Reviews with content warning for Grief - Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance

This book isn't my normal genre, but I am absolutely in love with it. The voice of the narrator feels so intimate you can't help but be drawn in to her story, her feelings, her life. I loved everything about this.

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lcg527's review

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dark emotional funny reflective sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.75

I received a copy of this book from Net Galley.

This book is at the top of my favorites for 2022 so far. This is a conversation of grief
told by a younger sister mourning the devastating loss of her older sister, her hero and best friend. There is so much more to the story - how parents handle loss, the sister’s popular boyfriend, friendship, and forgiveness. Despite the tragedies that unfold, there are incredible moments of comedy that shine through in the storytelling. A wonderful emotional roller coaster with tears of both loss and laughter.

The narrator of the audiobook is perfect.

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tormerritt's review against another edition

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emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character

4.5

Summary:
"An unconventional love story between two broken people who are unexplainably, inconveniently drawn to each other, and a wry, sharply observant coming of age story that looks at the ways the people we love the most continue to shape our lives long after they’re gone."

Thoughts:
A short, but profound, and emotional read with a fantastic narrator. I've read unconventional love stories before and they are never done quite right, but this was beautifully written. I felt my heart break along with the characters'. A beautiful, raw example of a coming to age story involving love and loss. It's a simple story, but had a huge impact on me. If you ever experienced love, heartbreak, or loss of a loved one... this will move you, and you'll resonate with it. This book will hold a special spot in my heart for a long time to come. I can't stop thinking about it. Just an absolutely gorgeous book overall.

Thank you Netgalley, Alison Espach, Jesse Vilinsky, and MacMillan Audio for the Audiobook eARC. All opinions are my own!

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onemorepagecrew's review

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emotional funny reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

In this emotional coming of age story, we meet Sally and her older sister, Kathy, when they are in elementary and middle school. The story is primarily told through Sally’s experiences and with the audio at just over 12 hours long, there was time to develop her voice and let the reader build a connection to her. We follow Sally through the tragic and sudden loss of her sister, through her childhood, and into early adulthood. We get to hear her inner thoughts as she makes her way through the world. Often, she is misunderstood by those she is talking with, and the author did a great job of giving space for the close encounters of relationships when people aren’t connecting as their true selves. I felt myself longing to nudge people closer together or just clarify how they felt, but that’s not always how life works and the story felt wistfully authentic.

The two primary people in Sally’s life are her sister and her sister’s boyfriend, Billy. Billy continues to be an important person in Sally’s life, even beyond her sister’s death, and the way their relationship evolves felt realistic and tangible. I need to be in the right mindset for an emotional, sad, and wry coming-of-age tale and reading this felt like great timing. When an author captures a teen or young adult inner monologue well, especially as they navigate a world that doesn’t always “get” them, it always pulls me in.

If you enjoyed books like In an Instant by Suzanne Redfearn or Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng, then I highly suggest adding Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance by Alison Espach to your TBR. It’s available on May 17 and I am excited to hear what others think. Thank you to NetGalley and MacMillan Audio for the chance to read this advanced copy!

Content warnings: Child death, Grief, Self-harm, Mental illness

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mschwa1118's review against another edition

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emotional reflective relaxing sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Notes On Your Sudden Disappearance was unlike anything I have read before. While a fictional story, it was a very raw depiction of grief and it’s impact. Content warnings include a serious car accident, grief of a child/sibling/SO, and suicide attempts. This book is written in the voice of Sally, who is directly speaking to her deceased sister Kathy throughout. Sally’s grief is prominently discussed, as is her mom’s, her dad’s, and the character Billy, who was Kathy’s high school boyfriend at the time of her death. Sally also very specifically details the kind of rapport she had with her sister prior to her death, and the experiences the had together. This gave a really interesting viewpoint of grief, and how the grief of others can really impede your own; even if unintentional. My only major issue with the book was that the last 50 pages felt like a detachment from the story, a really different and dragged out tone. And there were some parts that I didn’t feel added to the story. All and all, this was a great read

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gladiolus17's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

Thanks to Netgalley for the E-arc!

Wow! This literary novel is heart wrenching, and yet sometimes funny. It follows Sally Holt as she grows up, learning about sex and boys, to navigating more adult relationships, all colored by the death of her sister. She also navigates through the sudden change of her parents. Before, they were kind and quirky, and after her sister’s death, now are irreversibly changed by grief.

The prose is sparse and punchy, and the dialog can be witty and painful. I found the mother’s dialog to be particularly funny!

Sally as a character took things literally, and that showed up how she processed grief. While her mother and father dealt with it through anger or through superstition, Sally dealt with it with the bare facts. But Billy was still Kathy’s boyfriend, as if Sally could not move past that fact, even after her sister passed.

The ending made me think on it for hours after finishing.

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