Reviews

The Reappearance of Rachel Price by Holly Jackson

tgamese's review against another edition

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medium-paced

4.0

elizabethh724's review against another edition

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4.0

Holly Jackson is one of my favorite YA thriller writers. Besides the amazing AGGTM, Five Survive was incredible. In The ReAppearance of Rachel Price, we get a slightly less fast-paced , twisty mystery. This book veers more on the adult side, although the protagonist is an 18 year old high school senior, Annabel Price. Bel's mother went missing when she was just short of 2 years old. Rachel has been presumed dead this whole time, and now a documentary filmmaker is interviewing the Price family. Bel doesn't remember anything from the time she and her mother disappeared from the mall or who made sure Bel didn't freeze in the car she was left in.

18 year old Bel is sarcastic, mean, and has a shoplifting habit. She's close with her dad and cousin Carter. Suddenly, after a re-enactment with an actor playing Rachel, Bel sees a woman she first believes is fake Rachel. The story that Rachel gives is rather straightforward, and yet Bel starts poking holes in her story. It's not a question of whether Rachel is really Rachel; her story that a stranger took her for all those years then suddenly let her free seems strange. What was the motive? No sexual abuse took place. Bel enlists the assistant from the documentary to help investigate. But what Bel finds, will she find the truth is more disturbing than the story?

I liked Bel's sarcastic personality and fearlessness. There was some gaslighting going on, but since she was suspicious of her mother, she didn't see what was going on right away. There were so many twists with the truth that it was a little convoluted. However, i enjoyed most of the book.
4/5☆

alwingler's review against another edition

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2.0

The book was wayyyyy too long. The ending was not great.

The audiobook narrator did pretty well, but had horrible accents for the film crew.

maddiediane's review against another edition

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2.0

2 stars?

I felt pretty bored for a majority of this book, up until the last 100 pages. I felt like the first portion of the book was slow and repetitive, and the last one hundred pages were extremely rushed.

I had a number of complaints with this book. First, the dialogue between the characters often felt so unnatural that I was really taken out of the book. Second, the main character, Bel, was entirely unlikeable. I didn’t feel any kind of attachment towards her at all.

I also thought it was so stupid that Rachel’s story was that she was kidnapped and held in a basement for 16 years and never saw her captor and the police just rolled with that?? She really couldn’t have come up with a more believable story??

patronusprime's review against another edition

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dark mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Super slow first 1/3 of the book. Then once it finally gets moving it's a LOT better. Annoying FMC but she's a teenager so I guess not that surprising.

berryy_oz's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

ilikewaffles's review against another edition

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adventurous tense medium-paced

4.75

vava0815's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

thaonhi001's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

This book is suuupppeeeerrrrr well-written, especially in terms on atmosphere building. I was so creeped out half of the time by multiple scenes (especially Rachel’s first reappearance) that I had to be mentally prepared before I pressed ‘play’.

The plot twist was magnificent, and I do think the author tried her best to make everything logical. Nevertheless, I couldn’t believe that the younger daughter, Carter Price, could so quickly forsake the parents who had loved and raised her for 15 years, and chose Rachel. That was just… heartless man.

Besides that, Rachel as a person was really admirable. And I also liked the fact that the protagonist Bel Price was not the generic nice girl in most book. She was pretty annoying and irritating, and she messed up multiple times, but that made her quite real as a person. Her character was solid throughout with her tendency to push people away because of her childhood trauma.

Smooth and enjoyable read. :)

morgazit's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny mysterious tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0