Watch Me Disappear by Janelle Brown

Amy   

Lynnie


mystery, contemporary fiction 

Watch Me Disappear is about the family of a missing wife/mother who, a year after her disappearance, are wondering if she is actually dead from a hiking accident or might still be alive. 

Amy's Review 

If this novel had not been handed to me by a friend, I probably never would have read it. It is a very compelling story. It is told from the perspectives of both the daughter and husband and caused me to do a few flips in opinion about whether or not Billie is alive, all the way up until the end. Taking the story evidence and the title of the novel into consideration, I formed several different theories about what had transpired. And, by the end, I was fairly surprised. I mean, it was one of the possible scenarios in my head. But I wasn’t sure which scenario was the true one.

The story made me think about personalities—how most people are really mainstream with similar basic goals while others have such strong, unique outlooks on life that they seem to function on a different plane. My mother was more on the rebellious, unique side but would likely never have been as skewed as Billie. I can’t say more without giving something away but suffice it to say that I found these characters and situations engaging and interesting. I enjoyed the novel.

Lynnie's Review

Let's get this out of the way first- Watch Me Disappear is in many ways a mystery and anyone who knows my taste in books knows that I am rarely satisfied by mysteries. I find them predictable and rarely like the characters.

Janelle Brown however created several characters that I really enjoyed, which is good because at its heart, this book is a character study on grief- almost to the distraction of the story itself. Brown goes into such detail about the characters, their feelings, their motivations that sometimes I often found myself skimming these passages; these characters are super self-aware. Because of all this detail the book felt slow and heavy to me at times, but then would pick up for a little while before settling back into the morass of grief.

Worst of all though perhaps, was that I didn't care what happened to Billie (the title character who has disappeared). What we saw of Billie usually made me angry & I decided fairly early that I was glad she was gone. However, I enjoyed getting to know Jonathan and Olive and watching as their relationship evolved over time.

Watch Me Disappear is really well written & often engaging, but it only gets 3 stars from me. I think people who love a good mystery though will really enjoy it