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Review: Vanishing Girls by Lauren Oliver

My Thoughts

A compelling psychological thriller with heart.

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Synopsis

New York Times bestselling author Lauren Oliver delivers a gripping story about two sisters inexorably altered by a terrible accident.

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.

My Review

As first seen on USA Today HEA blog

“Best friends for life… Right Nick? Nothing — nothing — can change that.”

Lauren Oliver’s latest novel, Vanishing Girls, tantalizes with a compelling psychological thriller driven by the intense love, conflict and jealousy between two sisters. In the rich, character-driven style we’ve come to expect, Oliver gradually untwines the frayed threads connecting these young girls, Dara and Nick, as we try and understand their complicated relationship. Nick, and her younger sister Dara, grew up close, inseparable. Nick was the practical, more reserved sister, while Dara thrived on the wild side. Yet they remained close until one night, one accident, and one boy came between them. It was a night Nicky would never forget, and a night she couldn’t remember. It was a night that irrevocably severed the threads between these two sisters.

“Like the sun and the moon, or a starfish and a star: related, sure, but at the same time totally and completely different. And Dara is always the one doing the shining.”

A terrifying car accident leaves Dara’s face marred, her body broken, while Nick remains physically unscathed. Emotionally, however, the sisters become estranged as questions behind what really transpired that night hide in Nick’s repressed memories. As Nick struggles to bridge the chasm between them, she also finds disturbing clues suggesting Dara had been involved in dangerous revelries prior to the accident.

“…the feeling returns to me like it did that day: the same horrible, squeezing pressure in my chest. And I know, I just know, that Dara’s in trouble.”

Then Dara goes missing on her birthday. And it’s the second disappearance in their area. The race to find Dara, to understand the trouble she was a part of, escalates, as we continue to piece together puzzle pieces that disclose surprising truths.

“We build careful bridges. But they are weaker than we think. And when they break, all our memories return to drown us.”

Vanishing Girls is full of mystery and suspense, but with heart and family at its center. It’s the story of two girls finding themselves, literally and figuratively, as they navigate a part of their lives that is already difficult. Dealing with issues of self confidence, social standing, sibling rivalries and first love, these sisters have much to work through if they are to find themselves back to each other… and ultimately, to the truth.