldn’t have Laurel knowing that she knew Floyd.
So, I was wrong, but not entirely. Noelle did kidnap Ellie and make her carry a baby for Floyd. But Floyd didn’t know about it until after the fact. I also thought that Floyd sought out Laurel for some sadistic reason, but I guess he had good intentions, in a way.
I know that Floyd didn’t really have anything to do with what happened to Ellie, but somehow I still think of him as being just as evil as Noelle. I can’t help but still feel negatively towards him as if he were part of that scheme. I don’t know if it’s because I initially suspected he was, or if it’s because he was cruel in other ways.
I also had kept hoping that Ellie would still somehow be alive, and part of me wished the story had ended that way, but I’m also glad that it didn’t. It wouldn’t have been as realistic or believable, and it may have felt like too easy of a choice, in a way. Easy in the sense that it purposefully makes this horrible event easier to read about, because hey at least she’s still alive! But I think that just shows how strong the writing of this story is, that you start to care about the characters on a deeper level and become invested in their well-being. It’s a credit to the author when you’re genuinely so sad that a character has died – not because the scene had been written in a sad way, but because you wanted better for that fictional person.
I will admit, I was a bit confused about the fact that Noelle and Floyd got to have chapters written in the first person, whereas the chapters focusing on Laurel were written in third person. I thought at first that maybe Noelle’s was meant to be like a diary entry, because she refers to Floyd as “you”. Or maybe a letter. But then she also describes the way he lunges at her when he kills her, so it couldn’t have been something that was written later. I don’t know, I found that those chapters threw me a little and took me out of the story a bit, almost confused whose story it was – was it Laurel’s story? Noelle’s? Floyd’s? I kept waiting for some twist, some a-ha! moment to explain why those chapters were written that way, but it never came. Or maybe I’m just missing an obvious point entirely.
It also absolutely broke my heart reading about how Laurel realized that she had walked past Noelle’s house, and looked at the Cherry Blossom tree in her yard, all while her daughter was trapped in that basement. And she had no idea. I felt like I could feel her agony – I can’t imagine how that must have felt, knowing you were so close to your missing child, but being so oblivious.
If you’ve read Then She Was Gone, what did you think? Did you predict how it would end? Would you recommend it to a friend?
Until next time,
Nadine
nadinesnarratives.art.blog 