I spent a lovely afternoon with the cat sprawled on my lap, a cup of tea on the table beside me, and the book “What Remains Of Her” by Eric Rickstad in my hands.
Can’t really go wrong with that combo. 🙂
Someone I watch on YouTube mentioned the book so I borrowed it from the library and have had it sitting on my desk for about a week, waiting for a chance to dive in.
It’s a super easy read, took me about 4 hours give or take, not hard to follow, not taxing on the brain, which is good because I have a cold and lemme tell ya, the brain fog is real!
The story swaps between the point of view of Lucinda, a child at the beginning of the book who through the magic of the words “25 years later” is all of a sudden an adult, and Jonah, the father of Lucinda’s best childhood friend Sally.
Jonah’s wife and daughter go missing, there are random little clues, little lies told by multiple people, secrets not shared that may help the investigation, ya know, all the stuff you expect from a mystery novel.
The repercussions to Jonah, Lucinda, and Lucinda’s father (the town Sheriff) are massive, setting them all on new life paths that none of them particularly care for.
On the 25th year anniversary of Sally’s disappearance another little girl, who is roughly the same age and physical description as Sally, goes missing and has Lucinda (who is now a town deputy among other things) finding correlations between the new disappearance and her best friend’s disappearance.
Like I said, it is an easy read, enjoyable even, but it is fairly predictable. Sure there is a twist at the end that might not be expected, but it isn’t so shocking or out of the blue that you’re all that surprised when you read it. Also, and this could just be me, but I swear lately a lot of books and tv shows have so many similar scenes that what was creepy or suspenseful the first time now just has me flashing back to all the other books I’ve read with similar scenes.
A creepy man in the woods, kids sneaking off to a section of the woods that is forbidden by their parents, a child encountering the creepy man in the woods, tampered evidence, clues from the past resurfacing at just the right moment, the same sort of who-done-it twist…
None of those are bad, I think I’ve just been unfortunate to read quite a few books lately that all seem to have some combination of those scenarios, and even seen a couple tv shows that have them, so they no longer seem like an organic extension to the story.
I realize that the way I am writing this review makes it seem like it isn’t a good choice of book, and that isn’t the case! If you like easy reads, maybe you need a book to take on vacation, or to read on a lazy afternoon, this is a good choice, just don’t plan a book club meeting around it. 😉
The Amazing Shrinking Woman 
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