After my disappointment with Stephen King – Holly, I embarked in a new journey – this time with one of my favourite authors, the one that brought everyone You and Hidden Bodies.

Story is bittersweet at the start. We have Jon and Chloe, just hitting puberty – him without any friends and slightly on the path of being bullied and her – pretty and popular, taking a liking to the shy boy who called her “pretty pretty”, not just “pretty” and who would compliment her photos and her smarts and adored her unequivocally.

When Jon is finally ready to confess his feelings, he’s suddenly kidnapped by his substitute teacher who is obsessed with H.P. Lovecraft and has a plot to save humanity.

“The internet has eliminated so much wonder and romance.”

Mourning the disappearance of Jon and facing the reality he may never return, Chloe tries to navigate the rites of entering young adulthood and “fit in” with the popular crowd, but thoughts of Jon are never far away. She cuts her hair, tries to ink her skin but never in permanent tattoos and her acting out does not seem to bring her best friend back. Her mother was a hero to me as she helps her grieving daughter navigate these tough times and her advice and motions seem to be telling her what’s true. Those white boots that she really, really, really wanted will always be a memory of her loss and she’ll never be able to remove the sadness by just buying things to fill the whole. Drawing things helps as art is always a healing factor and expressing oneself is paramount when navigating the treacherous waters of teenage hood.

The story jumps 5 years and starts with Jon waking up in a hospital bed.

When Jon finally escapes, he discovers he now has an uncontrollable power that endangers anyone he has intense feelings for. He runs away to protect Chloe and find the answers to his new identity—but he’s soon being tracked by a detective who is fascinated by a series of vigilante killings that appear connected.

“There’s no good place to break someone’s heart.”

Whisking us on a journey through New England and crashing these characters’ lives together in the most unexpected ways, Kepnes explores the complex relationship between love and identity, unrequited passion and obsession, self-preservation and self-destruction, and how the lines are often blurred between the two.

Enough with the blurb. I loved the emotional healing part and working out just how to recapture the intimacy lost in the aftermath of tragedy between two people that really loved each other. The thriller, chase and Lovecraft didn’t do anything for me but the growing up and emotion handling and grief did speak volumes.

Good parts: Kepnes is fond of (and strong at, too) developing characters with obsessions, social media-frenzied anxiety, and over-indulgence in human emotional needs. I mean this in a positive way, too. She gets right to the core of what makes some people tick or focus on the little details that sit within a person’s mind all day long. It helps pull you in to the story and the characters.

The detective’s battle with cancer was also intriguing to read as well as snippets from his early marriage days. I don’t think anyone sets off meaning to become childless but sometimes life just happens.

I must say I loved the early part of the book a lot more than the second half, where John’s self doubt and hesitation (plus his accidental murder of his girlfriend and cat were sad and unexpected).

“Until tonight , she thought death was for grandparents and goldfish.”

I also liked the engagement and Chloe’s new love story with her childhood friend. I don’t think she set off to be with him but they were really comfortable together and while it wasn’t the blaring attraction that took her close to John, it was something. And their mothers loved it too.

“But isn’t it why you get married in the first place? So that someone can row the boat when you’re tired.”

Bad Parts: The magic powers are not explained other than the man that kidnapped the boy altered him in a sense. Is it meta? Is it not? Is it sexual abuse that makes Jon shy away from other people when returning? Fear of opening up?