Title: Lost Girls
Author: Merrie Destefano
Genre: Young Adult | Mystery
Publisher: Entangled Teen
Publication Date: January 3, 2017
Format: eARC
Source: Publisher
Yesterday, Rachel went to sleep listening to Taylor Swift, curled up in her grammy’s quilt, worrying about geometry. Today, she woke up in a ditch, bloodied, bruised, and missing a year of her life.
She doesn’t recognize the person she’s become: she’s popular. She wears nothing but black.
Black to cover the blood.
And she can fight.
Tell no one.
She’s not the only girl to go missing within the last year…but she’s the only girl to come back. She desperately wants to unravel what happened to her, to try and recover the rest of the Lost Girls.
But the more she discovers, the more her memories return. And as much as her new life scares her, it calls to her. Seductively. The good girl gone bad, sex, drugs, and raves, and something darker…something she still craves—the rush of the fight, the thrill of the win—something she can’t resist, that might still get her killed…
The only rule is: There are no rules (goodreads).
Lost Girls is an unexpected novel of friendship and the underbelly.
Plot: When Rachel is found in a ditch, she can't remember what happened for the past year, despite only being missing for two weeks. As expected, the mystery of Rachel's missing year was the central theme in this novel, but for a girl who had been found bloodied in a ditch, everyone was super chill about it. Clearly, Rachel had undergone some psychological trauma if she had blacked on out the past 12 months, but her family and friends never really fretted. She's returned! That's great, and life continues as normal. That didn't seem normal to me. I expected media attention and lots of family and friends afraid to let her out of their sight. Instead, she's borrowing the car and driving across the state to solve her own mystery. The overall mystery as to where Rachel had been, was surprising and refreshing in the end.
Characters: When Rachel went to sleep, she was your average nerdy girl who enjoyed listening to Taylor Swift and marathoning the Lord of Rings movies. When she wakes up, she is a goth girl who hangs out with the head cheerleader. Something changed from Sophmore to Junior year and Rachel doesn't understand what could have happened. One thing about Rachel that I didn't like was how resistant to change she was. She finds out that she is really close to the head cheerleader, and instead of accepting the fact that this may have been her confidante from the past year, she marvels at what an idiot she is. Rachel's treatment of the new people in her life is somewhat addressed by the end of the novel.
Worldbuilding: There isn't much to talk about regarding the world. Lost Girls takes place in California and makes use of visiting neighboring cities and towns. Surprisingly, everyone (besides one secondary character) is white.
Short N Sweet: Lost Girls has some problems, but in the end, it made for a fun and quick read.
Labels: 3 stars, book review, entangled teen, lost girls, merrie destefano, review