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A review by akel104
This Is Sarah by Ally Malinenko
4.0
This is Sarah follows two young people, Colin and Claire through a devastating and life changing situation. Colin has lost the love of his life while Claire has lost a sister. While each of them wander through the troubles of coming to terms with the possibility of never seeing that special person again, we are privileged to a front row seat of this journey.
Set in a small town, where no one would believe such horrors would occur, the abduction of Sarah Evans ricochets through everyone from school friends to neighbours. There is an incredibly realistic feel to the novel. The pace is even, with a slow tempo allowing you to really engage with the emotions of each character. In fact the reader could almost be one of the neighbours or a school pupil - someone who knows of the missing girl but has no real personal connection.
I found this book a little difficult to accept when I came to the end and Sarah was not there. In my fictional fantasies that beautiful boy Colin would have saved his girlfriend, his heartache would be spared and her life would be long and prosperous. But, unfortunately that’s not life and things don’t always work out the way you want.
Ally Malinenko’s writing is very realistic and I felt every bit of sorrow and anger and loss that Colin felt just as much as I could empathise with Claire’s confusion and rejection. While the story is not something that I am used to reading, I fully appreciate the purpose it serves. Life isn’t always full of happy endings and the loss of Sarah is one particularly difficult situation - there’s no certainty that she is dead or alive and no one knows what happened to her, there are only assumptions and questions and possibilities that would eat away at even the most strong soul.
What I did particularly love about this book is that it doesn’t focus on Sarah at all. She’s an ever present character throughout the book but having never met her, or experienced her personality, the reader is able to stay detached from her disappearance. Any emotion we feel is a direct connection to the people she left behind and that’s rare for most books that surround such similar subjects. Take The Lovely Bones for instance, which is told from the vantage point of a victim who was murdered. She disappeared and her family were left with the devastating after-effects, as told by the victim… A story like that is a completely different emotional roller coaster where we know exactly what happened and there is nothing we can do about it. This is Sarah, however, gives us the opportunity to forget about our feelings for whatever poor Sarah has gone through so that we can focus on those she left behind. This really got to me because, as an avid reader I always place myself in the protagonist’s shoes; fighting demons, kissing boys and generally engaging in exciting adventures but now i’m in the shoe’s of two people who have been left behind, how do you cope with that?
I would recommend this novel for anyone who enjoys a mystery, is curious about the way people behave and why or perhaps is looking for some guidance themselves. This isn’t a non-fiction book, but I can see how it would give a reader the opportunity to learn from.
Set in a small town, where no one would believe such horrors would occur, the abduction of Sarah Evans ricochets through everyone from school friends to neighbours. There is an incredibly realistic feel to the novel. The pace is even, with a slow tempo allowing you to really engage with the emotions of each character. In fact the reader could almost be one of the neighbours or a school pupil - someone who knows of the missing girl but has no real personal connection.
I found this book a little difficult to accept when I came to the end and Sarah was not there. In my fictional fantasies that beautiful boy Colin would have saved his girlfriend, his heartache would be spared and her life would be long and prosperous. But, unfortunately that’s not life and things don’t always work out the way you want.
Ally Malinenko’s writing is very realistic and I felt every bit of sorrow and anger and loss that Colin felt just as much as I could empathise with Claire’s confusion and rejection. While the story is not something that I am used to reading, I fully appreciate the purpose it serves. Life isn’t always full of happy endings and the loss of Sarah is one particularly difficult situation - there’s no certainty that she is dead or alive and no one knows what happened to her, there are only assumptions and questions and possibilities that would eat away at even the most strong soul.
What I did particularly love about this book is that it doesn’t focus on Sarah at all. She’s an ever present character throughout the book but having never met her, or experienced her personality, the reader is able to stay detached from her disappearance. Any emotion we feel is a direct connection to the people she left behind and that’s rare for most books that surround such similar subjects. Take The Lovely Bones for instance, which is told from the vantage point of a victim who was murdered. She disappeared and her family were left with the devastating after-effects, as told by the victim… A story like that is a completely different emotional roller coaster where we know exactly what happened and there is nothing we can do about it. This is Sarah, however, gives us the opportunity to forget about our feelings for whatever poor Sarah has gone through so that we can focus on those she left behind. This really got to me because, as an avid reader I always place myself in the protagonist’s shoes; fighting demons, kissing boys and generally engaging in exciting adventures but now i’m in the shoe’s of two people who have been left behind, how do you cope with that?
I would recommend this novel for anyone who enjoys a mystery, is curious about the way people behave and why or perhaps is looking for some guidance themselves. This isn’t a non-fiction book, but I can see how it would give a reader the opportunity to learn from.