Don't Look for Me: A Novel

I honestly do not know how this book got so many rave reviews. It starts out promising but the ending is utterly ridiculous.
Molly Clarke gets stuck in the eye of a storm one night making her way back from her son's football games which she does every Thursday. There's a bad storm brewing and she runs out of gas while making her usual trek home in an old factory town. When she reaches the gas station she sees that it is closed due to the storm. A man pulls up in a dark truck with a young girl in tow and offers her a ride to town and things take an unsettling turn from there.
Sounds like a promising story right? The ending is so convoluted, far-fetched and confusing it really doesn't make any sense at all. I gave the story one-star because the ending is just downright awful it's as if the author didn't really know what to do with the characters or how to tie up all the loose ends so they made up some ridiculous ending . If they would have played the ending out better and made it way more realistic it would've worked ,however, it did not...at least not for me.
Spoiler alert- Daisy being alive the entire time? Staying off the grid? Staying out of sight for 10 years in a small town where everybody knows everybody? YEAH RIGHT it's just completely ridiculous and unrealistic.
I think if the author would have made Daisy, Jared Reyes first victim it could have worked. He really kidnapped her all those years ago and she died while trying to escape would have had made way more sense. The pieces then would have fit for him to want to kidnap Nicole( a Daisy look alike )and replace Daisy with her.
Unfortunately that's not how the story unfolds and the fact that Daisy was not only alive the entire time but was his partner in crime! Not to mention he felt the need to give Alice a "replacement mother" only after Daisy was missing for just two weeks was absolutely absurd! The fact that she was never seen in that small town for 10 years and was hiding behind the scenes!... Yeah right the story was downright far-fetched and ridiculous.

This was a solid four-star read most of the way through. A bit maudlin; a little repetitive, but it had me turning the pages. But the 'twist' at the end was just far too contrived and ran counter to every other bit of information we'd gotten about one of the characters. The conclusion fell flat and required so much explaining and literary tap-dancing that I couldn't wait until it was over.

This 4 Star thriller captured my interest from the first page and held it all the way through.

SUMMARY
Molly Clarke has been having a horrible time for the last several years. It all started when her nine year old daughter, Annie, was killed in a car accident. She, her husband and their two remaining children have had a hard time moving forward since the accident.

Just when it seems things cannot get much worse or more tragic, Molly has what has got to be the second worst day of her life. She and her daughter Nicole have a horrible fight in which Nic blames Molly for Annie's death, insinuates that her father is having an affair and tells Molly she hates her.

Then Molly drives to her son, Evan's boarding school to watch him play football. She waits for him after the game and he actually walks right by her, pretending he doesn't even know her. The nerve of that kid!

Molly is so devastated and distracted that she neglects to check her gas gauge before she sets out for her three hour drive home and finds herself out of gas. There is a huge rain storm, in fact it's possible a hurricane may be headed that way. Molly finds herself stranded on the side of the road in the middle of the rain. As luck would have it, a man and his little girl stop to pick her up, offering her a ride to town. When everything in town is closed due to the storm knocking out the power, he takes her to his house. Soon it becomes clear that this man is definitely not a good Samaritan and Molly is not free to leave.

The book then jumps to Nic's point of view. The family has been looking for Molly and has offered a large cash reward. The police have stopped searching because a (questionable) note was found from Molly saying that she purposely walked away from her life and asking the family not to look for her. Nic does not believe her mother abandoned the family. Even if Molly did leave intentionally, Nic still wants to find her mother to apologize for their fight. Her doubt intensifies when she receives a call from someone who claims to have seen Molly get into a truck in the middle of the rain storm. Nic heads back to the town where Molly's car was last seen, determined to see if the witness has real information.

As Nic investigates the call and starts poking around town, she gets the feeling that the people are not being honest with her. All the people claiming to help her seem to have something to hide and things are not adding up. The story is told alternatively by Nic and Molly. In addition to telling the story of the search for Molly, the book also gives the full story of Annie's death and describes, in heartbreaking detail, how the whole family has been torn apart in the years since.

WHAT I LOVED
It sounds like I'm describing sounds like a very depressing story, which it is in places, but it's not all death and dysfunction. Well, there is a lot of dysfunction. There's also a very intriguing psychological thriller at the center of the story. Molly uses all her strength and her wit to battle her captors. She's smart and strategic. Nic, much like her mother, is strategic, taking information from a variety of sources, trying to determine who is telling truth.

In addition to being written fron alternating points of view between Nic and Molly, the story is also told from alternating the time frames. Molly's time frame started the day she was taken and Nic's started almost two weeks later, the day she received the phone call from the witness. It was a very effective way to present the story.

I loved the suspense. I was on the edge of my seat the whole time. There were some amazingly great twists!!

What made this book stand out from other thrillers was the fact that the Clarke family was suffering from Annie's death and they were lost from each other. They all had some resentment toward Molly and she kind of hated herself too. They were still dealing with their feelings about this huge loss when Molly went missing. It seemed not entirely unbelievable that she could have just chosen to walk away and start over. They all wondered how hard they should actually search for her. The story could have gone either way.

WHAT I DIDN'T LOVE
There was nothing specific that I didn't love, but this book was not quite a five star for me. In order to be a five star, a book has to be absolutely perfect, timeless and change the way I see something about the world. This book did a top notch job entertaining me, it kept me very occupied and I loved every minute of reading it but it didn't meet my five star criteria. In my rating system, four stars is very good so getting four stars is a good thing.

OVERALL
I highly recommend this book to my GR friends who love a good, suspense filled twisty thriller.

Molly Clarke has every reason to disappear for good. Too much pain, too much guilt, her family is crumbling since the death of her little girl. She did it. It was a stupid driving accident which is haunting her. She finds herself on stormy night on the road with an empty gas tank. Trying to get help, she is picked up by a man and her young daughter in a beat up truck. She never makes it to town. Kidnapped, imprisoned like an animal, it will take all her mental and physical strength to survive while her eldest daughter looks for her and does not give up until she finds her. This is also the story of how love always wins and mends the deepest sorrow.

I agree with some other reviewers about the end of the book - really the second half of it. Absolutely ridiculous, confusing and off the hinges. It’s a shame too, because there is some good writing in here, especially on the topic of grief - the author really nails complicated grief, right on the ball with that. There was enough suspense to keep me reading. But there are holes you can drive a truck through in this story and huge plot points that just seem to be abandoned when they don’t fit anymore. The pieces don’t come ever together. Two stars feels harsh but three feels too generous. I am, however, curious enough to try a sample of another one of this author’s books.

Unfortunately, I am in the minority with my negative review but I truly did not enjoy this novel. The premise of it is intriguing: a mother walking away from her life, not wanting to be found. That, at least, is the story based on the evidence. Her car is found abandoned miles from home, a note is found at a nearby hotel. Molly Clarke's relationship with her husband and children has been fractured for years; could anyone blame her if she decided to change direction? Her daughter, Nicole, though, refuses to believe her mother could have just walked out on them and is determined to get to the bottom of the disappearance.

The beginning and early middle of the story was intriguing but I felt like the story went off the rails at a certain point. There was too much happening with the characters, too many things added to the plot that didn't work for me, and then that end. It was just so strange, and not in a good way. Like I said, I am in the minority with my feelings about the novel so if the plot and this author is someone you like, you should give it a try.

Thank you to St. Martins Press and NetGalley for an advanced reading copy, scheduled for release on September 15th.

"I am not a good mother because I did not drive four hours to watch my son play football so that he would feel loved. I drove four hours so that I could feel loved."

Molly Clarke was a loving wife and mother of three until she lost her young daughter. It was an accident. Nicole, the oldest child, is grieving the loss of her sister. She cannot stop blaming her mother but also feels guilt in her sister’s death. Molly can no longer take living with her pain and plans to walk away from her life so that her family, who she believes no longer loves her, can finally move on. Driving one night in a storm, she runs out of gas and accepts a ride from a stranger. The police in the small town where her car was found assume she simply walked away from her life as a note to her family is found. But Molly never meant to leave. She is being held captive. And in addition to her capturer, a strange young child named Alice is also being held with her.

Don’t Look For Me is a thriller from author Wendy Walker. I have to admit, this is the first time I have read Walker’s writing. Rest assured, it will not be the last. This plot twisting thriller kept me invested in Molly and her circumstances. What I didn’t expect was to become invested in Nicole – Molly’s daughter – as she tries to navigate the murky waters surrounding her mother’s decisions that fateful night. With so many twists and turns, I couldn’t put this book down. I was fully engulfed in the mystery, controversy and ultimate end of Molly’s journey. How does it all end? Well ….that is the question! One thing is certain….you will find yourself joining the hunt all the way until the end.

I only made it about a third of the way through before i just had to start skimming. I found myself laughing at things i know weren't meant to be funny. I counted at least three ways she could have escaped easily in the beginning. And the little girl with her...who talks like that with those words at that age? No one!

Read to me like more of a young adult book, nothing to take that seriously.

I could not put this book down. The characters were so relatable and well developed. The story flowed at a great pace. Full of all the twists and turns we’ve come to expect from Wendy Walker. And the ending... oh, you just have to read it for yourself. Totally recommend this book for any thrill seeker. Absolutely loved this book!

I think I’m just not a Wendy Walker Fan. This is my second book, in all fairness. I found the story boring, her writing repetitive and overall I ended up not caring much for Molly, Nicole or Alice. I don’t mind if a story is a bit contrived...and as it is fiction if it works ...so much the better. This was one of this books I picked up and then down, checking how much longer. Frankly the ending did nothing for the story line either.