THEN SHE WAS GONE by Lisa Jewell

I don’t know exactly how to categorize this book.  It’s not a thriller, psychological or otherwise, because all of the mysteries are revealed piecemeal throughout the book.  Laurel and Paul’s daughter Ellie disappeared when she was a teenager, dissolving Laurel and Paul’s marriage and leaving Laurel grief-stricken and unable to give her other children the mother they deserved.  This novel is really the story of a mother’s struggle to move on.  Laurel meets a man whose company she enjoys and, more tellingly, who has a young daughter, Poppy, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Ellie.  At first I just wondered if Laurel sees Ellie in every young girl, but I soon came to realize that this resemblance is more than a coincidence.  This book is a fast read, but it’s not really a page-turner.  I enjoyed the plot and the writing style, but the storyline is not gripping or particularly moving.  Some reviewers have described this book as disturbing, and I would agree with that assessment, but the author sort of glosses over the disturbing events.  She doesn’t dwell on the process but focuses more on the outcome and its effect on loved ones.  In fact, the events in this book are mild compared to some of the real crimes we read about in the news.  Once character in the book claims to have a “sixth sense” about people, and I felt that her foreshadowing was unnecessary and added a bit of the supernatural that was inconsistent with the rest of the book.