Book Review: The Night She Disappeared

Gabie drives a Mini Cooper. She also works part time as a delivery girl at Pete’s Pizza. One night, Kayla—another delivery girl—goes missing. To her horror, Gabie learns that the supposed kidnapper had asked if the girl in the Mini Cooper was working that night. Gabie can’t move beyond the fact that Kayla’s fate was really meant for her, and she becomes obsessed with finding Kayla. She teams up with Drew, who also works at Pete’s. Together, they set out to prove that Kayla isn’t dead—and to find her before she is.

 

On the night when Gabie normally delivered pizzas for Pete's a man called to order a pizza to be delivered to an address that didn't exist. Before ordering he asked about the girl in the Mini Cooper, but instead of Gabie, Kayla was sent out for the delivery. And she never came back.

When I read the synopsis for the novel, I was intrigued, so I picked it up at the library. However, I've been trying to figure out how and what I wanted to say about this book since I finished reading it because my feelings are a bit mixed. As far as the writing goes, I enjoyed the storytelling, and while I thought the plot had a lot of promise and it was a fast paced read, something about it just left me unsatisfied.

The novel skips around to various characters, but Drew--the boy who took the order and sent Kayla out on the delivery--and Gabie--the girl who was supposed to be working that night--are the most predominant characters. While I liked them both and could understand their confusion and guilt about Kayla's disappearance, I never really felt like I connected with them or any of the other characters.

As much as I enjoyed seeing different aspects of the novel, I almost wonder if the story would have been better if we weren't privy to all of those sides of the story. The glimpses of Kayla throughout the story did add a sense of desperation to the story, but I think the story might have been more suspenseful without the parts from her kidnapper's point of view. Sometimes I think the unknown is more gripping than knowing something the other characters don't. I also found the police to be quite frustrating and incompetent.

However, I did enjoy some of the non-traditional ways of storytelling, such as 911 transcripts, police interviews and newspaper clippings. Those helped to move the story along and glean useful information. I also liked that the story was tracked by how many days Kayla was missing.

I think, without a doubt, April Henry can tell a compelling story, but The Night She Disappeared just didn't quite do it for me. However, I will be checking out more of her work in the future.